Honorable Minister,
Yesterday I attended the July 1 Emancipation Day ceremony. A nicely put together program and beautifully executed.
I have listened to several speeches, but your speech stuck with me completely. It gave me real goosebumps and evoked emotions that I have never experienced in “slavery and emancipation speeches”.
In my opinion, your speech has brought us (the public) to an unprecedented level of “experiencing” the events that had to take place to lead to our freedom now.
It led us to realize that sometimes – at first it seems – “insignificant sacrifices” and collaboration are badly needed to ultimately achieve the highest goal. For the slaves, this highest goal was their freedom. You have illustrated it beautifully in a cause and effect chain that took place in careful togetherness.
I immediately drew a parallel with the necessary cooperation that we need now to achieve higher goals for Sint Maarten.
The great thing is that this togetherness philosophy is incorporated in the Global Goals (the Sustainable Development Goals) nr. 17 “Partnership for the Goals”. That important SDG 17 strings all other goals together. It states that only through cooperation, at all levels (national, regional and international – between various groups like government, academia, NGOs [non-governmental organisations – Ed.], private sector, media, etc.) we can achieve our goal of moving our country forward.
I believe that your speech should end up in history books, so that not only the teachers and students but also ultimately the entire population get this great message.
As a former history teacher, I applaud your MECYS ministry to work on getting your message out, not only on that July 1 stage, but on moving it forward to a next level stage.
My compliments for this groundbreaking speech. A special thanks to you for giving us this “3-dimensional bottom up” perspective, which lifts history to the present.
Lucrecia (Loekie) Morales
