The Editor
The Anguillian
“WE LIKE IT SO.”
In days of old, the town crier was the one who kept the villagers informed as to what was happening in their village. As time evolved, the town crier, to a greater extent, was replaced by the calypso. Calypsonians especially the ones from Trinidad, were the ones we listened to in order to get an idea of what was happening in our region. You got a sense of who did what to whom – whether good or bad. The Mighty Sparrow, probably the world’s greatest calypsonian, composed and sang a song called “We Like it So” in which he detailed the ailments of Trinidad and Tobago, everything from crooked politicians to the high cost of living, crowned by the chorus “we like it so.”
For the last several years here, that phrase might apply to us. We tend to go from one mess to the other and, with just about everyone remaining silent, would seem to suggest that “we like it so.” There are several well worn sayings out there, the most famous of which is one by the late Martin Luther King Jr. which says, “In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
Whatever the reason, silence has become the modus operandi of a people who should know better, but still chooses to stand on the sidelines. I could quote saying after saying by Dr. King, but at some point we have to stand up and say: enough, we’re tired of this nonsense and we’re not going to take it anymore. When you read the papers and listen to the radio and hear all the nonsense that’s being pedaled, it’s just preposterous. It has become par for the course. If the government isn’t taking on the Governor directly, it’s indirectly taking on the British Government. As I said last week, how do you expect to get anything from the parent that you are constantly fighting with? Sooner or later, one would think that if you keep on doing the same thing and nothing changes, then it’s time for a change of strategy. A great leader would realize that one strategy is not working and change it, but that’s what a great leader would do.
A few Saturdays ago on the Mayor Show, on Kool FM, the discussion centered on effective political leadership. The question that was asked was does the present administration have a vision for Anguilla and, if so, what is it? The general consensus was that there was no vision and the present administration must go. The show got off to an excellent start with the co-host, Ms. Webster, who laid out her vision for Anguilla going forward. No sooner had the phone lines opened than the very first caller went off on a rant critiquing what we as panelists had discussed. The caller totally missed the point of what we were doing. He simply reverted to his stock arguments and then shot down our main points on leadership, with special reference to Mr. Maxwell’s 21 points of effective leadership, as being outdated – and of course the caller’s an expert when it comes to effective political leadership. The caller who is also “a dyed in the wool” AUM supporter, and British hater, for a minute had his own show going. While we welcome all callers, all we ask is that you stick to the topic. If you have nothing to bring to the conversation, kindly let someone else get through. I’m presently listening to a calypso show on the radio and every song that’s being played is very critical of the government, especially one called “All is not Well.” Politicians are doing well, but everyone else catching hell, but you know what? “We like it so.”
Instead of this government coming out and telling the people that we’ve just added several hundreds new jobs, we’re subsidizing your electric bill, we’re in the process of digging several new wells to provide water for our people, they’ve done nothing. Nada, zip zilch. But we hear talk that we now have two options on the table. Independence or internal self-rule. That will really make us feel good. Never mind that we’re losing our land and houses and personal property because we can’t pay, we can look forward to being independent. What the devil are we gonna’ go independent with? How many times do we have to bring up this question? Protocol requires that I use a civilized tongue in writing this piece and therefore I have to say my piece in as tactical a manner as possible. Are we nuts? Why do we tolerate this nonsense? It’s true that talk is cheap, and actions speak louder than words. So far all we hear is cheap talk and no action and you know what? “We like it so.”
At the risk of being redundant, I’m going to repeat something that I said a few weeks ago, when I quoted the Honorable Justice of Appeal, Don Mitchell, when he said that “we went from the 19th century straight to the 21st century. We leapfrogged over the 20th century thereby losing the transition that would have prepared us for this century in which we find ourselves mired in a funk that defies description. You see, we went from having none of the modern conveniences that our more advanced neighbors to the south enjoyed, to all of a sudden having to pay for services that, for the most part, we were unaccustomed to. Things like, power, water, telephone, rent and of course cable. That’s quite a heavy lift for a people who weren’t given the chance to gradually assimilate intointo this new way of living.
Back in the 1960’s when my generation was growing up, despite the hard times, we knew how to make do with what we had. We had that je nais sais quoi. We were respectful to our parents. We did what we were told and we strove to be better. We were told that if we worked hard and did our very best we would be successful and, you know what? They were correct. We were able to succeed in spite of being called everything in the books from Bobo Johnnie to you name it.
We had running water that we had to collect in buckets from a stand pipe, but it was free and it was there whenever we wanted it. My uncle, Mr. David Harrigan, who ran the pumping station at Mt. Fortune, singlehandedly provided water for the people from Mt. Fortune all the way to Island Harbor. I can recall him laying the pipes by himself in the hot sun until he had completed the job. I can also recall that every morning, on my way to school, I would have the key to shut off the water so that it did not run back down the hill. His job at the time was to operate the pumping station. Installing the pipes was not his job, yet he did it and without much thanks.
We had pride in our country. Our parents planted flower gardens in front of their homes. They made the place look good. You want to get in trouble, mess with my aunt’s flower garden. I found a small almond tree on my grandfather’s property and decided that I wanted one in our yard, so I planted it in her flower bed next to her precious roses. She found it and uprooted it up a few times and I kept replanting it until it had grown to be too tall to uproot. I finally convinced her of its value in terms of providing shade and keeping the wind off the house. She finally relented and allowed the tree to stay where it provided many years of shade and protection from the winds for our home. Sadly, it contracted a disease of some sort and I had to have it cut down three years ago. My point is that we had pride in where we lived. Today as you drive around some homes, their surroundings look like abandoned vehicle graveyards. We sell ourselves as tranquility wrapped in blue, but yet we look like confusion wrapped in rust. Have we no sense of pride?
Monday April 15th, during the Boston Marathon, terrorists set off two explosions which killed four and injured scores of others. Within no time at all, the identities of the perpetrators were known. This all happened because the communities came together and did their patriotic duty and cooperated with the authorities. While I’m sure that we, as a small community, send out our prayers to the families of those who were killed and hurt, it goes to show that when a city is rocked by violence, it is very important for everyone to stand up and be counted. I say that to say that we, as a small country, need to act responsibly when things happen on our shores. As citizens, it is our duty to cooperate with law enforcement just like what we saw in Boston this last week. If the perpetrators know that someone out there will provide information then, maybe, just maybe, they’ll think twice about committing an offense.
We continue to struggle as a young budding nation, in ways that boggle the mind. When you come to think of it, where we’ve been and how far we’ve come, just think, we could have been that much farther along, if only petty politics had not entered the picture. I don’t have to reiterate, but I’m sure we remember some of the less than palatable things that have gone on. I hearken back to something that Justice Mitchell said in one of his many writings about Anguilla, and that is that we leapfrogged the 20th century and went straight into the 21st without having gone through a baptism of sorts. We simply were not ready for primetime as they say, but our pride would not allow us to say that we couldn’t do this alone, so we took on the task without having the necessary prerequisites for the course and, on an academic grading scale, we have an incomplete. Can we still make up the final grade? Si se puede, yes we can. Will we have to change our ways? I think so. With a whole new mindset and a new breed of outlier thinkers, the sky’s the limit.
Anguillians have done very well in other peoples’ countries. It‘s just our own that we seem to be struggling with. We are satisfied to accept the status quo. This general orders directive which effectively prevents any employee of the government from criticizing the same government is wrong and it’s a stupid law – and the authors of it ought to be ashamed of themselves, for what they’ve done has effectively hamstrung democracy. What is happening now cannot be called democracy, especially if one has the temerity to criticize the sitting government. What we have is a populace that is afraid to speak out for fear of reprisals against themselves or family members who may be employed by the government. That is wrong.
We were taught by some of the most brilliant people, but you never hear from them when it comes to using some of that expertise to try and fix what’s wrong with our country. They instead, choose to sit on the sidelines and watch things fall apart. Some of you guys used to tell us to “do as I say, not as I do.” Well, I think the time has come for you all to practice what you preached. You taught us well and you should be proud. We still need you to help us make this a better place in which to live. The old saying silence gives consent simply says – if no one says anything, then all is well. Anything worth having is worth fighting for. When Philip Randolph met with President Roosevelt before World War II, to get the president to take action against discrimination, the President said, “I agree with you. Now go out and make me do it.” Our politicians were hired by us to lookout for our best interests. Let’s make them do it. If we don’t hold their feet to the fire, we’re letting them off the hook. We’ve given them a free pass.
Before I go let me say this: We have come a long way and we have so much farther to go. In order to complete the journey we are going to need everyone rowing in the same direction. We have squandered opportunity after opportunity. We have made errors of omission and commission. We have been hurt, some of it self-inflicted and we can chalk it all up to experience. To continue to keep on heading in this direction with these results would be masochistic. We really have to sit down with the powers that be and ask the question: “What the devil are we doing?” Have we done all that we could for our people? Based on what has been happening, the answer would be a deafening no. We’ve not charted a sustainable course. We have no contingency plans, and there are lots of things that we haven’t given much thought to.
They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I see nothing wrong with that and by that I mean, look at what the successful territories have done. We’re not competing – we just want to know what works. We have to be pro-active, rather than reactive. We should be able to anticipate the unexpected and be ready to deal with it. This is not a knock on our leaders. They weren’t career politicians. These were men thrust into unusual circumstances, for which they were totally unprepared and for the most part, did a yeoman’s job to boot.
But that day will come when Anguilla will have a new and improved crop of leaders who will be able to take their rightful place on the global stage and hold their own withthe rest of the players.
In order for this to happen we, the people, have to put country first. We have to work as a team or we will fail separately. It is time to pass the torch to a new generation who will be tasked to do great things. You will know the players bytheir thoughts and deeds. If we’ve learned anything from the last election, it is that thecandidates have to engage the electorate and lay out a vision, not just any vision, but one that is concise, easily understood, unambiguous and, most of all, practical. We have to look for new industries to provide jobs for our people. We don’t have to reinvent thewheel. We need a leader who has a vision and who is best positioned to realize that dream and make it a reality. Look to Island Harbor once more.
On the Mayor Show on Kool FM 103, for the last few weeks, the topic has been one that has elicited a lot of heated discussions, some pro and some con and that’s healthy. Thatis the way it should be. What a lot of our listeners objected to was the constant negativism by a certain caller. Those were his opinions and not one shred of evidence was offered to back up his assertions. You don’t agree with something, give your reasons why or why not. You’ll remember the late Mr. Sutton, our headmaster at the Old East End Elementary School. He always told us that empty vessels make the most noise. Think about that.
Folks there’s serious work to be done. The idea of a vibrant Financial Services Sector in Anguilla, is one whose time has come. It not only gives Anguilla another iron in the fire so to speak, but it will provide jobs that will allow our young students coming out of college an opportunity to find gainful employment while remaining at home, if that it their choice. Let us educate ourselves about the intricacies of this new frontier andutilize it to our advantage. Ms. Webster, delineated the way forward. She provided a lesson in Financial Services by telling where we’ve been and where we need to go. I thought it was well thought out and well presented.
Remember the words of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States of America, when he said, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” Folks: what are we doing for our country and, more specifically, our people? Let’s keep down the noise and not try to take down anyone. If you don’t haveanything to add to the debate, step aside and let someone else get a chance. This gameof one upsmanship gets to be very transparent after a while and those playing the gamebecome marginalized. Let’s agree to disagree, if that is what we have to do, butlet’s be civil about it. Our country is fighting for its life and we are acting like petulant children.
We are truly in a state duress. Our people are struggling.We now have food banks – a word that we didn’t hear when we were growing up awhile back. Our children are expected to excel in school, but yet we aren’t giving them the wherewithal to succeed. How can we expect a child to be able to concentrate when his or her stomach is growling? That is criminal, and someone needs to be held accountable for this. The research will back me up on this – the kids just can’t do it. They need to be fed properly. How can our government stand by and sanction this kind of occurrence? Maybe the question that I ought to be asking, is how can we, as citizens, allow this sort of thing to happen? This is not an oligarchy. This is not a government of the few for the few. It was democratically elected and, damn it, they should govern in the same vein. It is the job of the government to do for the people what they can’t do for themselves. We’ve been at it now for forty odd years and we should have figured it out by now. If you don’t care about the people, let someone else take the job.
Frankly, we’re tired of you guys, every last one of you! Some of you had the potentialbut you are unambitious and therefore lame. Gentlemen, please step aside and let some fresh minds with new and innovative ideas ascend to power. We’re tired of the un-sportsman like conduct that you display in our House Of Assembly. You go there to iron out your differences. You’re all a disgrace to the people’s House. And Speaker, read up on the rules and throw the bums out every time they step out of line – and you will have my eternal respect. Show them that Island Harbour spirit. Make your dad proud. But you know what? Yep, “we like it so.”
With all the success that our young people are having, it is painful to hear that so manyfamilies are struggling to make ends meet… No use crying over spilt milk. We shouldbe trying to make sure that this situation is remedied – and to those who have allowed thisto happen, I say shame on you. You should be ashamed to take your exorbitant salaries. We can do better and shouldn’t rest until that happens. So tell me, do we really “like it so?” The deafening silence of our people would tend to suggest that that is the case, but you know what? You decide!
Let’s stop all the bickering and get to work to make things better for our people. So until then, may God bless us all and may God bless Anguilla.
Tyrone Hodge
