GEORGETOWN is beginning to look good again. In many places, we see teams of workmen and women cleaning drains and waterways, excavating, digging, levelling, among other works. The work is hard, but the results are beginning to show. We could assume that ultimately, the new town clerk and Minister of Communities are in the lead. Whomsoever is the lead person on this ought to be praised. The people doing the cleaning and lifting and fetching should be praised too.

Between Church Street and North Road, there is a good strip of land. It is being levelled; the adjoining waterway is being dredged, the mud packed carefully to offer a buffer against potential flooding or overflow. It is thoughtful work. Maybe there will be a park with green grass and benches, with flowers, and picnic tables. It is purposeful work, and when we look at the body language of the men at work, it tells a happy story. Maybe a few swings or such things upon which children may play. Maybe there will be umbrellas under which parents may sit and watch their children at play or under which our young people can read some good books.

The environmental improvements are obvious; and, while they are important, they are also superficial. This nation of souls cannot afford to betray ourselves by “WOWS” based on surface changes. Clean drains and parks of poetry are vitally important. But the “WOWS” mean nothing. They may soon be mud-clogged again if our own hardened habits do not change.

Real, deep and permanent change can only come from a change of attitude in all spaces and places: in homes (or houses, since there is a difference); in schools; in private businesses, in the public sector; in our playgrounds; in our “university”; and on our roads. Changes of attitude can come about when we use our minds and our hearts. This would be a great clean up, but it would take a great deal of effort.

There is a Commission of Inquiry about the attitudes, habits, functionality and efficiency in the public sector. We can only hope that firm action results which would render our public service sector more service-oriented and efficient. Obviously, some of it is about our people; but even the best of us can be stymied by our inherited bureaucratic red-tape. The old British way. The carbon copies. The redundant entries. The many hands a small thing has to go though in order that any work be done. The British, of course, have evolved out of the lashed up systems that they gave to us. But like the truly colonised, we are too paralysed to change. This attitude that since it was always so, then it must always be so. This attitude must go.

Strangely, we have readily adopted every bad new foolishness that the world has to offer. The noise that passes for music, for instance. We get hooked up very quickly. The ear plugs and cell phones for ready “music”, for instance. But in our schools, we teach the same old things in the same old ways as if the world of education has stood still.

Change does not come easily. It takes work, and it takes will, and it takes courage. The workers cleaning up the waterways, drains, and streets of Georgetown are setting an example. It would be good for the rest of us to follow that example.