MY COMPANIONS HAD FLED. Wedged off in the donkey cart, I couldn’t move. The furious ruffian sensed this and lengthened his stride, knife upraised. “Kizzizz” had been provoked over the years. Now finally he had a tormentor at his mercy . . .
Provocation is generally accepted as an excuse for violent action. Even at stately Harrison College, headmaster J.C. Hammond conceded this in re: “Water-Guts vs Li’l Boy”. “Water-Guts” was a big fellow and took strong exception to being called by that nickname no matter how apt. A little boy had transgressed and got some rough treatment.
I don’t know what punishment, if any, Water-Guts got. I suspect the head wouldn’t have attempted anything corporal on one much bigger than himself. But I recall Hammond warning us that anyone who taunted Water-Guts in future would have to be satisfied with the consequences of so doing.
The judiciary, however, takes a dim view of anyone “taking the law into their own hand”. Calypsonian Houdini was under no illusions that extreme provocation would save his neck: “After Johnny eat muh food, after Johnny wear muh clothes, after Johnny drink muh rum, Johnny turn round and he takes muh wife. Oh, looka misery, whenever I see Johnny, people, people will be sorry to see, the grave for Johnny and the gallows for me”.
Kizzizz, as mentioned above, was an outcast type and, unfortunately for him, was easy to “fret”. Once youths of that era found that anyone would fret, they would show no mercy.
Apparently Kizzizz had stolen a sheep some years before. The sheep wouldn’t walk and daybreak was fast approaching. Thus a passer-by heard Kizzizz’ urgent exhortation: “Come along, sheep, don’t bag the rope! Morning stars are breaking!”
This was the teaser my two companions had chanted before running away and leaving me in my donkey cart at Christie Village standpipe. As my heart stopped beating, he came right up to the cart with knife still at the ready and asked: “Li’l boy, your mother does buy eggs?”
Provocation is part of daily life and, to be honest, I applaud when someone has the courage to stand up to it. Drivers who don’t dim their lights or, worse yet, have those blinding white headlights, prevent many from driving at night.
This is pure selfishness and it warmed my cockles to hear how one fellow so blinded spun around his car by the Garrrison, drove up next to the offender, advised him in future to dim his @##$% lights and then fired a shot through the car. A little extreme but it did get the message across.
Others react in similar vein.
A Chinese woman recently cut off her cheating husband’s doogle, and then cut it off again after doctors had reattached it.
Some years ago two youths terminated a man who tried to (or did?) homosexual them. Their lawyer rightly termed it “ass-ault with a deadly weapon”.
Our Prime Minister provides a sterling example of how to ignore provocation. It is obvious that the detractors calling on him to break his silence aren’t the least bit interested in hearing what he has to say. They just want to use his words to taunt and mock him as we heard ad nauseam on the radio this week.
Religious taunting is a another matter altogether. Some years ago a self-confessed atheist used to send me brochures ridiculing Jesus and Christianity. But, while we Christians may inwardly seethe, we know we can’t take appropriate action. Mark Twain did observe, however, that while “thou shall not kill, thou need’st not strive officiously to keep alive”.
Muslims seem much less constrained in this respect but may have to come to grips with modern decadent Western standards where a British Prime Minister who would prosecute anyone joking about someone’s buggery sees it as a “right to cause offence about someone’s religion”.
Me, I don’t even claim the right to joke about anyone’s singing and let me hasten to make amends. Julie Dash has sent me a long letter explaining that while, as Carol Roberts says, she’s no Veoma in the singing department, her act depends much more on “serious moves” with her “booty”. And that, taken together, singing plus booty moves, she’s a match for any of them. Wants to prove it too.
This I got to see!
Richard Hoad is a farmer and social commentator. Email porkhoad@gmail.com
