Dear Editor,
Many times I have wondered as to the lack of simple courtesies in word, gesture, and action that dominate the Guyanese street. Now I wonder no more about lack of decorum and the merest civility. Just look at what happened in parliament this week.
First, one fine gentleman saunters to the microphone and delivers the pungent erotica of dogs in dog season with the listening nation. I neither heard nor saw him in salacious flight, as I refuse to descend to the gutter that parliament has become; this was relayed to me by a disbelieving citizen; an ordinary citizen. It has since been confirmed by someone who participates in the proceedings. Is there no limit? What happened to standard and style and common decency? Where did self-respect go? Well, to ask and answer, it cannot go anywhere, if it never existed in the first place. Is a modicum of decorum now a thing of the past? Permanently?
Second, I did behold the Chief Legal Officer of the nation captured with arm raised in arcing trajectory, and in full demonstrative mode, compliments of KN’s Friday edition. In absolute disgust, I asked myself these questions: Was he participating in a weigh-in for the WWF? Was this a rehearsal for a resurrection of the Three Stooges slapstick routines? The man was too merry; and distastefully so. This MP should get a hold of himself, by remembering that he is now the Attorney General of Guyana, and not some cheap ambulance chaser. He just might be able to develop and perfect a more statesmanlike approach to the business at hand. Surely, this cannot be asking too much.
Third, when all is considered, it becomes clear that class and minimum standards have fled; perhaps neither ever existed for some. And just as clearly, it is the source of the chronic and appalling ugliness that saturates this land, and it starts at the top. What is next from the government benches? Such are the deplorable depths to which so-called ‘great Guyanese’ have sunk.
Last, I believe that this is just the beginning, and I see it as part of a vulgar, repugnant continuum. There is more to come. Such is the arrogance of power and the damnation of ignorance.
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall
