What I saw during Sunday morning driving

Jan 16, 2023 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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Kaieteur News – One zeitgeist succeeds another and civilization moves on. But you wonder if the contents of the preceding zeitgeist are of a higher quality. Music definitely comes to mind.      

Last year neighbours of liming spot in Australia where young people congregate on Sunday nights and create a noise nuisance complained to the police. The local authorities decided on a novel experiment to dive the kids away.

They blasted them with the songs of Barry Manilow in the hope that they will be annoyed and leave. The thinking of course was that the young people there would find Manilow songs to be “old people’ music and go to another liming spot.

To think that those teenagers could reject Manilow’s music just goes to show that maybe the world is changing beyond comprehension. Manilow is a crooner that sings love songs and had smash hit after hit in the seventies.

Manilow sings poetry. The world will never turn its back on poetry. It is part of the civilized soul. Many forms of music are simply poetry in motion. Manilow’s songs are the recitation of poetry. Whether young or old, you should appreciate the beautiful poetry in Manlow’s output.

I go driving Sunday morning driving with my wife. Yesterday, I put on “Ultimate Manilow” in the car’s stereo system. This is an album with 20 of Manilow’s hits. It was simply an indescribable feeling to listen that that inviting poetry with your soulmate by your side.

The bliss was interrupted of course because I was driving and living in Guyana. We stopped at the entrance of Mahaica to take pictures of ourselves. Since we were in Mahaica, some photographs next to the James Douglas monument would be nice. James Douglas was born in Guyana and went on to become the first governor of  the Canadian province of British Columbia.

The moment was spoilt and that is putting it mildly. The monument is overrun by a jungle, the gate to the pathway is rusty and immovable and the steel fence needs maintaining. There is no way you could take photograph with your loved one in that ambience.

We went right up to the statue, braced against it and took two selfies with my wife’s smart phone. We didn’t want to capture the jungle in the frame. That monument is in a disgraceful state and should be maintained on a regular basis. It is part of Guyana’s history.

Manilow’s poetry was rudely interrupted by the complete breakdown of traffic at Diamond on the East Bank. I have seen chaotic situations in Guyana where traffic insanity characterizes the breakdown of civilization in this country but what I saw Sunday morning at Diamond was beyond belief.

These things should not happen in a country in the 21^st century with such a small population. No vehicle could have exited Diamond to enter the East Bank highway. No vehicle from north or south on the East Bank highway could have entered Diamond.

The chaos brought out the latent uncivilized instinct latent in Homo sapiens. When I see situations like these I think of the early 20^th century European thinker that I had to study in graduate school – Arthur Koestler. He will always remain one of my favourite intellectuals. Koestler deeply believed that Homo sapiens is a flawed species that is not better than lower animals.

What is frightening to know is that if such road atrocities can occur at that junction on a Sunday morning what happens on a school day and a working day. It is completely perfect logic to assert that the roadways are not clogged on a Sunday morning for there are fewer vehicles are on the roadways because (1), schools are closed, (2) working people are entitled to the day of rest, (3), the volume of commercial business is reduced.

Why in a small country like this a traffic rank could not have been posted to that location? You still would have had to wait a long time to proceed to where ever you were going but the regulation of traffic would have saved a few bumpers from being struck.

What I saw at Diamond yesterday morning does not auger well for a happy existence in this country. People should not behave like this. People should be offered a higher quality of service from the police force. I keep hearing about the ocean of oil money that will do us good.

I subscribe to that. I believe by 2030, this country will have a prodigious income. It is not the money itself but what the money will bring. Will it bring a soul existence to this nation? (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.)                                        

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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• experiment, Freddie Kissoon, James Douglas, Manilow, Music definitely

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