Give peace a chance

It is on this point that the matter has wider implications for the society. There is an attitude in Trinidad and Tobago that, because Carnival is a fundamental part of the national culture, there should be no interference with any of its various expressions. Calypsonians are given a free speech licence not granted even to the media; individuals are allowed to behave in ways that, on any but the two days of Carnival, would get them arrested; and loud music permeates many neighbourhoods from Friday to Sunday in the run-up to national festival.

Now there are good arguments in favour of expanding or expunging certain laws relating to free speech and "indecent behaviour." Our laws of libel are holdovers from colonialism, yet the country’s political leaders since Independence have not seen fit to update these laws in any substantive way. It is similarly absurd to have a Dancehall Act which allows the police to prosecute actors in a theatre or women in a privately-owned building, even as the officers overlook public transgressions by Carnival masqueraders against this same Act. The issue of noise, however, is different.

It is a basic principle of civil society that one individual’s rights end where another individual’s rights begin. So the Environmental Management Authority (EMA) has precise standards about allowable noise levels which are supposed to represent a compromise between promoters’ right to hold a fete and residents’ rights to enjoy a peaceful environment. Yet there seems to be a widespread belief that householders should not object at all to excessive noise from fetes or panyards.

The arguments offered in favour of this position are revealing. Some commentators say that it’s only "old people" who object, as though the rights of the young supersede the rights of the mature. Another argument is that the noise is only a problem for a few weeks each year, as though an infringement is okay if it is temporary. But perhaps the most ludicrous argument has been that persons in residential neighbourhoods should not raise objections because fete noise affects people in other communities too.

However, when a person decides to make their home in a residential neighbourhood, they do so partly because quietness is one of the attributes they desire. The fact that these persons have a choice about where to live, while many other people do not, is not an argument that the former group should have to endure the same conditions as the less fortunate.

What is most absurd in all this, however, is that this issue should come up year after year. It is high time that the authorities make a clear mandate about what is, and what is not, allowable. Fete promoters must know their limits, in terms of both decibels and geography, and citizens must be educated about their rights and responsibilities in this matter. But to annually allow "culture" to supersede residents’ rights only contributes to social chaos.