Connection between Massy supermarket, rigged elections and fear

Aug 17, 2020 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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In hundreds of columns, I have sermonized of how hopeless, psychologically disheveled and psychically destroyed the Guyanese nationality is. I have incessantly argued in these articles that the bizarre, ghoulish, irregular, comical, inhumane, depraved, negative things that occur in this country will not happen in any other land on Planet Earth.
In those hundreds of columns, I gave hundreds of examples of what I see that are so macabre and unbelievable that this country cannot survive as a viable, morally grounded nation 40 years from now. Ask yourself why the five-month-old election saga took place and ask yourself if it could have happened in any other country; not only in the Third World but the world in general.
In which other country could the election commission’s chief elections officer announce over a five-month period six different election results? In which other country, an election returning officer would use a discarded cardboard and a soiled bed sheet to read out the tabulation of votes? In which other country would a chief elections officer have said he needed 156 days to supervise the recounting of 4,500 votes? All these macabre nightmares could only have occurred in a barren land like Guyana where the soul of a nation is absent.
In which other country, would the government and the police force have declared that traffic ranks cannot conduct random stops yet the day after the announcement, it took place all over the country and has not stopped even for one day? It goes on and on. As the election drama got older with the passing months and extraordinary comical excuses were given as to why the election was not in order, the world began to laugh at us.
The world has been scorning us for decades because the world thinks this land is so mentally barren that time has forgotten about Guyana. In which other territory, an accused is jailed for three years for possession of a narcotic smoking utensil? Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand have the cruelest drug penalties but they would laugh at Guyana if they hear you can get three years here for a smoking utensil? In which other territory, a magistrate jails an accused for two years for a spent shell he found on the road?
In which other country, except Guyana there are more road deaths during COVID-19 restrictions than in a normal year?
Now to Massy Supermarket but just a slight digression. Three times I wrote years ago that the security ranks at National Hardware were stopping customers at the exit door, reading their bills and checking their items in their bag against the bill. That was a violation of consumers’ privacy. Fortunately, Mr. Eddie Boyer, the owner stopped it.
You are requested to produce the bill to be signed by the security as I have seen in only two other places – Giftland supermarket and Survival supermarket. The security takes your bill and with a fraction of a second, signs it. He does not read it. He does not peep into your bag.
Saturday morning, as I was approaching the exit with my trolley, the security says the new policy is to check the bill and the goods. I wasn’t going to allow that. It is a vicious, ugly, assault on customers’ privacy. There and then I informed Massy’s management that I will not ever permit that, so a confrontation is coming. If they want to sign the bill, then that is fine, but no one has a right to see what is on my bill and in my basket.
Here is what is going to happen. I will refuse to let Massy’s security read my bill and examine my purchases. If they refuse to let me leave, I will summon the police and I will cite the law. The Consumer Protection Act prevents security from looking at your purchases. If Massy does not allow me to go without me offering my bill and goods for examination, and the police cannot stop them, then I will leave the stuff and seek redress in court.
But do you know what is going to happen? Innocent, decent people, living in fear and resignation, are going to allow the security to read their bills and go through their purchases. They are going to freely give up their right to privacy. When you talk to them, they are going to say: “Mr. Kissoon, what can I do?”
On each occasion when I tell a motorist that the traffic rank had to tell him/her why he/she made the stop, they would say: “Mr. Kissoon, I don’t want no trouble with the police.” Mingo and Lowenfield knew Guyanese were fools. Massy knows we are fools. The truth is, we are fearful fools.
(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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