Is Guyana’s moral breakdown permanent?

Sep 26, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Kaieteur News – As the world heads deeper into the 21st century, it is leaving both scientific and moral backwardness behind. Today there is online banking, the smart phone, etc. Morally, civilisation is supposed to expect more conscience and social obligation among humans.

We are going to have more scientific improvements as the world gets older but the question lingers around whether humans will be better people. I look at political narratives in the US and the US seems to be coming apart at the seams.

I grew up in a world where I was taught that US leaders and US governments were at the forefront of changing the world for the better and to allow for greater freedoms around the globe. But of all places where a woman can endanger her health because she cannot legally have an abortion is in the US.

I listen to some powerful men in the world from the Republican Party that sit in the US Senate, and there are shades of Nazi ideology. That party may win the US presidency in two years’ time. In Russia, Vladimir Putin may be the main cause of a third world war.

Back on the home front, morally driven behaviour seems to be like a mad driver going the wrong way on a one-way road. I was motivated to write this column based on what I saw on Thomas Road outside the National Park last Saturday morning at 9AM and what I saw in the Ministry of Education annexe in the National Park on the same day. Guyana is indeed lacking in moral caring and humanity is drifting into oblivion.

First, Thomas Road. The police and the Ministry of Public Works painted no stopping/no parking signs on Thomas Road on the parapet just in front of Albert Street where the two pathways meet. It was a commonsensical thing to do but both commonsense and morality took flight a long time ago from Guyana.

If you are travelling north on Albert Street, then, to make a right turn into Thomas Road is going to be a serious problem if cars are parked on the parapet just outside the National Park.
You cannot make the turn because there is insufficient space; you will touch the parked vehicles. If you are travelling north on the same Albert Street, then, to make a left turn, you will touch cars that parked on the parapet just in front of the gate of the National Park.

So the police and Public Works Ministry painted the signs for sane drivers to observe. On Saturday morning, there were dancing lessons and karate sessions in the Ministry of Education annexe.
Parents parked their vehicles right on top of all the prohibited signs. I watched, with my dog at my side as drivers endured extreme hardship in avoiding hitting those parked vehicles as they made the right turn into Thomas Road.

It is simply impossible to negotiate that turn if vehicles are parked right on that spot. Inside the National Park there were almost 15 empty parking spaces. I am talking about the Thomas Road parking facility inside the park.

The talk-show host, Mikhail Rodrigues known as Guyanese Critic asked me on the Gildarie-Freddie Kissoon Show last Wednesday to define what or who is a “low life.” I need to remind you that the term “low-life” does not carry class connotations. That is a huge mistake if you think so.

“Low-life” is a state of mind. It cuts across race and class. People with money living in fancy suburbs with manicured lawns can be low-lives. I have seen such people throw garbage outside their car windows. Low-lives can come from those small income sections and working-class strata.

I see low-lives each afternoon from the working class and the noveau riche, as I take my dog on the seawall. With women in their arms and rum in their hand, these low-lives would park on the seawall road making it impossible for you to get where you are going. Don’t argue with them. You will lose your life.

Finally, right in the National Park last Saturday, at the Ministry of Education annexe, a contractor was employed to fence the annexe. I saw a young man drilling a hole in the concrete and the debris from the dried cement was flying around his face.

I asked the contractor how in the 21st century someone could be doing that job without goggles. A pair of goggles cost $500. I know this because last year I bought a pair. The contractor was abusive, something I am accustomed to in Guyana. A man could go blind in Guyana for the want of $500.

(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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Is Guyana’s moral breakdown permanent?

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