The widespread lawlessness in our society is increasing at an alarming rate and if it is not swiftly arrested our future as a nation could be threatened.

Qualities such as honesty, truth, morality, decency, politeness, courtesy, respect, and quiet speech which are the building blocks of a good character are being eroded and replaced by boisterous behaviour, intolerance, vulgarity, disrespect, immorality, use of violence reckless driving littering, use of indecent language and expletives and the playing of loud music among many others.

With respect to the latter it seems that it will never end because very frequently the newspapers letter columns receive complaints about noise nuisance from all parts of Guyana.

What is even more worrisome and maybe frightening is that lawlessness is mostly engulfing children and youths who are the future builders of any society or country.

But what is the cause of this breakdown? Many explanations have been offered and a popular but not necessarily a logical one is the fact that fewer people are not religious and do not attend places of worship. This explanation does not hold much water because even within religious bodies and organisations some of the most immoral acts are taking place routinely.

What seems to be a more plausible explanation is the exposure of our children and youths to immoral influences through the electronic medium, drug syndicates, idolising of criminals and violence in movies and other medium, poor standards of parenting and bad examples set by adults. In addition, broken homes contribute significantly to the problem as the children of such homes are more susceptible to the negative influences.

When all these factors are intertwined with poverty a fertile breeding ground is created for descent into lawlessness.

No society or country could truly achieve the desired socio-economic development if lawlessness is not kept in check and its children are inculcated with the right attitude about life.

But where should the remedial process begin? A good starting point is the home because the family unit is the foundation of societies and decent and stable families make decent and stable societies which give rise to descent and stable nations.

The school is another major arena which has to used to help counter lawless behaviour and attitudes because there is where children spend a significant portion of their time.

A good example of how a relatively backward and underdeveloped nation was transformed into an economic giant and a model society is that of the much mentioned Singapore. One of the first problems in that society that former Prime Minister and architect of Singapore’s economic success, Lee Kwan Yu was pervading lawlessness which was engulfing the country.

And so too in our own beloved country we have to arrest the prevailing lawlessness that is threatening our future as a nation.

It is a tough task but if everyone works assiduously and in unison the problem can be solved. We should follow the wisdom in the Chinese adage says: “The longest journey begins with the first step.”