Dear Editor,
Over the last few years, the authorities – especially the Guyana Police Force and the Customs and Trade Administration – have been containing the entry and purchases of squibs, firecrackers and other explosive materials used during ‘celebrations’ and on ‘festive’ occasions.
This year, we notice the banned or restricted items openly being sold. There must be a clamp-down on the illegal practices.
For whatever reason, there seems to have been a lapse during this year’s Diwali celebrations. Some of the loudest explosions could be heard in the streets of our capital, as well as on the seawall and other places where people gather (buildings of worship, rum shops, etc).
The Guyana Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (GSPCA) has, on several occasions, had cause to remind our citizenry that these explosions wreak havoc, sometimes with irreversible physical and psychological consequences, on our companion animals. Animals, in a state of sheer terror and panic try to escape the attack on their audio sensitivity. They jump from high verandahs (fracturing extremities); they burst collars and chains (creating serious neck lesions), they wander disorientedly straying miles away from home (to become additions to the already high total of abandoned animals); they develop idiosyncratic behavioural patterns (biting their own skin/flesh; chasing their own tails incessantly; compulsive barking, etc).
I don’t know since when the Festival of Light has evolved into the explosion of dangerous mini-bombs. I can’t recall any religious scriptures condemning compassion for all God’s creatures – great or small? Just the opposite, in fact.
The Executive of the GSPCA appeals to Guyanese all over our fair country to desist from creating explosive noises, which surely represent an expression of cruelty to animals.
Let us hope that sense prevails during the Christmas season.
Yours faithfully,
Dr Steve Surujbally, AA
Committee Member
GSPCA