I’m Olu Walrond, and this is Straight from the Heart.
The lack of critical thinking among some people in this country can boggle the mind, and when it does, you’re reminded that there’s more to education than formulated knowledge. An important, often neglected element of education is critical thinking, the ability to go beyond the surface of things and bring sensible judgement to bear on them. I continue to be haunted by the comment from one Brasstack’s host, who appeared to be peeved that in Barbados, wherever you go you can see a new building going up here and a new building going up there.
A lot of foolishness and lies are spoken on these programmes by callers, but this one by a host of all people must go down as one of, if not the most outrageously ridiculous of them all. Here’s a host of a serious public discussion radio programme who sees construction activity in the country not as something with positive implications for the people and the economy, but as a nuisance.
What does buildings going up here and there tell us? That there’s a boom in the construction sector, with people earning money to put butter on their bread, and that the activities that will take place in those buildings will put money into the treasury so that the government can pay for the social services we expect from it. Oh how true the wise man Solomon was when he told us that out of the mouths of fools comes much foolishness, for only a fool would be blind to the fact that economic activity in the form of construction and commerce are great benefits to a country. Only a fool would not see the people employed and the revenue that will accrue to the treasury, but then this is the same host who was complaining that the government was doing too many things too fast.
This hysteria being created around land purchase and development is going to kill some people, and for what? The land in question is private land and a tiny percentage of the Barbadian landmass, and it remains in Barbados even after it is sold. Then there was the male caller who insists on trying to roll like goat dung. What other conclusion can we come to when on the same radio programme this caller could say that things in the Barbados economy are not good? This must be the age of opposites when south is north and west is east, when truth and facts are replaced by false impressions and outright lies.
This is an economy with consistent economic growth for the last three years, an economy with a booming tourism industry, high investor confidence, low unemployment and healthy foreign reserves, and someone could have the audacity to say the economy is not good? And he even went on to suggest that the government needs to pay for what they have done to the country. The government needs to pay for bringing the economy back from the brink of disaster, where it was taken by the very people for whom he campaigns.
I understand there’s a hill in St. Andrew where, legend has it, vehicles are able to defy gravity by rolling uphill.
I’m Olu Walrond.