Minister of Creative Economy, Culture and Sports, John King. (FP)

Minister of Creative Economy, Culture and Sports, John King, believes that greater emphasis needs to be placed on shifting the thinking of some people rather than trying to “regulate every possible thing”.

Speaking in reference to the vandalism which has occurred over the years at roundabouts which are usually decorated in November, Mr. King asserted that rather than try to police every single roundabout, energy could be better spent putting programmes in place to help stem the problem from the root.

His comments came as he accepted a cheque from title sponsor of the Lighting Ceremony, Sagicor Life Inc., on Wednesday. “What you can seek to do is to shift the thinking of some people by putting programmes in place to give people a sense of who they are in society.

What is their role, what is their responsibility? Anytime that society has to continually create new laws to deal with things it tells you that society is completely out of ethics. You can’t regulate ethics or morals. These are things that have to be put into people from infancy. So, it means then that our educational system must take on more than just academics; it must also take on giving people that sense of purpose, that sense of identity,” he charged.

The Minister of Culture challenged those who would usually engage in this type of deviant behaviour to ask themselves what he or she stands for or how this behaviour would cause others to view us as a country.

Acknowledging that anti-social people exist in every part of the world, he posited that this particular problem stemmed from a lack of respect.

“When you vandalise things it says that you basically have no respect for other people’s property and if you have no respect for other people’s property, chances are you have no respect for yourself, and those are things that have to be taught over a period of time. But for us having to put fences around roundabouts or placing security guards or security cameras it tells me that society has gone in the wrong direction,” Mr. King surmised.

paula.harper-grant@barbados.gov.bb

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