Dear Editor,
Our society has suddenly become a place where curse words or ‘cuss words’ have become the order of the day. From educated, highly respected lawyers, doctors, police officers parliamentarians and teachers to illiterates, all have become victims of using curse words, expletives or profane language.
In more than 80% of our homes and workplaces curse words are used by parents to their children, husbands to wives, wives to husbands, brothers to sisters, students to teachers, employers to employees, police officers to citizens, citizens to police officers and workers to other workers. In addition, curse words can be heard at the car and bus parks and while travelling in buses or taxis. The unending list of curse words has eaten away the moral fabric of our society like a perpetual cancer.
We have fallen morally, spiritually and intellectually as a nation. Our sense of decency and morality has become something of the past. We have deteriorated seriously over the past generation since our laws are violated by citizens and those who make the laws. If you are driving and police officers stop your car they will curse you to get out the car if they wish to search it. They themselves set a very bad example to our society. Many years ago people used to be charged for using indecent language and could even be jailed, but today it seems as if our laws are flouted and we are just living in a cowboy country like the Wild West, killing each other with our tongues.
‘Cuss’ words have become something global, since most movies from Hollywood and Bollywood are loaded with cuss words, vulgarity and immorality. The songs we listen to from dancehall to reggae, soca and pop are loaded with curse words. Not very long ago I was listening to this British singer Adele singing at a British concert. Before she started to sing she was talking to the audience, and after listening to her accented speech very carefully by using my computer headphone I heard this great singer use more than ten curse words in her address. I deleted her video and stopped listening to her.
Even in the busses they will play dancehall songs that are full of ‘cuss’ words. Lady Ga Ga will sing practically naked and even ‘cuss’ her audience and ‘cuss’ at interviews, yet our educated TV personalities promote her filth in our country. I can safely say musical pornography has invaded almost every area of our society compounded with ‘cuss’ words.
May I say, Editor, that cuss words have permeated the printed pages of books, and I mean books which have won the Guyana Prize for Literature. Our government gives away US$5000 to writers of fiction, poetry and drama for books written in profane and immoral language. Yet many of these ghetto writers are clamouring for their works to be used into our schools. It’s no wonder literature has become a dead subject in our schools today. We haven’t produced much quality literature as a nation. Literature and books should build up our children’s psyche and morality; literature should inspire our students to write greater works of literature. How are we going to educate our children with books written in ‘cuss’ words? If our President and Minister of Education really read the books which have won the Guyana Prize for Literature I believe they would obliterate the Guyana Prize for Literature and ask the writers to go back to school. I believe the Guyana Prize for Literature judges are people of very low moral esteem since they have awarded Prizes to works of immorality and of very low literary merit.
Our writers should read the classics and write clean literature like Homer, Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, Shelley, Byron and Keats, just to name a few classical writers. But how many of our writers would like to read the classics? Our greatest writers are Wilson Harris, Martin Carter, AJ Seymour and Edgar Mittelholzer. What we write today and publish will define the intellect and morals of the writer since literature is about the historical foundation of a nation. The greatest Greek poet, Homer, and Roman poet, Virgil, wrote epic poetry of great historical significance. Their poetry in the original Greek and Latin languages contained no sentence or paragraph of profanity. Why can’t our writers do the same?
Actually every day I read of domestic violence in our country – men killing and hurting their wives or girlfriends and women killing their husbands and boyfriends. The news in our media makes one vomit. As I travel to different parts of Guyana ‘cuss’ words will ring out like showers of rain in our communities. No one respects each other; even in the churches people can curse. It’s about time we implemented the laws about indecent language and indecent behaviour. The future of this nation lies in the hands of our next generation, but we are just a few years away from becoming a nation of illiterates and profoundly ignorant people with no future if we don’t change our way of speaking.
We need to raise our standards higher; our leaders need to set the moral example to our citizens by stopping fighting and ‘cussing’ each other and working with love and unity to build Guyana as One People, One Nation, One Destiny. We need to change our thinking before we will change; we must have a dream to change, a dream of love and unity.
Yours faithfully,
Rev Gideon Cecil
