Dear Editor,
Lately there has been a very vicious divide in the St. Maarten society … especially after Irma.
We had a cascading flow of events starting with the Marlin Government being thrown under the bus.
Logically that government was a blind eye to looting and was absolutely not prepared for the hurricane. That government wanted to run the country but was ill prepared for a single natural disaster. There are various specifics in this, but bottom line was that the population suffered equally due to the disaster as much as for the ill-preparedness of the Government of the day.
Fast forward ahead and we got the next government with the supposed Dutch blue-eyed boy. He had been a thorn in the eye of the Dutch but here opportunity stuck and both shook hands to pull the rug under the Marlin Government and we were presented with a new government via an election.
All seemed to proceed fine until the oil (read – money) which greases the wheels (read – politicians) was controlled to a trickle by the Dutch.
The Dutch overshot their gamble and the local present-day government started doling out information which portrayed the situation of colonial yesteryears.
Extreme division and a sense of “take over” is being pushed to slowly push the “Independence” agenda.
As per UN, every country has a right to self-determination. But will this self-determination be for the people at large or is it for the self-enrichment of the selected few?
We have a population of approximately 60,000. Voting population is about 35,000. We take daily pot-shots via social media against Trump who is very right-leaning. Our own society here on SXM very right-leaning where we complain about legal naturalised citizens and their voting rights which we say are diluting the agenda of the “local St. Maartener.”
Few individuals (can be counted on our fingers and toes) control the flow of the economy. The writing on the wall is clear. The politicians don’t want any higher supervision and they don’t want control over them. The harbour has been plundered, the airport has been plundered, the courthouse has been plundered, we are more expensive for telephone and Internet services as compared to our EC islands. Our Government payroll is highly inflated.
Of course, we want to herd our people like sheep into the colonial mentality and make them vote for independence.
If we get independent, do we have answers for below:
1.) Disaster fund
2.) Study Grants
3.) Travel
4.) European Funding
5.) Military – French have taken over part of Oyster Pond
6.) Border control, including access to French side which would be France
7.) Dump
8.) A report on parliamentarians hawking independence – how many have French nationalities or other.
9.) Antilles federal structure took a part of our turnover tax when it was just 3 per cent and we almost doubled the collection to 5 per cent and retained the complete collection and face a deficit. How will we manage with no big brother?
10.) Corruption
Instead of chastising the Dutch, foreigners, etc., let the community come together and rationally debate how we can get the above 10 points into our foundation. Come with a time span of say 15 years and start working on all this. Once we see we can take care of things which are important for the “Community” and not the “Politicians” then we can discuss independence. Right now, we are not ready.
We don’t have leaders who can lead. So, let our schoolchildren read – hopefully with a united society we can build a better society. Work towards uniting the society.
Vote for leaders who work to unite. Don’t vote for people who speak for a single community or chastise another community. Work to build a single SXM community.
Name withheld at author’s request.
