Movie Towne, decibel terrorism and sex appeal

Nov 29, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Kaieteur News – I met a man on the beach three weeks ago while walking my dog. I saw this person beckoning to me so I went up to him. He told me he was the man I wrote about in my column of November 2, 2022 titled, ‘Sex appeal, KFC outlet, wash-bay boys and a banana republic.”

In that article, I quoted this gentleman as informing Guyanese that he spent 47 years living on Eping Avenue in Bel Air Park and he never saw what goes on at present on that street where KFC has a drive-thru outlet. I said it is a vehicular jungle that prevents free passage.

So he called me on the beach and told me he was the D. Sawh that published the letter I quoted from. I chatted briefly with him but somehow did not bring up what I wanted to express. I don’t know why I held back.

I wanted to tell him this country would bring mental comfort to countless numbers of Guyanese if we were not both selfish and sheepish citizens. He wrote about what affected him on Eping Avenue where he lives. But what about the ubiquitous ugly attitudes that dominate the entire social landscape of this country that he and others should write about?

Zorina Gafoor is the Aunt of Bibi Shadick, famous PPP personality, former PPP Member of Parliament and former GECOM Commissioner. Ms. Shadick recently passed away. On Wednesday, December 4, 2019, Ms. Gafoor published a letter in the Stabroek News in which she described what her sick mother endured from a concert at the car park at Movie Towne. The speakers were directly booming into the home of Ms. Gafoor which directly faces the car park.

The senior Gafoor is now 79 years old and had to suffer the same fate last Sunday morning as she did in 2019. Movie Towne repeated the identical cruelty it perpetuated on residents in 2019. Mr. D Sawh and no other Guyanese (except me who penned a column on Ms. Gafoor’s complaint) had even a little bit of sensitivity to write a little letter in support of the senior Gafoor.

Did people read Ms. Gafoor’s letter. Yes they did. Did the “superstars” in civil society organisations read Ms. Gafoor’s letter? Yes they did. But Movie Town repeated the same trajectory of madness and inflicted the same measurement of mental anguish on residents last Sunday morning. As I wrote yesterday; the music stopped at around daybreak.

What are the horrible dimensions about what happened Sunday morning? One is the sex appeal the “superstars” in certain civil society organizations crave. The other is state-sponsored noise terrorism.

It was the famous name of Ralph Ramkarran that advised these “superstars” that they do not have to glow only over social issues that bring publicity (he used the term sex appeal quite appropriately). He urge they highlight so many other pressing issues that they ought to do.

Certainly noise terrorism is one exigent subject for the “superstars” especially when this decibel terrorism is generated by state actors themselves. Noise nuisance is all over the news. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the police force announced in August this year that the county had imported a noise measurement machine.

But who is this machine directed against? This question even a moron can answer. The police and the EPA confront the little fish-shop owner in the village, the little bar-be-cue lime at the roadside, the little dance organized by overseas friends.

Does this not remind you of the campaign to rid the pubic parapets of encumbrances? The targets are always the wash-bay boy, the dog-food seller and the single mother with her tray. The untouchables are never visited. And who are the untouchables?-the rich folks who encumber the public parapets with objects of ostentation.

Last Sunday’s insanity came about because a magistrate gave permission for Movie Towne’s “all black” party. It was the police that gave Movie Towne permission to use a loud instrument. It was the police that received dozens of complaints in the uncivilised hours in the morning about earth-shattering noise and refused to come. How can the citizenry of this country accept government’s sincerity in confronting noise nuisance when state officials encourage noise nuisance? It is interesting to note that the EPA has a noise nuisance hotline. When you rang, a voice came on advising you to write a letter. People including Ms. Gafoor’s 79-year-old mother was being tormented by violent decibels last Sunday morning and the EPA wanted her to write a letter. In the meantime the superstar idiots in certain civil society organization are on their quest for never-ending sex appeal.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of this newspaper and its affiliates.)