I had a bloody interesting conversation with a litter warden a few days ago. It was the sort of conversation that left me thinking, the sort of conversation that could even be excellent thesis material. It went something like this:
-Why is it that we Irish insist on emptying our ashtrays out of our car windows, even though we’re proud of our country?
-Why is it that we keep smoking even through the drastic price hikes and the knowledge that it’s killing us?
-Why do we keep speeding on our roads when we know we’re putting ourselves and others in grave danger?
-Why do we have appalling statistics for underage drinking?
I’ll tell you why. It’s because we Irish are born rebels. Rebellion still flows through our veins; we have, after all, only been independant for just over two generations. It’s a latent feeling that we don’t deserve to be spoken down to, to be ruled by anyone other than ourselves. We want to be our own boss and have ample intelligence to know what is or is not good for us.
Moreover, I bet if somebody was to analyse statistics, they might find similar trends in other historically supressed countries.
The people holding the purse are worried and embarrased. They want to stop us from killing ourselves and prepetuating our bad reputation, but they are unfortunately going about it the wrong way entirely.
We are sick and tired of people in authority wagging their chubby fingers at us and shouting ‘NO, NO, NO!’ Price hikes aren’t working. Restrictions aren’t working either. Fines are possibly the worst way to solve this problem… they just fatten the hate and disrespect.
You know what the government should be doing? They should be re-inforcing the original Irish pride, yes, the stuff they named the sliced pan after! For example, the litter warden I was talking to doesn’t hand out fines to litter offenders. She goes to the source. She encourages school kids to take part in recycling programmes, gets them to pick up the rubbish on the streets left there by their ignorant elders. They see the fruits of their hard work and they are proud kids. She is respectfully teaching them instead of punishing them. It’s so simple.
Wouldn’t it be radical for bill board posters to say something like…
‘Go ahead and speed if you want to, but you’re killing your own people. Your ancestors fought for their freedom, so why undo their hard work?’
Or
‘Congratulations, thanks to you and your fellow Irish people, Ireland could have the lowest rate of alcohol related deaths in the world!’
Instead of supressing our kids, we should be encouraging them! Don’t tell them they’re stupid for drinking, tell them that they are the much-needed brains of our future. Ask them with respect to preserve those brains, and listen to their needs for alternative entertainment during their wilderness years. Respect goes a lot further than bullying, but I’m afraid bullying is the only tactic being used these days. Our government seems to have lost faith in us, in our ability to take care of ourselves.
We Irish need to learn how to respect ourselves, to re-kindle the pride. We should stop whingeing about the government and infecting our young’uns with hatred, and take matters into our own hands for we are indeed big and ugly enough.

Coincidentally, I’m listening to ‘Warning’ by Incubus at the moment. Brandon Boyd just sang these words to me:
“I suggest we learn to love ourselves before it’s made illegal”