Dear Editor,
Many persons today are not contented with the lives which they live or their present home circumstances. Hence, they seek to channel those frustrations into making other people’s lives miserable by playing music very loudly especially in residential areas and neighbourhoods. Sundays and holidays used to be very quiet days. Now, every home has huge speaker-boxes and amplifiers which send out increased decibels of sound throughout people’s homes. I cannot concentrate when I am surrounded by this nonsense. I am angry and my entire mood changes. I cannot get certain work done and my spirit is not relaxed. I sympathise with those who experience much worse scenarios than me. I know they are many, like the letter writer in Stabroek News 11-02-10 (‘Threatened by neighbours who are causing noise nuisance’).
Now, what were silent and peaceful neighbourhoods have become deafening and raucous to the eardrums of many. Can’t the police crack down on this sore issue? You mean to tell me they can call for all cars to be in yellow by August of this year but have not dealt with noise nuisances across our nation? Stabroek News used to publish a list of lawyers willing to prosecute noise makers in the past but who has the time these days to get into legal battles with the defaulters?
But as I said above, this problem of many Guyanese disturbing the peace by playing their music very loudly all day and sometimes up to late in the night expresses a problem which is deeper in nature. Being loud has not only become the new disrespect in our society but it has become the new trend. Horns of trucks and other vehicles blare any time in the night as they pass through residential areas. Persons having obscene vulgar exchanges on the road in front of children, moving traffic and full view of other residents; ‘wedding houses’ and parties playing pulsating music all day (from ‘dig- dutty’ on the Friday evening straight through the Sunday) way into the night. Now we have vehicles selling items with loudspeaker boxes attached to the top and playing music very loud. These pass through rural neighbourhoods and can be selling anything from clothes to vegetables, even ice-cream. Laws banning music in public transportation were irrelevant as they come. What about those who perpetrate the same madness in privately owned vehicles? Oh, our lawmakers really act with sense at times.
The University of Guyana in Berbice is paying the price for being located within a rural community on the Corentyne. Surely one would show some respect for students in a tertiary institution of learning who are having classes and writing examinations right next door. But no, the residents of the portion of Tain immediately next to the campus carry on with their chutney, soca and other tunes on a daily basis. This is one of the only moments when you are happy for a blackout by GPL. This poor display of respect for the education system reminds me of when cars pull up at schools either to pick up or drop off students and other persons and have the volumes of their music turned all the way up. These displays can be a reflection of the level of how educated our society is, because intelligent people do not appease their hearts with noise and make other people’s lives living nightmares in the process.
Don’t people value silence anymore? Didn’t they say that quiet speech is a mark of refinement? Shouldn’t that translate to music as well? What has happened to our society? The addiction to noise is blasting to epic proportions. When will it stop????
Yours faithfully,
Leon Jameson Suseran