THERE is a law of human behaviour that is older than earth itself. This norm in civilisation is permanent and will only cease to exist when the world dies. It goes like this. If you get the law to remove your neighbour’s derelict vehicle from your parapet, you cannot put your abandoned car on another neighbour’s parapet.
The essence of conscience, the role of moral obligation, and the core of civilised behaviour are at stakes here and society collapses if you can get a pig farm in Alberttown removed but you have a pig farm in Queenstown.
I wanted to pull over on the parapet at Meadow Bank public road outside Thirst Park. There were cones along the parapet stretching for over half a mile taking up that space outside Thirst Park.
The Banks DIH personnel refused to move the cones so I could park in a public spot to which I was entitled. I complained to the police. Then Traffic Chief, Superintendent Stephens with three ranks went down to Thirst Park. With surveillance cameras, they saw the Traffic Chief but no one came out. After 15 minutes, we left.
Years after that incident, Banks DIH took the City Council to court to stop vendors from encumbering the pavement where DEMICO is situated at Stabroek Square. The company won, the vendors were removed. In his Chronicle column yesterday, my friend Leonard Craig made reference to my complaint against Banks DIH and stated that he cannot support the cones being removed from Banks DIH and no other places.
I agree but the other places Craig refers to did not go on the high horse and asked the courts to intervene. Banks DIH did, therefore, it has no moral foundation to put cones on the public parapet. That is the point Craig missed, the point of privileged sections of Guyana being “wrong and strong.”
There is another point Craig missed. No Guyanese in the past or at the moment or in the future, maybe in the next 200 years that has a 20-million-dollar car, wealthy economic status and lives on an acre of land, will set up a tiny wooden structure on the public parapet and sell mauby, egg-balls and black-pudding. Craig complains that vending has become a lawless state of affairs but vending is more complex than what we think.
These are poor folks trying to exist in a world where they face disadvantages. Should Guyana allow reckless vending that poses health and traffic risk? The answer is no. There isn’t any Guyanese that would accept ubiquitous vending that has become overbearing. There cannot be an iron policy of forceful removal of vending in Guyana without a thoughtfully and carefully worked out policy.
There is a third point Craig missed and that is the class content in the connection between removal of wrong things in Guyana, and who the removed things belong to. If the City Council and the Ministry of Public Works decide on a non-discriminatory, open policy of national removal of public encumbrances, is Craig telling me there won’t be sacred cows and untouchable? There will be. And that privileged school will do their thing in a barefaced manner.
I was with the Traffic Chief when Banks DIH officials snubbed him. If it was a vendor, all Guyanese know she would have said, “Ah right sir, ah gun move it.” I was there when the Traffic Chief waited for 15 minutes for someone from Banks DIH to come out and talk to him. I did two columns and two programmes on the Freddie Kissoon Show on the Banks DIH incident. The cones are still there.
Let me tell my good friend Craig of my experience. I was going to the General Post Office to see our mutual friend, Michael Carrington. Hand-in-Hand Insurance Company occupies the four parapets, yes (believe it or leave it) four streets. So, I moved two of the cones on North Road affirming my right to park on a public space. The security came out and I stood my ground.
I went to Eve Leary and the police came. The manager came out and ushered the officer into the building and not me. I told the officer not to go, that the discussion must be transparent.
The officer instructed Hand-In-Hand not to put cones on the public parapet. That was eight years ago. The cones are still there. If it was an ordinary man that had put two cones on the parapet, once police had arrived, he would have moved it. Do you know who Hand-in-Hand and Banks DIH are? I hope all Guyanese do.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.
