Latest update March 29th, 2024 12:59 AM
Feb 05, 2020 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
A friend of mine comes to Guyana annually from Florida. He would call for us to have a lime. Yesterday he said he wanted to lime in downtown Georgetown to be with the ordinary folks to eat and drink at the ordinary restaurants. I said that was not on because we would get no parking.
We were not in the heart of the city and the traffic was chaotic, so I said; “You see this, you know what will happen in downtown?” We settled for a quiet place where I parked, right inside Everest Cricket Club ground. I cite this conversation to emphasize the point of the nightmarish traffic world in Guyana, especially Region Four. The madness is not confined to Georgetown, but is more frightening in the capital.
Why then would GWI officials paint road signs on Vlissengen Road at the junction with North Road? I don’t have to describe the confusion that went down. We put different emphasis on different things depending on how we see life. There is a spate of school violence and the newspapers are carrying frequent letters lamenting this situation.
The manifestations of school violence are indeed shocking, but here is my perspective on life in Guyana. School violence, though an upsetting development, doesn’t pose more of a threat to Guyana than ignorant bureaucrats who have no commonsense. Do people not see the danger for the future when you have leaders and politicians that do not understand basic things about their country?
I will never deny that a solution to school violence should not be a priority. My point is, I do not see it as a bigger threat than other social maladies that I believe will become more intractable to solve and which will have frightening implications.
I am simply offering my perspective and I will adhere to it. Let me repeat it for emphasis. The logic behind painting road signs at one of the busiest junctions in Guyana at rush hour is an irrationality which is a larger dystopian act than school violence.
I believe Guyana has capable social workers, academics and teachers that can confront the increase in school violence. I don’t see in the near future indications that the mentality that went into that sign-painting exercise will diminish. On the contrary, we will long solve school violence, while the irrationalities like the sign –painting insanity will continue to dominate life in Guyana.
Take concerts in open spaces where thousands of people live. I am subject to correction, but I think it started at the extensive car park at Giftland Mall. Look what is happening now. At Turkeyen, MovieTowne is renting out its car park for open air events in which music permeates the environment for several miles. Yes, several miles.
Don’t take my word for it; just drive past MovieTowne and look at the communities in close physical proximity to that structure – Liliendaal, Pattensen, Turkeyen, Cummings Lodge. How can you arrange a concert in that facility where mega speakers blast decibels that are immeasurable?
Is that an insignificant thing? It is not. It poses a greater danger to Guyana than school violence. School violence has sociological determinants that society can address. The car park concert is a manifestation of a nihilistic society gone in uncivilized directions.
Here now is another nihilistic ugliness that has far more dangerous implications than school violence. Since MovieTowne opened up, every Sunday evening about eighty motor cycle riders congregate outside the structure. They rev up their engines creating unbearable noise. They race from UG Road to Liliendaal. They hinder law-abiding citizens entering the MovieTowne complex either to dine or see a movie. They hinder the flow of traffic on the highway.
These young men see movies of motorcycle gangs in the US that have eight-lane highways where people do not live, and they are doing their thing in Guyana that does have even a highway in the real sense of the term. These misguided fools cannot understand that all along the so-called highways in Guyana, even at the beginning of the Linden highway at the junction with Soesdyke, those are where Guyana’s population can be found. When you drive on the East Coast and East Bank highways, you are closely passing the homes of countless numbers.
You will not see letters in the press often about open-air concerts in car parks. There are no letters in the newspapers about these motorcycle gangs, but a few violent fights break out at some schools and there is a deluge of letters. This country is self-destructing.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper)
THIS IDIOT TELLING GUYANA WE HAVE NO SAY IN THE 50% PROFIT SHARING AGREEMENT WE HAVE WITH EXXON.
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