There are many variations attributed to the Nigerian Proverb “it takes a village to raise a child.” While the responsibility for raising a child rests with its immediate and extended family, the community at large, neighbors and friends alike get involved. This proverb emphasizes things such as family values, parental care, sacrifice of self and the concern for others.
In light of the fact that we seem to have lost our way, makes one come to the conclusion that, yes, it does take a village to raise a child, and I’ve come to the conclusion that, based on my personal experiences as a young boy being raised by my aunt, Millicent Harrigan(Aunt Milly), in Island Harbor during the fifties and early sixties, that nothing could be truer. I will explain why I believe this to be true. My aunt raised six of us and, based on how we’ve matured, I’d say she did an exemplary job.
Once she got us all fed and ready for school, she performed her ritualistic last minute inspection before we were allowed to leave the house. She made sure that we were all properly groomed: the three girls and the three boys all had to pass a last minute test before walking through that front door. This was somewhat irritating, but it was her way. We’d say goodbye or something to that effect and off we’d go as a group, the little ones in front and the big ones behind. On any given day, you could look back and see her standing in the middle of the street (vehicular traffic was a rarity in those days) watching till we were out of sight.
Because our little village was so small and everyone basically knew everyone’s kids, we would come under the watchful eye of the next set of villagers who would keep an eye out for us until we passed to the next village and so on. More often than not several of these villagers, most of whom knew your parents, would enquire as to their wellbeing. A lot of the time you were rushing to get to school on time and you really did not want to engage anyone in a social conversation, but nevertheless, you did so, because if you didn’t your parents would hear about it in short order. You knew all of the villagers and they knew who you were. This was like a relay race that continued all the way to school. It was as though you were being handed off from one village to the next.
The African proverb to which I referred, says it takes a village to raise a child, which, in a sense, in our case, seems to no longer apply. Our children no longer listen or exhibit the manners that we were taught as young children. Now our kids would just as soon cuss you out than to say good morning. We’re now faced with boys wearing their pants below their butt cheeks, their checkered underwear in plain sight. The boys now wear more jewelry than the girls. It is not uncommon to see boys wearing matching diamond earrings. The term ladylike would be a stretch to describe some of our young ladies. We had reverence for the institutions that we were brought up in, the church and the school to name two.
At the end of the school day, we’d hurry back home. School was out at 3:15 p.m and you were expected to be home by 4.00 p.m. You’d better have a good reason for showing up after that time. The thing is that we were all raised with high expectations. You knew what was expected of you. You knew how to behave in public and when you didn’t do what was expected of you – well, you suffered the consequences when you got home.
Knowing then how we were brought up during a time that was more innocent, when we didn’t have much to begin with, contrasted with where we now are with much more, one is forced to ask the question: what happened? I sincerely believe that the answer to that question lies with the fact that our priorities and our values became interchangeable. When I was growing up in Anguilla during the fifties and sixties, my aunt, whom I called Mama, was a stay at home mom. As I mentioned before, she raised her five and me, by herself during our formative years. She saw to it that we wanted for nothing. We were all properly fed and clothed. She saw us off in the morning and could be seen standing in the road waiting for us with our dinner on the table. We’d sit around and talk, always observing proper table manners.
With the change in Anguilla’s status from being a part of the Tri Dependent State of St. Kitts, Nevis and Anguilla, to that of being a British Overseas Territory, a transition that we should all be familiar with, Anguilla’s trajectory onto the world stage as a high-end tourist destination changed everything. The country’s fathers decided that it was the way to go and we never looked back. This was something that I don’t think we were quite ready for. It was like getting a shot of Vitamin B in a body that was on its last legs. We went from being a backwater ridiculed as Bobo Johnies to a bourgeoning tourist Mecca in pursuit of the almighty Yankee dollar. We went from a people who knew how to make do with what we had. to a people whose hats were higher than their heads could reach. Greed and avarice became the general fare of the day. Our identity was lost. We borrowed hundreds of thousands of dollars and built mansions worthy of kings, with two vehicles in the driveway. It was nice that we were able to do all these things, but with the added responsibility of now paying a mortgage, and all the modern conveniences, things that we had no experience with before. We now needed to have a crash course to try and understand what we’d gotten ourselves into. Anguilla became a boom town, and with it all the unscrupulous operators who saw an opportunity to make a quick buck. Now it was time to start making those payments and for a time it looked great, until…
The shelf life of every boomtown is dependent on one thing and one thing only starts to wane. Unfortunately, a lot of us did not use or have a backup plan and when the economy started to collapse, like a house of cards, things turned for the worse. We were simply not ready for primetime and, as a result, wound up possibly losing everything with the imminent collapse of the two indigenous banks whose future remains highly questionable almost six months after being taken over by the Central Bank. I suppose there’s lots of blame to go around for what has happened. Retired Appeals Court Judge Don Mitchell said it best when he made the assertion that we leapfrogged from the 19th century to the 21st century totally bypassing the 20th century. Justice Mitchell contends that with the development of an up-market tourism of the 1980s, we simply hadn’t enough time for binding conventions and new social structures to develop leaving us basically to make it up as we went along. We were totally unprepared for the onslaught that hit us. Just as we were unschooled in the art of good governance, so too were we unschooled in the business of high finance. In a sense, we’re victims of our own independence. There’s no one like a landowner. We’re unlike anyone anywhere in the world. It is sad to say, but we have become slaves to the almighty dollar and, as a result, we’ve neglected our most precious resource: our children. Isaiah 49: 15 asks: “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne?”
Because we were so busy trying to pay the bills, we were not at home to welcome that child and have dinner on the table. We’re not there to sit down at the dinner table to have a meaningful discussion about how things went in school today. We leave a fifty dollar bill on the dining table for the child to buy lunch. We don’t know what that child wore to school today. We don’t even know if that child went to school because we’re so caught up in our own lives chasing that almighty dollar. We don’t see the forest for the trees. When we leave our children alone to fend for themselves, we’re courting disaster, so when that very impressionable young girl is left to figure things out for herself, only to be preyed upon by grown men, whose fault is it? Colville Petty’s “The Seven Seals” was prophetic in his assertions some eight years ago.
We have become a society that has failed our children by not instilling the moral values that were once a staple of Anguillian culture. The Mayor likes to quote Marcus Garvey who said: “A people without the knowledge of their history is like a tree without roots.” I was impressed with Governor Scott’s speech last week. I was extremely impressed with her assertion that we need to identify early those perps who would engage and revert back to criminal behavior. Now for the 64,000 dollar question. How do we do this? Remember my assertion in the introduction of this piece? There is a void in our villages. Bob Marley in one of his songs said, “Each one teach one.” Can we truly say that we do that? Where are the village elders? Where is the one that everyone looks up to, the one that no one would dare disrespect, the one whom everyone listens to? Let’s look around and assess the situation. Maybe we’re in denial. Maybe we think that by ignoring the problems that we have will make them go away. A friend who was spear fishing and got separated from the rest of the team, looked around and knew that he was in trouble, for he had come in contact with some very aggressive barracudas. And rather than try to fight his way out, he left his catch, ripped off his facemask and swam out of there as quickly as he could. Later, when asked why he did that, he replied “I did not want to see what was about to happen.”
Our Governor made some excellent suggestions, but without any concrete actions, that’s all they are. Ms. Scott listed an array of things that need to be done, and hopefully will get them started. I don’t expect that all of the goals set forth will or can be achieved right away, but maybe we can start with the high risk and most vulnerable young men and women and let them know that they too can enjoy the Anguillian Dream. A triage of sorts might be the way to go, with the most vulnerable at the top with a staggered progression of groups. Of course it’s easier said than done, but without the resources to execute the plan nothing will happen. We will continue to see our fragile infrastructure continue to crumble – we’ll continue to see East against West and North against South. My God it sounds like a civil war. Collegiality and goodwill have all become casualties of an Anguilla that has become segregated by district, thanks in part to our ne’er do well politicians. Gentlemen, I say shame on you and “a pox on all your houses”.
The late President of the United States of America, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, in his 1963 Radio and Television address to the American people on the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, was quoted as saying that: “Children are the world’s most valuable resource and its best hope for the future.” So again, we have to ask ourselves, how is it that we treat our most precious resource with such negligence? The President’s speech was in response to what was going on in the world at the time. He was fighting for a better world in which to raise our children. With us, it’s a different story. We no longer do the things we were taught to. Institutions such as the church, the schools and the courts and yes, even the law, have all become irrelevant. To use Retired Justice of Appeals Don Mitchell’s assertion – “Anguillian cultures may be said to be essentially that of a frontier society:
Unsettled, shifty, brash and unruly.” One might also be tempted to include lawless. Gandhi said, “Be that what you want others to be.” So for the life of me, how do we expect our children to be something that we’ve not modeled for them? How do we expect them to behave in a certain manner when we go on the Assembly’s floor and behave like total jackasses? Do we want them to follow our lead when we call a radio talk show and belittle the host because we disagree with his assertions? We live in a democracy, and democracy exists when both sides have an even chance to voice their opinions. When that ceases to happen, God help us. Guys this is all about our future. There is an old saying and it’s somewhat crude, but here it is. It says: “I’ve got mine bleep you.” Is that what’s happening here? Anguilla belongs to all of us and as Ben Franklin said during the deliberations in Philadelphia in the lead up to Independence: “We’ll hang together or we’ll hang separately.” Research shows that kids grow up doing what they see they parents do. On the other hand, if they have absentee parents, well then all bets are off – they have a veritable carte blanche to do whatever.
So after all is said and done, it comes back to home. An old Crosby Still, Nash and Young song, from the sixties, says to “Teach Your Children Well.” When we see the deviant behavior that’s being exhibited in the schools and everywhere else, we have to stop and reflect. Did we teach them well? That’s a question that each and everyone of us will have to ponder. Just recently an incident happened at one of our schools in which one student was brutally attacked, and the weapon of choice was a machete. How is this possible? How does someone manage to get a machete on campus and then have the temerity to use it? Where are the parents, and what the devil are we teaching our kids? When we were growing up you couldn’t even take a small penknife to school. The consequences for such an act were dire. There seems to be no fear of consequences and very little regard for human life.
We are not without fault for the way our young ones behave and carry themselves, and when we try to admonish them, their attitude is who are you to tell me anything. You are nothing more than a hypocrite and, sadly, they’re right, for when we get up there and behave in the manner in which we do, we really can’t tell them anything because we’ve been modeling for them all of their lives. The old adage of “if you want respect, you have to give it” seems to apply here. We really have to take an inward look and follow Gandhi’s lead to be that which you want others to be. The old saying “do as I say not as I do” simply won’t cut it here.
And so folks, what’s one to do? How do we get them back? Maybe it takes a village to raise a child is a concept which time has returned once more. Our priorities need to be re-established. My aunt saw to it that we were churched, clothed, schooled and fed concurrently and, as I’ve pointed out, in an exemplary manner. Until neighborhoods and villages connect with each other, and until each of us becomes our brother’s keeper, and until east can go to west and north can go south without any fear of not leaving, until we reestablish the friendly rivalries that once existed between schools and villages, and until the morons that we elect to lead us stop behaving like morons, until we start having respect for the law, until each of us starts doing his or her part, until we get so fed up to the point that we say we are not going to take this crap anymore, well, it will be business as usual. Let us model for our kids what we want them to be. Remember, they’re our most prized possessions and our best hope for the future, to quote President Kennedy.
President Obama on Tuesday told the American people the state of the Union looks bright. Why can’t we say that the state of Anguilla looks bright? We know what our problems are and we know how to fix them. Someone has to know who the trigger happy ones are. All it takes is a phone call. We need to be able to depend on the RAPF to come down on these guys with the wrath of every parent who has lost a family member. Maybe now is the time for the cat-o-nine tails to rear its ugly head once more, then maybe, just maybe, those perps may reconsider their bad behavior. It was shameful that while the citizens were busy trying to do something about non-violence, during Police Week, we had an incident of colossal proportions. Are we getting through to anyone out there?
We’ve talked about getting the church involved. The Anguillian’s editorial of 24th January 2014 hit the nail right on the head in that the church is made up of people, some of the very same people who might very well know who is committing these atrocities. The church can only do so much. When we were growing up, church was a regular thing, whether you felt like it or not. The threat of Epsom salts and castor oil cured any Sunday morning ailment. You went to church and Sunday school and were taught the difference between right and wrong. There were several organizations, the AYPA and a few others, that kept you busy and out of trouble. Sadly, today the church is seen as a convenience in times of hardship and adversity. Remember the bible says that not everyone who says Lord, Lord shall enter the kingdom of Heaven. Several years ago, as I sat in St. Andrew’s Anglican Church, Bishop Brooks preached and he commented that some people come to the church only when times are hard. People remember God only when times are bad. He mentioned that God should be in one’s life not only in bad times but in good times as well.
Church is a personal choice. You can’t force anyone to attend, but what’s the alternative. Do we continue killing our young men and women, having incestuous relationships with our gorgeous young daughters, while an equally gorgeous mom remains silent? We have to get our house in order and we have to do it soon. We have to start from the ground up, step by step with everyone toeing the line. Contrary to what some may think, we’re not some backwater country to be ignored. We’ve already gone through that. We’re here to stay and the sooner we come to that realization the sooner we will get back on track. Let’s start with our fishermen. Instead of each one of us spending a ton of money to go halfway around the world to pull two fish pots, let’s pool our resources, get a bigger boat and properly equip it, have more hands on deck and make more money. Let the merchants, instead of each one placing a separate order, get together and place one large order. Guys the Chinese are killing you because they know how to cooperate with each other. We’ve passed the point of no return. We’ve already lost our banks. They’ve taken away our identity when they removed the “A” from our vehicular license plates. How quickly we forget. Remember all those years when the plates started with “CN?” Christopher-Nevis. We didn’t even warrant our own letter. We fought for the right to display that “A” on our license plates. They finally brought back the Tranquility Wrapped in Blue. Whose idea was it in the first place to make that change? It makes you stop and wonder about our politicians. What were they thinking? The time has come to clean house. As I’ve said before this upcoming election, whether it’s before year end or early next year (there’s been speculation about when) will nevertheless be a bellwether, that is to say, it will start a trend of electing a new breed of politicians, preferably several women, among them Ms. Pam Webster and Ms. Cora Hodge.
Yes, folks, the time has come for those of us who truly love this beloved place called Anguilla – home of a people who when all seemed lost, stayed the course, despite all odds, famine, disease and the elements – to save it. If those things didn’t do us in, a bunch of ne’er do well politicians won’t either? But if we are to triumph over those who would keep us down, then it will take all hands on deck with all the traitors marooned elsewhere. Remember, Sparrow sang in Dan is the Man, “Captain, There’s a Traitor on Board, examine the Horns.” We will not tolerate behaviors from the past. This time, the wellbeing of us all is at stake. We can agree to disagree. After all that’s what a democracy is all about. So let’s go to the starting gate and present each other’s visions for the next ten years. Until then, God Bless Anguilla and May God bless us all.
