I AM in my seventies thus I belong to an era in Guyana that I see has disappeared. I belong to a generation whose folks are getting on into advanced age but it is a vantage point from which to judge Guyana in the 21st century. That zeitgeist that I was born into had ethereal moments that I do not see when I look around Guyana.
It is outside the scope of a mere newspaper column to discuss the contents of a previous epoch but one personal occurrence in my life symbolises those ethereal moments that I referred to above.
I grew up on D’urban Street in Wortmanville in a house where the front door and back door and several windows did not have locks. The front door didn’t have a lock or an internal bolt. Even when I got married and left for studies abroad, that house did not have a front or backdoor lock.
We never had a burglary at our house. We experienced only one invasion. One night a man kicked down the door with a cutlass in his hand. It was an easy entrance because only a chair braced the door. He was looking for his daughter that my brother had stolen from her father’s home in Alexander Village.
Times have certainly changed. You live in a dwelling like that on D’urban Street today and an armed, violent invasion or a rape is inevitable. If times have changed then countries have to change, laws have to change, people must be forced to be civilised. I repeat; people must be forced to be civilised.
I sat as an interviewer next to Jerry Gouveia as the interviewee last week and Mr. Gouveia revealed something that caused me to be livid. How can Guyana produce such humans? Mr. Gouveia explained that he publicly complained about the noise nuisance behind the Marriott Hotel and its effects on the hotel’s guests. He said he got some insulting posts on his Facebook page with one person saying why the guests don’t plug up their ears.
I am not going to dwell on such an uncivilised person but it brings into question the role of discipline in a country that has achieved 60 years of Independence. It is not that we have not been a disciplined nation. We have and I saw it in the epoch that produced my generation. I came from a generation that did not inculcate the uncivilised habits I see in today’s Guyana.
A nation must confront uncivilised descent among its subjects. The US passed legislation several years ago which is a draconian piece of law but their law makers had discipline in mind. If you arrive in the US at age five and at age 65, if you are found guilty of a criminal offence, the judge has no discretion under the law; you will be deported.
Here in Guyana, we allowed nasty instincts to go unchecked and maybe it is too late. Guyana must confront these social bestialities. There is consensus across race and class and political parties and in civil society for drastic action to check these anti-social directions.
Mr. Gouveia in our interview last week, as the security adviser to the President, said that Guyana is dotted with surveillance cameras. We have caught up with other countries. But the cameras are not backed by punishment for breaking the law. Dangerous driving carries a nominal court fine. Reckless driving carries a paltry court fine. Such behaviour can stop tomorrow if country and government decide on a drastic fine.
Guyana has a law that stipulates the number of decibels a house party or a nightclub or a motorist is allowed. In Guyana today, I have seen with my own two eyes men have four speakers in their car trunk driving that vehicle in public where people live and the decibels exceed those of a dancehall. This is inexplicable social malignancy. How can someone drive a vehicle with those decibels emanating from the vehicle?
These low-life car owners can be stopped tomorrow if legislation comes in that once the machine of the traffic rank records decibels that is a hundred times (yes, a hundred times) more than the law allows, the equipment is seized there and then. That is how you instill discipline in a modern country. Which school child in Guyana is not affected by noise nuisance from motor-cycles whose owners have recalibrated the engine to make an unbearable sound?
Which working person is not affected by passing cars in the night and the music simply takes your sleep away. We have reached 60 years of Independence. We must reach for the philosophical instruction that a civilised society can only survive by a code of civilised behaviour.

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.