The garbage psyche

I asked about it, since it was so noticeable.

The responses were varied. First most people attributed the absence of garbage and clutter to the strong leadership by the Democratic Alliance party that controls the administration of Cape Town. I am sure, but there were those who offered that explanation grudgingly. “You should visit the townships, the situation is different there.” Indeed it was, but still there was less gratuitous garbage than I have experienced in other parts of the world, including, unfortunately, Trinidad and Tobago (TT).

The collective commitment to aesthetics is a measure of the evolution of a nation. And by aesthetics I am not just referring to architectural prowess and budgetary commitments to common spaces that celebrate a common and diverse cultural heritage of a nation, but also the ease with which citizens work together to protect those common spaces.

I spent some of this weekend at the seaside. Sitting together feeling and shooting the breeze, we noticed a site so strange that it motivated some of us to joint action.

There on the shore was a lone young man collecting garbage: disgusting garbage strewn around by other uncaring and selfish people with no regard for their own environment, and certainly none for the common sharing of a unique national space.

Garbage like that represents an ugliness of spirit that we are loath to admit we are capable of, but we know in our hearts is part of being Trinidadian. Yet there he was, a quiet young man unwilling to become complicit. We had brought our garbage bags and would not contribute further to the shame.

He, however, took action and went along the beach with bag after bag collecting the spoils of someone else’s wanton disregard for his enjoyment of our patrimony.

Inspired by his singular action, others joined him. It is thus, I suppose, that a movement starts. A lesson to us all about accepting no less than the best for oneself, despite that utter contempt demonstrated towards us by others.

However, it set me thinking.

There is a beach as long as Mayaro in Sierra Leone. In fact, if one could see across the Atlantic Ocean, there it would lie, Lumley Beach, on the same latitude of our much-loved Mayaro. I often walked the full length of it for exercise while working there, but never swam. The garbage was disturbing.

Not just the fact of it, but what so much garbage says about the psyche of those who chose to live in such filth. We do it too.

I have no doubt I will lose some friends by writing this, because, for some reason, to love Trinidad is to deny its flaws; to pretend we are perfect. Well, we are not. A 2016 World Bank report put TT in first place for generating the most trash per capita in the world. Why? In Sierra Leone, I understood that the country was recovering from an extended and deeply traumatising civil war. Levels of poverty are still exceptionally high and people’s transition from sheer trauma through survival to contributing citizens is slow (recovery from war is a topic for another article).

What then is it about Trinidad that makes us so cavalier about chucking garbage around? Like the high levels of violence, and the surprisingly large numbers of violent extremists, TT produces per capita more dirty people than most countries. These are not unrelated statistics since there is a common contradiction that runs through these unfortunate trends: when compared to other democratic countries, the relative wealth of TT would normally indicate far lower levels of violence, far fewer disgruntled people acting out in violently extreme ways, and higher levels of commitment to national pride, at least by not strewing garbage everywhere.

Perhaps the singular actions of that young man who d e c i d e d to do his little bit for his country is sign of a changing trend.