You know, the only things I have a problem with when it comes to the Broadcasting Commission's ban of the 'daggering' songs from radio is that such a ban should have come years ago when the songs were about shooting and killing people, and that it needed to incorporate more songs from all genres that are not fit for airplay.

I have never been a fan of the Broadcast Commission because I have always felt it was comprised of a bunch of people with too much time on their hands, so it kind of pains me to admit that I am on their side this time.

Freedom of expression is something that we take for granted in this country and it is a phrase that I hear a lot of people, especially disc jockeys and a lot of entertainers bandying about since the Broadcast Commission imposed the ban.

The disc jocks claim that the ban is an attempt to kill dancehall and stifle creativity. I laugh every time I hear those suggestions because some of the deejays need to come clean and admit that for them this is not about the music but about the money; the money they won't be able to earn by playing these unfit songs on public radio.

What creativity?

And as for the creativity argument, how creative does one have to be to write lyrics about sexually ravaging a woman, or shooting someone's brain out for that matter? Any idiot can do that.

It's interesting that the entertainers can claim that the garbage they try to pass of as music is what the people want to hear. In reality, how many people really want to hear it? None of them sell more than Shaggy, do they? So how come Shaggy doesn't have to resort to this kind of music to get people to listen to what he has to say? And forgive me if I go too far back for some people, but isn't Bob Marley a child of the ghetto? So how come I never heard any of this degenerative, negative stuff from a man who is without doubt the most popular Jamaican entertainer ever?

So let's not fool ourselves and believe that this is about attempting to kill dancehall or stifling creativity or any of that. Nobody is saying the entertainers don't have the right to sing (if you can call what some of them do singing) about sex or anything else that they choose to. All the commission is saying is that if one wants to hear that kind of music one has to go to the dancehall to hear it.

"What the commission has done is something that lawmakers should have done a long time ago. But lawmakers don't have their minds on these issues. They are more focused on how much they can grab while they're in office, and these days, how the economic downturn has hurt their chances of grabbing more.

Silent Church

It is also an issue the church needed to have been more vocal about, but have not, and which explains why it finds itself on the cusp of irrelevancy these days.

Sexual offences against women and children are at all-time highs in this country, the murder rate is among the highest in the world, but you hear nothing from the Church. However, mention casinos and get hot under the collar.

So the commission finally stepped in and is trying to do something. What should happen next is that our lawmakers need to step in and lend their full support. Laws should be written to impose heavy sanctions on those who choose to flout the ban, because there are those who will. The only thing is that when they do there is very little that the commission can do.

On a wider scale, it is time we started seeing that there is nothing wrong with being decent and civil. We need to stop blurring the lines. The reality is that positive music inspires people. negative music also inspires people but in a manner which does not help anyone.

We have to realise that while most of us are able to listen to the raunchy or violent lyrics and see them only as entertainment, there are some people out there who are not so bright, and this music is nothing but a message to them to create mayhem and anarchy.

And while they may be in the minority, those few play a big part in why this country is in the sorry state it is now in, morally and otherwise.

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