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“DIS TIME NAH LANG TIME”

Feb 12, 2014 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

The BBC recently aired a radio show in which various guests discussed certain values that were once held in high esteem long ago, but which seem to have fallen out of favour. The list includes not boasting about oneself, not eating too much, Sunday-worship and doing manual work.
It had me thinking as to how values have changed over time in Guyana. Men no longer tip their hats as a sign of respect. In fact men now wear caps instead of hats.
Children no longer go quiet when they see a policeman riding by on a bicycle. In fact very few policemen ride these days and once they are not on duty, not much respect is shown to them. Some ranks do not show much respect for themselves either, by the way they carry on.
People are no longer modest about their success. The order of the day is to advertize your achievements.
Many young ladies no longer seem to know how to sit with their legs crossed. They sit very carelessly.
When a funeral procession passed by in the past it was always the tradition that you would give way if you are driving on the road at the same time.  If you were at a junction, you would wait until the procession passes. This was done out of respect for the dead and out of consideration for the grieving family.
If you were walking on the roadway when the procession passed, you would stand at the side and take your hat off as a sign of respect. People dressed in dark sober colours at funerals.
The scene and attire at funerals these days are revolting. Sometimes you wonder whether you are at a funeral or a party. And to add insult to injury, alcohol is now being consumed outside of the burial grounds. Funerals have become one big party.
It is now more expensive to hold a “wake” than to bury the dead. No one is serving biscuit and coffee anymore. You have to serve snacks or food. Drinks have to be provided. This has forced many families to only have non-night “wakes”, thus doing away with the tradition of keeping wake every night until the dead is buried.
Not everything has changed for the worse though. Some things have changed for the better. Take for example the terrible habit of yore, of children back in the day interfering and molesting old people. It was a terrible sight to witness old people being harassed by school children. They would pelt them, call them names and do all manner of things to the old folks as they hobbled by.  That has disappeared. And the reason why is because not many old people walk anymore. They use taxis.
But one thing that seems to not want to disappear is this revolting habit of students fighting after school is dismissed. The fights have now reached a new low, whereby girls are now the prime pugilists.
Two shocking videos are now making the rounds on social networks. They show disgusting scenes of schoolgirls engaged in fist-fights. In one of these videos there is slugfest, with none of the girls yielding ground. In the other, it was only because of the presence of a female security guard that the girls did not come to physical violence.  But they did put on quite an exhibition of verbal abuse, hurling expletives at each other.
In that particular video, the female security guard is trying her utmost to restrain the girls. Shockingly, no other adult comes to help her to restrain the girls. One boy tried his best to help out, but he alone could not do much.
In the other video where the girls slugged it out, there were actually persons who were egging on the girls to fight. This is terrible. Back in the day, adults passing by would have intervened and broken up that fight.
These days, people either encourage the girls or do little to intervene. I can well imagine what would have happened if that female security guard had not been around. The girls may have killed each other.
Guyana has to get back to some of the old values. It’s obvious that “dis time nah lang time”.

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