INDISCIPLINE IS THE ROOT OF OUR PROBLEMS

Aug 06, 2013 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

We can have cheap hydro power. We can have a wonderful five-star hotel. We can have all the other great plans that the government has in store for us. It still would not make a difference unless there is greater discipline in Guyana.
The level of lawlessness and indiscipline is the greatest hindrance to national development. It does not matter what the government does, there is always the problem of how people behave within a society. And unless things change, Guyana will not go as far as it can go.
This problem of indiscipline reared its ugly head during the recent Caribbean Premier League cricket matches held in Guyana. Many persons went out and bought their reserved tickets early. Yet when they turned up at the stadium for their seats, they found that other persons were comfortably seated in their chairs.
When this fact was pointed out, the persons who were wrongly seated simply refused to remove and the help of the law enforcement authorities had to be summoned. The errant persons, however, did not go to their original seats, but instead simply sat down in other patrons’ reserved seats.
This happened in hundreds of instances and makes a mockery of the system of having reserved seating. It might just as well been better for the organizers to say that seating will be on a ‘first come, first serve’ basis.
The organizers, of course, are not to blame. It happens all the time whenever there is cricket in Guyana. And what is sickening is the attitude of those who are in their wrong seats. They behave in a “wrong and strong manner” as if they are in the right.
You go to Lords and you do not find this sort of problem. People sit where they are supposed to sit. They do not encroach on another person’s seat. And because of the discipline exercised, there is no need for anyone to indicate that when the rightful owner comes they will remove from that person’s reserved seating.
But this was not the only predicament. Take the case of the traffic problems that motorists endured to get to the stadium.
Many were however patient. Knowing that thousands were going to the games, they appreciated that there would be a traffic jam. They were prepared to wait their turn in the lines of traffic to get to the stadium. Yet, while motorists were patiently waiting on the line they were in to snake its way to the stadium, there were hundreds of vehicles actually using the lane reserved for bicycles and pedestrians and moving ahead.
And because they were cheating the system, it meant that those who were complying with the law were actually being punished by having to wait longer. Now how can there be development when those who toe the line end up being in a worse situation that those who break the law?
This brings us to another serious development that takes place right under the noses of the traffic authorities and for which very little action seems to be taken. There are a number of major junctions in the city in which there are traffic lights. At most of these junctions there is usually a turning lane and a lane for traffic proceeding straight ahead.
Yet on a regular basis if you are in the turning lane, you will find a motor car ahead which is proceeding straight ahead and which in order to get ahead of others, uses the turning lane instead of the designated lane to go straight ahead. As a result, drivers who are turning have to wait on these law-breakers before proceeding. This happens all the time and very little is being done about it.
Very little is also being done about another unlawful act regularly taking place at junctions with traffic lights. There are drivers who constantly run the red lights. This is a most dangerous practice that can result in serious accidents.
But if one can assume that a police rank may not always be around at the time to witness these unlawful acts, surely police patrols must notice another dangerous practice that is now quite pronounced in Guyana. That practice is that of vehicles parking alongside other vehicles on the same side of the road. The drivers of these vehicles are putting on their hazard lights as if to indicate that their vehicles are experiencing some mechanical failure. Well, if it is, then it should be towed or pushed to a safe place and not be left to inhibit the flow of traffic.
The more you see these things happening, the more you despair that the problems of this country go far beyond politics. The problems of Guyana are deeply rooted in the lack of discipline and no country can hope to develop amidst so much indiscipline.

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