Latest update September 6th, 2026 5:03 PM
The desecration of a country
On the night of Emancipation Day, the Convention Centre had either a wedding or a birthday bash. As the music began to play, with a reverberation that could have been heard from miles away, I thought that we, the neighbours should bite the bullet and endure the mental and physical discomfort because of Emancipation Day, Christmas, Easter Monday, Arrival Day, only comes once a year.
The music began around 19. 00 hours and something was strange. If it was Emancipation Day festivities why weren’t there African or Caribbean music? Why only Indian songs? As it turned out, it wasn’t anything to do with Emancipation Day.
Only the Caricom Secretariat and a small house separate my home from the Convention Centre. Sleep was impossible for all of the inhabitants in my compound and the surrounding areas. This music was egregiously loud. The walls of the buildings vibrated at every corner. The disruption of sleep lasted until 3 A.M the next day when the music stopped.
The last wedding held at the Convention Centre was Mr. Shyam Nokta’s, the climate change consultant of President Bharrat Jagdeo and his LCDS advisor. He started the precedent. It simply boggles the mind to fathom why Mr. Nokta would want to violate the respected walls of the Centre to hold his wedding reception.
It is public knowledge that Mr. Nokta is not your run-of-the mill public servant but someone financially comfortable enough to rent an imposing structure to have his wedding jam. Why not rent one of the many fancy hotels that went up for World Cup Cricket in 2007?
What happened to Red House? Now that would make more sense since that is almost a plaything in the hands of the Government.
I don’t know who the recipient was of the generosity of the relevant Ministry that gave permission to hold a private celebration at the Convention Centre on Monday but given the nature of this government, there is every reason to believe there will be more Nokta-like festivities at the Convention Centre.
My guess is that the sponsor of that event was a person who either resides in the corridors of power or has contacts with that arena. It is not only a disgrace but a sickening example of philistinism to desecrate the ambience of the Convention Centre.
After the building was constructed, the CARICOM Secretariat requested that there be a passage linking the CARICOM building with the Centre and that a gate be built to gain access. This was denied.
One assumes that the Secretariat made the request to prevent staff members having to walk out of the Caricom compound, onto the Railway Embankment to enter the Centre. Surely, the Caricom suggestion made sense. The Centre was built for the purposes of holding all types of national and international confabulations.
Caricom sponsors countless conferences and easy access to the Centre made commonsense.
It is no exaggeration to say that more often than not, the Government acts without commonsense. To deny a walkway from the Secretariat to the Centre is a rejection of commonsense. The final insult is that the Centre is now an attraction for PPP loyalists who want to have their birthday parties and weddings. Is it philistinism or financial cheapness or both? The answer is both. A majority of the rural folks that Dr and Mrs. Jagan protégéd in the seventies and who now control Freedom House and the Government of Guyana were never exposed to the world of aesthetics.
It was reported in an editorial in the Stabroek News that a UG historian who sat in a committee for the restoration of buildings was told by a Minister that if he had the choice of putting money in the arts or buying a tractor, the latter would be his preference.
The ultimate act in philistine ignorance was the rape of the Castellani ambience. Right next to Castellani House a concrete carbuncle was erected to hold a police office – the intelligence agency. There can be no other explanation for this cultural corruption – aesthetic illiteracy and human indecency.
More importantly is the sad fact that a country in 2011 is administered by people who have absolutely no respect for the aesthetic values of civilization.
Of course I live next to the Convention Centre. As I drove past there on Tuesday morning, I saw the clean up operations. There cannot be that amount of discarded bottles even in a highly patronized cricket match. It looked like persons drank the vodka and rum the way youths drink beer –from the bottle mouth.
It was a horrible sight at an international venue for conferences.
Share this:
Discover more from Kaieteur News
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.