Dear Editor,
Last week, I attended the funeral of my uncle. And in the church, straining my neck looking up at the pastor giving the sermon, I thought that we on this earth are from two places – above ground and under. All other places are mere phantoms of our imagination. So, on occasion, when I engage in these discussions, listening to them on the radio, and reading academic articles on nationalism and independence, I just find that they, though important in one way or another, are a curiosity exercise for me.
Growing up, SXMness wasn’t stressed but education and walking a straight line, albeit as best as one could. I pretend to understand these grand issues to some degree, but my conceptual framework, born of iconoclasm, and my positionality, those values growing up, doesn’t allow me to engage in the discourse for too long. Patience and older age are fickle; I am more concerned with the day to day living.
What government is up to make the lives of every strata of this community a little better. It isn’t about the middle class, like former mayor used to say: they can handle themselves. Government should be about developing beautiful vistas and laying the path for those who struggle today. It is about assisting the elders of the community; educating, guiding, and protecting the youth; supporting and protecting the working people.
Which government does their worse in this regard is up for grabs. However, these aspirations should nevertheless be considered an ideal. But hindrances persist, of which the two biggest crutches are the inability to work together and the need to utilize and embrace well what resources there are, including the human.
No one person alone or another country can save St. Maarten. But what is this country? As Jodi asked: a geographical, cultural, and political realities that draws together sources and ideals from across the globe. St. Maarten is a plethora of imaginations. With all the diversity that is SXM, we are a handful. As Jimmy (James Baldwin) used to say in a different but related aspect, with all that diversity that is SXM, handful that we are, SXM can achieve the impossible, everything that we need is in our grasp, and if we do not falter in our duty now, SXM can easily hold their corner.
If things don’t change, and there are indications of that, from all our politicians to the Government and their auxiliaries to Government-owned companies and their acquiescent boards, implicit or explicit, there will be nowhere to go. Those persons that have been here are here, and those to come here have to decide for themselves what is more important in the coming years.
In the end, we have to remember that when we cry or shed a tear at funerals, it is not for the deceased. It is because we’re next. So in between this space and time, there is only one ideal.
Pedro de Weever
