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The second time I almost killed my wife

May 12, 2013 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

 

 

It is a tragic picture you see when you gaze into the collective mind of this nation. The letter columns of the Kaieteur News and Stabroek News tell a sad tale of a country without a moral compass. Read these letter columns and people agonize about the most inconsequential things. Guyanese avoid any mention of life’s moral nastiness in their country.
It is only the politicians in the opposition and maybe two or three stakeholders that continue to reject the most sickening manifestations of immoralities in this land. Pick up the letter columns and people will carp incessantly on an old tree that will fall any minute; on mud that runs on the roadway when it rains; on stray dogs on the roads that people need to take care of. This is the moral scene you have to live with in Guyana.
Few persons express disgust at the award of a million dollars (five thousand American) to a policeman’s family who died in the line of duty. This has occurred several times in the past. There has never been a comment from society on this atrocity.
Contrast this kind of compensation with bail money that is placed on accused people in the courts. A policeman could be awarded a measly one million, but bail carries a heavy sum. When it comes to compensating the families of people killed wrongly by State officials like policemen and soldiers, the sum is appallingly insignificant. It is obvious to me that life has no value in this country. And we as a people have become numb to that.
Here now is an example of a real dirty, nasty act of immorality in Guyana that so far no Guyanese has had the decency to denounce.
I will not name the company, because I don’t want a libel suit which will be filed simply to shut me up. Last Wednesday, this newspaper carried information about horrible industrial relations practices at an outlet (which was named) owned by one of the richest families in Guyana. I feel angry that I cannot name this family.
Readers were told that every employee has to pay three hundred dollars weekly towards purchase of toilet paper for the washrooms.
Is it not an act of decency, basic human decency to provide toilet paper for your employees? This is a business family that is worth millions in American dollars, but can sink to the gruesome (which is a mild word) level of demanding their employees pay for toilet paper.
After today, I will bet my last dollar that no business firm, no Government Minister will comment on what this family has done or is doing. Will we boycott the family store? I doubt it, even though all, I repeat all the products sold there can be had at all the major supermarkets, including three in close proximity to this family unit. I lived abroad, and I say without fear of contradiction that had a prominent family faced this kind of exposure, the newspapers would have been inundated with angry reaction.
I move now to another disgrace, in my opinion of course. What I will describe here will fall on deaf ears. But this is Guyana, and I know what a caricature my country has become.
On Wednesday afternoon I almost killed my wife not too far (a few yards) from the spot where I almost killed her a few years ago. In the first incident, I made a right turn traveling east on the seawall road into Camp Road. It was dark and my wife yelled out, “Look out, look that thing.” It was a huge front-end loader parked right in the middle of the road in the dark outside the CID offices of the Eve Leary police.
Had she not shouted out, I would have crashed into it.
Last Wednesday, we were traveling north on Camp Road and I continued straight instead of swinging into Carifesta Avenue. I noticed a huge billboard of Hand-In-Hand Insurance Company on the fence of the Everest Sport Club. What I saw dazzled my eyes and for a moment I took my eyes off the road and almost drove into the eastern trench of Camp Road.
This billboard had a white man dressed in necktie and suit beckoning readers to patronize Hand-In-Hand. Why a white man?
The next morning, I called the office of the CEO, Keith Evelyn. His secretary said he was at a meeting. All the Guyanese CEOs are at meetings all the time. I told the secretary about my complaint. She said he would get back to me. I gave her my cell number. At 16:00 hours Leonard Craig and I went to his office. His SUV was there but they said he was not in office. I guess life goes on in this hell hole.

 

 

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