President Ali means well, but Guyanese are weird creatures

Mar 11, 2021 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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Kaieteur News – Answer this question. There is a stray dog at the airport in Greenland. Five persons are watching at it. They are an engineer, a fireman, a policeman, a bank manager and a veterinary doctor. The airport security rank says, “It is time to kill the dog, what do you gentlemen say, let’s vote.”
Which one of the five categories will vote not to kill the animal? Human behaviour cannot be put down to science. All psychologists will tell you that. In this case with the dog, the answer is scientific. It is the veterinary doctor that will vote no.
Transport that situation to Guyana. Which one will vote not to kill the dog? The answer is none. Why the animal doctor will kill the stray pet? Because that story, metamorphically, occurred right at the airport here in Guyana. For two weeks, dogs that arrived at the Ogle airport were killed because the owners’ didn’t have papers of country of origin.
Now mind you, the dogs were not quarantined or vaccinated. They were put to death on the spot not by over-zealous soldiers or excited accountants but by veterinary doctors themselves. Which other country will you find that inexplicability? None. Only in Guyana. Why? The Guyanese nationality is a psychologically inscrutable nation. It is not easy to understand how they think and the rational, logical basis for their thinking.
What happens then is that if you get a government that means well and uses oil revenue to offer free university education, free water supply, free sanitary pads for every woman, free day care facilities, modern transport system, subsidized electricity supply, increase NIS benefits, etc., this country will remain a shambolic, dystopian land. Guyanese have formidable Freudian torments that render them illogical.
I wrote the paragraphs above against the background of questions as to why a serial rapist was given bail twice. If you think that is strange just sit in front of your computer use Google and you will see the irrationalities that happen in this nation.
The following examples you should reflect on intensely and deeply. Why would the managers of Movie Towne and GTT sponsor a Caribbean Soca festival on the tarmac of Movie Towne which is located in the heart of five residential communities? Were these managers thinking? The answer is no. People do not think rationally in this land.
Go back to the past 15 years to the letter sections of the newspapers and see how the banks tormented small income earners. In 2021, there is a letter in the newspaper about the exact mistreatment. This is coming after I wrote a column in 2020 in which I mentioned that the President of Guyana told me he has always been concerned about how the commercial banks treat small income earners.
Last week the WPA, a party that was part of the previous government, made the same complaint against the banks. Fast forward the tape 15 years from now, and you will see the identical picture. Why? Guyana doesn’t move, doesn’t live. Spirit and humanity took flight a long time ago.
In which country, a homeless man picks up a spent shell on the roadway and is jailed for two years? In which country there is mandatory imprisonment on conviction for trafficking in person and the magistrate defied the essence of the rule of law and assigned a monetary punishment and the magistrate is still on the job?
In Guyana a man gets 45 consecutive years for inserting his finger in a teenager’s vagina. No convicted rapist during the past 20 years in Guyana, who brutally penetrated his victim, has received more than 20 years. I was so moved by this injustice. I knew the father of the accused after long years of political activism. I asked attorney Madan Kissoon to lodge an appeal. He said it cannot be done because the judge is yet to write the judgment. This was five years ago.
In which capital of the world, the fire service is located in the busiest section of downtown? In which country other than Guyana, on all public sector buildings there is a sign that says, “No sleeveless dresses are allowed”? Can any sane mind explain to the Guyanese nation what is wrong with a woman wearing a dress that has no sleeves?
In which nation the country’s central prison is burnt right down by marauding prisoners. The inquiry recommended that overcrowding due to excessive jail terms and frequent remanding of accused is the primary cause. Yet not even an ounce of change has occurred in the magistrates’ erratic sentencing structure. In which country a university spent more scarce funds on entertainment than on expansion. Ask a man nicknamed, “Bowtie Jesus.”

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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