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Should we name and shame?

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Stompie naming-and-shaming has become a trend on social networks, and not without cause.

People are furious about the fire Cape Town had to battle this week, and finding someone to point a finger at is our way of dealing with our own feelings of helplessness.

We couldn’t do anything, so we decided to start something that spread as fast as the fire raging through our city. We had to find a culprit, someone to lay blame, so we chose smokers.

Firstly, I have never smoked and I don’t understand how anyone can still be a smoker.

How, in 2015, with all the research, scientific evidence and health risks, a person still lights up willingly and inhales a world of harm on themselves, then breathes out a world of harm on those around them.

Then again, I still eat refined sugar, love pizza, and drink wine and the occasional carbonated soft drink, so I don’t really have too much of a leg to stand on.

The recent fire that devastated so much of our beautiful home town has got people riled up and desperate for someone to point a finger at.

While I wholeheartedly agree that past incidents have proven to us how devastating a tossed stompie can be if landing on the 'right' terrain at the 'right' time, I have to wonder if a mass kangaroo-court style epidemic hasn’t broken out on smokers in general?

I myself shared countless pictures on Facebook and Twitter this week, naming and shaming those who tossed their lit cigarettes out of car windows, but why did I do it? How will it help what happened? Will it turn back time and save all the animals, homes and vegetation?

While speaking with my husband – an ex-smoker – about it, I had to face facts. Pointing fingers and laying blame is the easiest and most satisfying thing we can do in a helpless situation because it fills us with some kind of (possibly ill-gained) retribution. We want blood.

When I stopped and thought about it, I realized that not only was I out for blood, I allowed my personal feelings about smoking in general (that it’s filthy, selfish and stupid) fuel my anger.

And that was wrong of me. Lashing out punishment without first considering educating the offenders.

While I believe that I don’t group all smokers together in my name-and-shame posts, I think that some smokers could feel victimized, and it’s important to remember:

Speeding doesn’t make you a killer.

Being a Muslim, doesn’t make you a terrorist.

Wearing heels and lipstick doesn’t mean you are anti-feminist, and

Being a smoker doesn’t make you a fire-starter.

We need to ask ourselves why, when something so big and catastrophic happens, do we feel the need to open a can-o-Reign Of Terror similar to the French Revolution to make our displeasure heard.

Why do we turn on every day Christians when a world famous pastor gets caught cheating? Why do we blame an entire genre of music when a kid shoots up a school? Why do we incriminate everyone wearing a burka when a militant jihadist goes on the rampage?

We need to distinguish our intent when pointing a finger. A person who throws a lit cigarette out their car window has committed a far more dangerous, reckless and selfish act than someone who tosses a stompie to the ground and extinguishes it with their foot (though I still find the practice disgusting and disrespectful to our efforts at beautifying our world and lowering instances of litter.)

Regardless of my feelings about smoking as a whole, the stompie-tossers may not be the villains we are making them out to be, they just don’t think about the effects of their actions.

I feel that naming and shaming is an extremely direct way of making these people aware of the dangers.

While I have to admit that I am pro this approach in light of the catastrophic effects of this fire, I have realised I need to do so with my eyes open and make sure that I don’t criminalise people just because they made a mistake, or judge them because they happen to sit in the same camp as the isolated offenders.

The next time I feel helpless and burning with righteous anger at the smokers around me, discarding their sucked trash like no tomorrow, I think I should probably go through this list of things that I can also do to feel as though I have made a difference in the tragedy without simply pointing judgmental fingers:

- Make another donation to the amazing firefighters or SPCA.

- Educate my own kin about responsible waste disposal (not just lay down the law of a smoke-free home)

- Pick up the stompies I see that upset me as I go on walks and throw them away

- Talk about this with my friends and students

- Calmly suggest that the person I just saw tossing their stompie think twice about their actions (this may be a little unrealistic, but one can hope)

- And when that moron drives off right after flicking their lit cigarette out the car window, go right ahead and snap a photo of their registration, share it on all social platforms, and be sure to call the 'Stompie Hotline' (021 424 7715) to report the bastard.

Do you think there is a better way to get the message out there? Please share your thoughts.

*Article updated

Follow Pami on Twitter or read her blog

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