No respect…

…for the Mayor
The Lord Mayor of Georgetown wrote a very poignant letter to the press about the importance of “respect” for the proper functioning of society. He outlined all the things Mayors do while in office and insisted: “it is important that respect is given to the office and post of the Mayor as an official governing individual and body, in the city.” He went on to claim: “Many years ago in villages, respect was a number one value embraced by families; you could not dare pass an adult without giving respect in greeting or salutation.”
Now your Eyewitness doesn’t think anyone would argue with His Worship on all of the foregoing. But something was amiss with the missive – why the rumination on “respect”?? From whence did it come? And to whom was it directed? Well, it didn’t take very long for your perspicuous Eyewitness to put two and two together when he saw a news item in the same paper: the Mayor had to call off a meeting of the City Council – over which he was supposed to preside – because for the third time, he hadn’t received an agenda for the meeting!!
Now that’s a bit much, isn’t it?? Enough to raise the hackles of even the most sanguine soul – much less one who’s not only a Mayor, but as billboards across the city have trumpeted since the municipal elections, even a PANDIT!! Seems the Lord Mayor can’t get any respect from the Deputy Town Clerk – who gotta have the same megalomaniac, stiff necked personality of her predecessor, the inimitable Royston King!!
But the Mayor’s allusion to the days of yore when kids genuflected when in the presence of “elders” couldn’t have come from his Worship’s personal experience. That life of gentility and respect were “gone for channa” after Burnham destroyed the economy and created a Police state from the 1960s onwards; forcing every man, woman and child to be for himself – and the devil take the hindmost!! There remained very little respect to go around when many of the elders had to do some pretty low-down runnings to survive.
But even then, there were pleas for “respect”. Remember the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin’s 1967 chartbuster R-E-S-P-E-C-T: “All I’m askin’ is for a little respect when you get home (just a little bit).” The point, of course, is the one asking for respect is being taken for granted – and until that’s resolved, respect can’t be demanded. Is it possible the Mayor was chosen by the powers that be as a “placeholder” and expected to “know his place”?
Or is it they’re from the Kean Gibson school and believe a Pandit can’t be respected?

…for Berbicians
To hear Ramjattan – who’s ironically from Berbice, as he’s never tired of telling the nation – you’d never understand why Berbicians insist they’re being inundated by a tsunami of crime. Sixty-three-year-old Koomarie from Number 63 Village was thrown off her roof shed after being burglarised? Yasoda from Cumberland robbed and beaten in broad daylight? Ditto Hamza, the goldsmith also from Cumberland, later that week? The cambio fella from Springlands? The pensioner from Alness? Not to worry!! Just look at what goes on in foreign climes on crime, said Ramjattan, and consider how lucky you are to be living in Guyana!!
It took 30 bullets fired at a Chinese supermarket that was right next to the Albion Police Station, during a brazen hold-up and robbery, to get some action to relieve the besieged Berbicians!! But maybe not!!Some of the bullets hit the Police vehicle parked outside!! So lo and behold, the SWAT Unit that’s been sitting around in Georgetown has finally been rushed to the Ancient County.
Let’s hope they don’t pull a SOCU and go rogue!!

…for the US Visa
Was a time – not so long ago – when it cost US$10,000 to get a US Visa. Well imagine the chutzpah of 66,000 visas issued for free, yet 3220 overstayed!!
Spoiling it for the rest!