By Godfrey Wray

Begging has become a permanent feature of our social mosaic and has now reached alarming sub human levels. No building, no edifice, no enterprise is sacrosanct. The beggars are everywhere and many are demanding and ultra-aggressive. I remember the days when the sanctity of the church, the temple and the mosque was at the top of the totem pole of sanctum sanctorum (holy of holies). Now the sacred building is just another place to seek refuge and to invade even during services.
At the Our Lady of Fatima church, Monsignor Terrence Montrose had just instructed six young people to take up collections when an untidy, disheveled fellow strolled down the centre aisle, both hands outstretched in entreaty. No one looked in his direction, and having felt the weight of disapproval he walked straight through the doorway. Even his canine companion that had remained outside seemed to frown on the sacrilege, trotting ahead with nary a backward glance.
After mass someone said the sinner was once a teacher who had “flipped out.”
At midday, two men and a woman had already made up their beds outside Ram’s Pharmacy at Regent and Cummings streets. One block away outside Bounty’s Supermarket a youthful bare-chested vagrant was surreptitiously trying to relieve a genderless dweller of a tattered blanket. Outside the Bourda Post Office and the adjacent cemetery the group was burgeoning into a begging frenzy, unmindful of any authority.
Encircling the General Post Office in the heart of the city the scene was more than pitiful. A youngish woman was pleading with every passerby to pull a grimy blanket over her feet. She said she was cold but no one was listening. Her shirt pocket was stuffed with bills of all denominations
There was nothing about her to suggest she was comfortable in her decrepitude. She seemed long past the general malaise of “out of sorts.” There was a distinct lack of physical, mental or moral vigour.
But erudition was not completely missing among the motley crews.
One entrepreneur- type was admonishing a young one: “Banna, don’t tell people you poor; they gon look down on you. Tell them you in need. Your mother has five children and you are the eldest.”
Another was a cricket expert extolling the virtues of the former Clive Lloyd-led team. “West Indies are real losers and they want more money. I dun with them.” Obviously he didn’t see himself as a loser, too.
George Orwell says: A beggar, looked at realistically, is simply a businessman, getting his living, like other businessmen, in the way that comes to hand. He has not, more than most modern people, sold his honour; he has merely made the mistake of choosing a trade at which it is impossible to grow rich.
Orwell is somewhat right but also woefully wrong. He probably never heard of Guyana where begging is a lucrative occupation.
For five days a week a couple from West Bank Demerara with a baby occupied a special spot outside Fogartys, collecting hundreds of dollars. Years into the con game, it was discovered that the couple owned a fashionable property, had a store-bought car, and was sending four of their offspring to special lessons in Georgetown.
The beseeching, the pleading, the entreaties are not overnight phenomena. The sleeping on pavements, in bus stops and in doorways didn’t begin yesterday. The cancer was evident for years but because the malaise didn’t encroach on their territory, the then Government evinced no concern.
The present government is obliged to tackle this social eyesore NOW, not wait until a few weeks before the 50th Anniversary celebrations get into full swing. And here I must applaud the minister responsible for calling an immediate halt to the inhuman practice of hosing down the unfortunates as they lay unprotected around the GPO.
The government has to tackle this gargantuan problem with a sense of extreme urgency. Times have changed. This is no longer the society where family members looked out for others. Senior citizens and young people roam the streets, unwashed and disheveled.
Governmental assistance programmes must be increased and Homes put in proper order. Many will resist the efforts to get them off the streets saying they could not handle conventional jobs because of mental illness, physical disability and lack of skills.
Many countries get tough with beggars. In Denmark, begging or letting a member of your household under 18 is illegal after being warned by the police and is punishable by six months in jail.
China, according to their laws against organizing disabled or children under 14 to beg is illegal and is punished by up to seven years in prison. Denmark, Greece and Hungary have similar harsh penalties. Even picking things from rubbish bins is outlawed.
Those countries and others have adopted draconian measures.
Perhaps we need a completely different approach.
Over to you subject minister.