Letter to the Editor
The Anguillian
“TO WHOM MUCH IS GIVEN…”
In Luke Chapter 12 verse 48 we are told “to whom much is given, much is expected.” It goes without saying that we as Anguillians, though we’ve survived some pretty horren-dous times as has been well documented by learned historians, have managed to come through with our heads still held high above the water.
As a people, we’ve been blessed with that something special, the je nais sais quoi, that differentiates us from the pack. We have had the good fortune to have been put on a rock that even though we were touched by bouts of slavery, we did not suffer the full effects that some of our Caribbean brothers were subjected to. Though the lingering artifacts would tend to suggest that we too were subjected to the cruelties of slavery, our location, soil and several other factors, made us incompatible with slavery as a profitable venture and, consequently, we were able to buy our freedom.
Students of our history will remember that it wasn’t an easy task. We were paired against our will with St. Kitts and Nevis, and try as we might, nothing or no one seemed to care, one way or the other, about that godforsaken rock out there by itself, which left us no choice but to take our destiny in our own hands. That fateful day was set in motion by one man, the late Mr. Atlin Harrigan O.B.E., through a series of letters that he wrote to the Editor of The Democrat newspaper in St. Kitts who at the time, was Nat Hodge, who published the letters at great risk to his personal wellbeing, calling attention to the aforementioned horrendous conditions under which we lived in Anguilla. You may wonder where I’m going with this and I’ll tell you very shortly. American novelist and essayist James Baldwin said: “Know from whence you came. If you know whence you came, there are no limitations to where you can go.”
Well, we know from whence we came. It’s the second part of that equation that we seem to encounter much difficulty with. We were unanimous in our quest to divorce ourselves from Mr. Bradshaw’s oppressive regime, the same way that the Israelites fought to get away from Pharaoh and, like the Israelites, once we achieved our goal, we then proceeded on this forty plus year odyssey that has seen both good and bad times – sadly, more of the latter. I don’t by any stretch of the imagination mean to imply that we are like the Israelites – we’re not. They were God’s chosen people; we’re just trying to find out who we truly are. Our stories though have similar plot points, lots of intrigue and resolutions.
We have been blessed to be in possession of the one unique quality that our Caribbean brothers and sisters do not have. We are land rich and that’s what makes us different. We can call our own shots. Instead of us working for the hotels, we should own them. We are allowing our resources to be bought up by foreigners. Pretty soon we will own nothing. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not advocating against foreigners, to the contrary. We do need foreign investment, but we have to be sensible about it. We want the investors to come but, at the same time, we have to have a plan that benefits us all, and not just the investors. It has to be a win win situation. I read something that the Honorable Justice of Appeals Don Mitchell wrote called The Role of Cultural Identity in Anguilla’s National Development, a while back and it’s very telling. He nonchalantly compares some of the more prominent land rich families in Anguilla, – the Websters, Hodges, Gumbs’, Lakes Richardsons and the Brooks – to the Duke of Westminster in that the Duke and his family controls some 6.8 billion pounds worth of assets which have been in the family dating back to the 17th century. He goes on to say that those assets have earned a comfortable living for the Duke and his family for over 300 years and they still own them. They lease, not sell, a lesson that we as land rich Anguillians can’t seem to grasp. We will go out and sell for a few hundred thousand dollars and in no time we wonder where the money went. Justice Mitchell goes on to say that we’ve disobeyed the long established rule of “if you must sell land, sell it for years, not forever.” He continues: “a long lease of building land for 60 years, or of a house or apartment for 20 years, turns the real estate in currency as readily as an outright sale. It may be gone to this generation and the next, but it will eventually come back to the family.” Why is it that we don’t get it? We have the capabilities to do the same thing with our lands. Rather than selling it for pennies on the dollar, let us be smart and start thinking like the gentry.
Many years ago, I heard the late Derrick Hodge, who was then the Lieutenant Governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands, give an Anguilla Day speech in which he admonished us to learn from their mistakes. “Look around you,” he said. “Learn from us and everyone else. Don’t rush; you’ve seen what has happened to us.” I seem to also recall our own CM Mr. Webster speaking along those same lines. He advocated for slow high end growth. He did not want us to become a nation of waiters and busboys. I don’t know that anyone bothered to listen to what he had to say, because it would seem that we’ve done the very same thing that he warned us against.
What I can say though is that we’ve been given a lot and we seem to have taken it for granted. We have so much to do, yet we continually find ourselves embroiled in party politics which more often than not results in stalemate. We’ve been freed from the bondage – that was Mr. Bradshaw – and instead of hitting the bricks running, as they say, we’ve landed with a big thud in a pile of quicksand.
It’s thirty seven years now that we’ve had ministerial government. We get to run the government in a way that’s beneficial to our people. Instead of learning the ins and outs of this system of government, and using it to its optimal potential, we use it for self-aggrandizement. It’s like being handed the keys to that magnificent piece of machinery, the Rolls Royce, and then proceeding to drive it like a Morris Oxford. Now the Morris Oxford was a nice little car, my dad had one, but it can’t compare to the Rolls.
We began this nation with this unholy alliance with the British Government, which should be called a co-conspirator for our plight today. You see, we were undecided as to which way to go. Our leaders could not agree on a path forward. Some members welcomed the British while others didn’t. The vote was split and Mr. Webster cast the tiebreaker thereby losing an excellent opportunity to build a strong government, the results of which we are now seeing. And as long as the government was functional, that seemed to be o.k. with them. Not so with everyone. Of our plight – Justice Mitchell had this to say: “Anguillians have never examined the malign and adverse impact of the unintellectual and avaricious nature of some of our more recent leaders on the island’s fragile socio-political culture. If only chance had provided us with more enlightened leaders! Anguilla had no one willing and able to lay the intellectual foundation for the birth of this new nation- in- the- womb.” Though I disagree with the esteemed Justice on that point, I will agree that “we stepped off into comparative government on the wrong foot.”
I wholeheartedly agree with Justice Mitchell that it would be mean and insulting to pour scorn on our fathers of the nation. The Justice and I disagree when he refers to our leaders as “fishermen and goat-keepers with little or no formal education.” I might point out that Mr. Walter Hodge was college educated and was among the first to contest and successfully win a seat in the St. Kitts legislature. I will agree that the British were derelict in their duties to oversee that the government was being properly run and that all the rules of good governance were being adhered to. I do believe, though, that since we had forced their hand and brought to light the shabby way in which we were left to languish, their interest in our wellbeing could be characterized as self-serving. We showed them up, so why should they go out of their way to help the cheeky upstarts. We got the keys to the Rolls and we were only qualified to drive the Morris Oxford.
Here we were, in Justice Mitchell’s words, “moving from the 19th century and going straight to the 21st century, completely bypassing the 20th. We have leapfrogged into the 21st century without enough time to learn to acquire the necessary skills and new social structures, the result of which we are now seeing according to Justice Mitchell: “a Frontier Society: unsettled, brash and unruly.” Writing for the Walter G. Hodge Memorial, Dr. Linda Banks had this to say of our behavior: “We’ve gotten greedy, envious, abusive, materialistic and lacking in Christian principles and values.” More recently, a similar view was echoed by Mr. Vivien Vanterpool who admonished us to “rid ourselves of the envy, greed and corruption which exist in our society and become a united people under God.”
We have been given much, but we seem to sit around doing nothing – and when we do decide to do something, it’s going at each other’s throats similar to what the Israelites did after Moses led them from bondage in Pharaoh’s Egypt. We can’t seem to get along with each other. We have to marginalize the other guy if we don’t agree with him or his politics. Can’t we see what this divisiveness is doing to our country? On Saturday the 6th of April, on the Mayor Show on Kool FM 103.3, we were discussing leadership. The discussion revolved around the headline in The Anguillian newspaper, which said “CM HUGHES: WE ARE AT WAR WITH BRITAIN.” The conversation went back and forth and we on the show said that words matter. Co-host Pam Webster chimed in and said that for the CM to make that statement was totally irresponsible. Well, her comments set off a firestorm which got the Honorable Member from District Two, Mr. Jerome Roberts, to call in and try to clear the air with regard to the FFR. We listened for several minutes while the Honorable Member went on uninterrupted. He did not engage any of us but, as he always does, had a parting shot for Ms. Webster in which he accused her and us of the Mayor Show of intentionally misleading the public. He offered no examples of anything we had done.
One only needs to consider the source of such a statement. This comes from a person who, once he got elected to represent his district, chose to go to the other side. So much for loyalty. Politics makes strange bedfellows. I suppose self-preservation was more important than loyalty to those who elected him. There’s always a next time.
We’ve been given so much in more ways than one, but our expectations constantly seem to come up short. Our roads, our ports, and our schools – our infrastructure on the whole – are all in disrepair. Rather than get to the business at hand, our government continues to engage in a war of words with the British. Our Chief Minister, whose job it is to lead this great nation out of this conundrum in which we’ve found ourselves, continues to forge ahead with his plans for independence. Well, CM, let us put this thing to a vote and get this one hitch out of the way. That will clear the decks so that you can get moving on the pressing issues at hand like jobs and the wellbeing of your constituents. We keep waiting for our CM to step up his game and get things done. To no one’s surprise, he has continued to maintain that Hughes’ “charisma” that of continually fighting with the British. I don’t know what we expected. I’m reminded of the old tale of this lady finding a snake lying near death by the side of the road. She takes it home and nurses it back to health. When it’s strong enough, it bites her. She tells it, I found you near death, and I looked after you and this is how you repay me? Why? The snake replied, “Lady, you knew I was a snake.”
Our CM, who I think means well, has put or found himself in an untenable position, one from which I doubt he’ll be able to extricate himself. He has been blessed with extreme good fortune in that it is not everyday that a former CM becomes the current CM. Instead of using his good fortune to really show the others his mettle, and take Anguilla to the next level, all he chose to do its blame the British and the previous administration for Anguilla’s plight. Instead of trying to get his country out of the red, he seems to be headed in the wrong direction. Mr. Hughes has had the good fortune to have been in Government from its inception, first as a minister and later as CM until his coalition fell apart. He went on to successfully contest his seat as a member of the opposition until the last election when the stars were aligned, thus allowing him to become CM once more. If ever there was a politician in Anguilla to whom much was given, it is Mr. Hughes. Unfortunately, not much has been expected. The CM has blown a great opportunity to right the ship.
We have to let the powers that be know that we’re angry as hell about the way things are. Heaping blame on the British has become stale and, as they say down in the southern part of the United States, “that dog won’t hunt.” This talk of independence will not be the panacea. One gets tired of reading the latest episode of Anguilla versus the British. Our CM is always quick to point out that the other territories get whatever they want and, when it comes to us, we get nothing. CM, did you ever stop and think, maybe it’s in the way you ask? If you’re one of fourteen kids, and you’re constantly fighting with your parents and the others aren’t, whom do you think will get the better treatment? Just food for thought. It’s too late for buyer’s remorse. We’re stuck with what we have despite the fact that everyone voted for change.
Before I go, let me say this: The bible says in Luke 8:48, “To whom much is given, much is expected.” Like the Israelites, we’ve been given quite a bit, and in return quite a bit is expected. We’ve had some forty odd years, the same as the Israelites, to find our way. Instead of doing so, we continue to engage in what Justice Mitchell refers to as a Frontier Society: unsettled, shifting brash and unruly. We’ve become greedy, unchristian like, disrespectful, arrogant, and selfish and the list goes on. We cannot listen to anyone voice his or her opinion without telling him or her to shut up if his or her opinions differ from yours. A true democracy allows for engagement, regardless of the point of view.
On Saturday the 14th of April, on the Mayor Show on KOOL FM, we continued with the discussion on Anguilla’s political leadership. I must say that, for the first time in a while, our callers actually stuck to the topic. When asked to comment on the quality of our political leadership, an ardent supporter of the AUM administration, consumed by intellectual dishonesty, claimed that the people of Anguilla are responsible for the failures of our political leadership. Co-host Dr. Paul Webster quickly disagreed with that assertion by letting him know that the people elect the politicians to represent them. We have been trying for the longest while to get our people to participate in our democracy and so far just about everyone has been sitting on the fence in silence. There is a famous slang out there that kind of sums up the way things are. It’s called “we like it so.” Well, I can tell you what. Look at the guys that we elected to represent us. Is that what we wanted? Look, we’re a representative democracy and that means that we elect you to represent us. If you don’t do the job that we hired you to do, then it’s our prerogative to fire you.
The Honorable Justice of Appeal, Don Mitchell, said we entrusted our government to “fishermen and goat-herders” and that may have very well been the case, but they were what we had. The time has now come for new leadership, with new ideas, which can take Anguilla where it needs to be. We have our young people, who will be tomorrow’s leaders, that we need to educate, so that when the time is right they can hit the bricks running – and for whom the possibilities will be endless.
We don’t have to agree with or even like each other on anything but if we are to achieve anything and work for the greater good, then we need to abide by the rules of common courtesy to our fellowman. We have lost that which made us stand apart from everyone else. We need to retrieve our gravitas once more, and find our Joshua – and let us get out of this mess that we find ourselves mired in. Like the Mayor always says: “We as Anguillians don’t know what we want, until we get what we don’t want.”
Have we optimized our gifts? I think we’ve all fallen short. What do you think? Until then, may God bless us all and may God bless Anguilla.
Tyrone Hodge
