Discourtesy and coarse behaviour have been with us for a long time, of course, but now that we are into promoting tourism, this anti-social behaviour is recognized as having an economic cost. Ideally, however, we should want to go to war on bad manners for ourselves, rather than because of outsiders. Good manners are the lubricant of social interaction; they are a formalised way of acknowledging the intrinsic humanity of others. And we could surely do with showing one another more respect in this tension-filled land space of ours.

Those in the front line of this war are the very personable students from the tourism class of the University of Guyana. One wonders how they are going to fare (particularly the ladies) addressing those particularly macho bus conductors whose education never progressed beyond the assimilation of words containing four letters. While their sentiments and intentions are to be admired, one is tempted to ask how much success over an extended period they are likely to have, especially given the fact that there are so few of them.

Director of the GTA Donald Sinclair would also like to take aim at the indecorum on our roadways, where impatient drivers honk their horns all the time, speed through built-up areas, and show contempt for pedestrians. Doing something about these areas, of course, depends in the first instance on the police enforcing the traffic laws on a consistent basis, something which hasn’t been known - if not in living memory - at least for a very long time. The force’s patchy record where this is concerned, is partly accounted for by the culture of the ‘raise,’ a problem which no one in authority has yet had the stomach to address.

There are some other areas too involving ‘bad manners’ which would benefit from the enforcement of the laws or the bye-laws. Littering is one of them (Mr Sinclair mentioned the instance of passengers throwing litter from mini-bus windows), and another would be males urinating in public - something which one did not see years ago, despite the fact that Guyana’s capital city is not exactly generously endowed with what are known elsewhere as public conveniences.

The older generation will remember that there was a time when Guyanese were in general civil to one another when they met in public. The reasons for the decline in standards over the years where manners are concerned, are probably varied, but one of them certainly will have a political dimension to it. In the present circumstances one could only wish that some of our politicians (not all of them, by any means) would set a rather better example of courtesy in terms of their writing and their utterances for the electorate; how can we complain about mini-bus conductors when our political representatives sometimes display such public intemperance towards each other - albeit without the use of expletives.

Courtesy training ideally should begin in the home, because it is hard to change bad habits in an adult. In addition, one expects the school to do its part. However, one cannot avoid the unholy feeling that there are some teachers in charge of pupils who themselves do not know what constitutes ‘good’ or ‘bad’ manners. We reported that the campaign is to include a school essay competition on manners, and the establishment of ‘cells’ in each workplace. This is commendable, and one hopes too that the originators of the ‘war’ are looking at ways of getting their message across to young children in particular, on an ongoing basis. Most of all, however, one would hope that this campaign will not just involve a single sortie, but really will evolve into a prolonged war.