Dear Editor,
I note with interest that a lot of foreign shows have invaded our society like a sudden cancer. Every day I see advertisements on all our TV stations for singers coming in from Trinidad, Brazil, Jamaica, USA, etc. These singers have been performing all across the country from the National Stadium to Berbice and Essequibo. It seems to me that these folks are coming to our country constantly because they find our people to be very gullible in supporting their vulgar, immoral and expensive shows. People have been paying as much as $3000 per person to attend some of the shows, even if they have to go hungry for the rest of the week. A family of five which attends a show will pay $15,000 just to enter the ground, and then they have to buy snacks as well as drinks if they are drinkers. While our people are getting poorer by supporting these shows, the tax office is getting more and more taxes.
I have taken time off to view some of the shows which are replayed on TV. What I have seen and listened to is very immoral and disturbing to my soul. Songs from the Trinidad group by the Hit Man and our own Terry Gajraj and Adrian Dutchin promote rum drinking, and we are fully aware that rum is the cause of family break-ups and domestic violence in our society. Many of these songs have sexual overtones, and promote violence against women yet they are given a stage in Guyana. Some of our own singers join them by singing songs that promote vulgarity of the highest nature. Another song I viewed is called ‘All Night’; the message of the song really promotes sex, but does that really help our nation while we battle against AIDS?
Are these singers and entertainers really helping our nation morally? Are they helping our young people spiritually and academically? While some of our singers and artists are very talented they can do better by singing cleaner songs with meaning like those of Bob Marley and Eddy Grant. I also observed that lots of singers today are performing very scantily dressed, from Britney Spears and Beyonce to Madonna, and including many of our own singers. Most of the females in these music videos are in their underwear gyrating and ‘wining.’
I never saw this public nudity when Eddy Grant, Bob Marley and Dave Martins went on stage, yet they are very famous and attracted big audiences. Now it seems as if we will import the nude Brazilian culture into our society. Why can’t we give our three major religions some space to put on drama, singing and dancing at the National Stadium? It will help build the morals of our nation. What is the Ministry of Culture doing about these immoral shows that are invading our country? Can we really define our culture or do we have what it takes to comprehend the meaning of the word ‘culture.’
We also need to take another look at the vulgarity of Mashramani and ask ourselves if these events are helping the moral and intellectual fabric of our society.
It’s about time our citizens stopped supporting these shows because these entertainers are getting rich from our nation, which is poor. We can only value our nation by what we have produced and achieved over the years, and we have not arrived as yet. As VS Naipaul wrote: “We have produced nothing in the Caribbean.” What we have produced is Carnival and vile music that gives us more poverty and misery.
Yours faithfully,
Rev Gideon Cecil
