Former St Vincent PM Ralph Gonsalves used the issue of flies as a practical example to challenge the government’s rhetoric regarding the “lightness” of the current political and social climate.
Several communities have been reporting and uptick in house flies lately.
At his recent press conference, he argued that while the government uses metaphors of “lightness” (referencing Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being), the daily reality for citizens involves “heaviness,” such as the nuisance of pests.
Gonsalves described the experience of a citizen trying to prepare food in their kitchen while having to “fan fly all the time”.
While acknowledging that “we always had flies,” he asserted that the government is responsible for controlling them, implying a current failure in public sanitation.
Gonsalves said that the increase in flies is observable throughout the country, telling a member of the press that if they “go about tongue” (town) or “all the way down Peter’s hope,” they would see more flies than before.
The former PM questioned why the local media (specifically referencing a writer for The Vincentian) had not yet done a story on the fly problem, urging them to “open our eyes and observe things”.
Gonsalves linked this observation to a perceived “free-for-all” atmosphere and a lack of order in the city, contrasting the “unbearable lightness” promised by the government with the unhygienic and “heavy” reality of a fly infestation