Dear Editor,
I used to routinely go home at around 4.30 in the morning on weekends when I was in my 20s and early 30s. That, I believe, contributed as much to my development as a person as any of the books I’ve read. As Cervantes says, “el que lee mucho y anda mucho, vee mucho y sabe mucho” – literally, he that reads much and walks much, sees much and knows much.
I don’t often go out now (and then never past 2 am) but I think that in any free and democratic society people’s rights to lawfully earn money and to express themselves in whatever way they see fit ought to be balanced with the rights of others.
So long as the rights of others are not unduly affected and laws acceptable to today’s society are not breached, people should be able, without state interference, to do what they want when they want.
The constitution, which says that it is the supreme law of Guyana and that any law inconsistent with it is void to the extent of the inconsistency, promises us that we will not be hindered in our right to work. We have free choice of employment, it says.
So, if we want to sell stripped chicken sandwiches or black pudding and souse to be chased down with beer at 3.30 in the morning, we should be able to. If everyone chooses to stay at home instead of drinking our beer and eating our food then business will not be viable and we will have to find work elsewhere. But if people want our souse and beer, why should we not be able to sell it to them?
This supreme law also tells us that it is our right to receive and communicate ideas and information without interference. Some of us may want to do that between 2 and 5 in the morning over beers or vodka, having gotten out of our beds at 11 in the night for that purpose. Is our right to do that less important than the rights of those of us who like to do it at 9.30 in the morning over coffee or tea?
The closing hours of bars and nightclubs are set in a schedule to a law passed 71 years ago. By that schedule, bars and nightclubs in urban areas must close at 10.30 in the night during the week, at 11 on Saturdays, and at 10 on Sundays. Once a week (except on Sunday), if there is going to be public dancing, singing, music or other public entertainment, and if the Commissioner of Police is notified 24 hours in advance, the holder of a first class hotel licence may keep the premises open until 2 in the morning.
If we’re going to be enforcing the law for the sake of enforcing it rather than after broad consultations and perhaps a study or two, we may as well follow it to the letter. Unless you have a first class hotel licence, you must close no later than 11 in the night (and then only on a Saturday). Your patrons can then go home and do more appropriate things such as taking moral instruction from calf-skin bound books by the light of a flambeau, or sit in their ‘gallery’ and watch people pass on the road as they drink water cooled in an urn by the Demerara shutters. Juanita de Barros’s work of history Order and Place in a Colonial City subtitled Patterns of Struggle and Resistance in Georgetown, British Guiana, 1889-1924 may well now go into a second edition.
As we’re enforcing laws because the adherence to law and order is of paramount importance and the law must be obeyed, the authorities should also look into enforcing the prohibition on flying kites and playing games in any public way, flying kites in the city of Georgetown or New Amsterdam, washing vehicles or animals in a public way or public place in a town, singing or blowing a horn or shell or beating a drum or sounding a musical instrument in a public way or place, beating or shaking a mat between 7 in the morning and 6 in the evening in a public place in town or roller skating in a public place or road in Georgetown or New Amsterdam, none of which should be accepted because they are all against the law.
Or, like other laws which are not in keeping with today’s post-Victorian society, the enforcers of the schedule to the 71 year old law governing societal conduct may choose to ignore it, as people beating out their mats in daylight hours are presumably ignored.
If late night drinking is thought to cause social problems and crimes then those crimes and problems should be properly investigated and addressed rather than preventing people from liming (and from selling things to those who want to lime) in public when they want. By now, we in Guyana know well that when something is banned all that happens is that a black market outside of the control of the authorities is created (and a ban is a ban whether you call it the enforcement of laws or the prohibition of conduct previously permitted).
Which is more important? Rights? Or order? I think law and order and discipline are very nice and good, but exercising fundamental rights, even in chaos amidst dissent, is even better.
Yours faithfully,
Kamal Ramkarran
