Toxic noise in Lethem too

Dear Editor,

One gathers, from Mr GHK Lall’s letter that you published Feb 25 (‘A tsunami of sound’), that he was not pleased by the patriotic music that accompanied our Republic Day celebrations in Georgetown. Let him and your coastlander readers be consoled that the toxic noise he describes also polluted their Lethem outpost over the holidays, with accompanying behaviour as offensive as the lyrics and the volume.

Comment is as useless in Mr Lall’s decorative prose as in plainer language, both passing over the stupefied head of our present-day society. Words like decent, decorous, discreet and dignified have disappeared from the Guyanese lexicon. The very word lexicon is itself unknown to the vast majority of our population. And few of them could be bothered to look it up in a dictionary. These are times I am glad to be so very far behind.

You are recording, Editor, a progress that you and I and Mr Lall allowed to happen. For that we are condemned to watch it like a horror movie, the actors and promoters of which are beyond caring how it impacts on the generations of the past – and of the future.

Yours faithfully,
Gordon Forte