“Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one” (Thomas Paine).
Those words written by Thomas Paine over two hundred years ago are as true today as they were then. That being said, our government at its worst is beyond intolerable. For its actions defy logic. It is said that the job of any government is that of looking after its people to see that they are clothed, fed, educated and so on. When that fails to happen, that’s a clear sign that the government has failed.
Our government ministers have simply packed up the tent and gone home. They simply haven’t done the job for which they were elected. A review of their manifesto will clearly show that a little more than a year into their term – and they have not delivered on any of their promises of any significance.
What they have done is set Anguilla on a path to destruction, and the irony here is that these guys who are in power were very much against our revolution. What has happened to Anguilla will not be fully understood by this and future generations for years to come.
It appears that no one, least of all our government, has a clue, and one would think that, given the fact that they overwhelmingly won the last election, giving the sitting government, the Hubert Hughes led AUM party a whipping not before seen in the region, winning an unprecedented six of seven contested seats, that they would have had Anguilla firing on all cylinders by now.
There was talk of mandate, there was talk of a kinder gentler government, there was talk of doing the right thing and, so far, it has been just that – talk. And no sooner than the oath of office was administered, all hell broke loose.
The first cracks in the amour became evident in a meeting with the British to discuss the country’s banking dilemma, one that like a rotting sore was allowed to fester. Our esteemed Chief Minister sat on his hands and failed to ask a single question, or put up any kind of defense on our behalf. Also missing in action was our esteemed Minister of Home Affairs, who herself was a silent Board Member of NBA. One would have thought that this would be the opportune time to raise questions on our behalf, but it wasn’t to be.
If you’ve heard this before, bear with me, because you are going to hear it in perpetuity. We know what happened next. Not to be forgotten in this debacle, is the fact that the warning signs were there. It has been pointed out that those who ran the banks, simply did not have the wherewithal to do so. The same argument can be made about those who have run our government. When we do a serious assessment of what has and continues to happen, any way you show it, it comes out a whopping “F”.
What our people aren’t getting is that our wealth, our livelihoods, our heritage and our birthrights were being used as political footballs, where one group tries to get even with the other. The fact that we the people got caught up in a range war, and we the innocent bystanders wound up being collateral damage, should not be lost to anyone.
James Baldwin said, “Know from whence you came. If you know from whence you came the possibilities for going forward are endless.” We seem to not know from whence we came, for we act in ways that boggles the mind. We follow blindly. Our incompetent politicians and we accept as gospel anything that they tell us. We have elected the same incompetent backbenchers term after term. When we keep doing the same stupid thing time after time and each time expecting it to be different is what Einstein calls insanity. I know that we are not insane, so what is the problem?
The Mayor likes to say “if you don’t start right you won’t finish right.” Folks we didn’t start right. We had the chance to write our own ticket, but we instead chose to opt for dependent territory status. We chose to turn back the clock. Now it’s understandable that our fathers didn’t quite have the political acumen to fully understand what they opted for, but that’s water under the bridge.
Going forward, we have watched as government after government played fast and loose with our well being. We’ve watched with deafening silence as our hard fought for gains were negotiated away by incompetent leaders for lesser trades. We’ve watched as a people, who had long been forgotten, were bested by a much wilier British Foreign Office. And while we’re at it, why are we being administered to by the Foreign Office? Is that how they see us, as something foreign?
Nevertheless, however they see us is of little solace to us in our time of need. We are at the mercy of an uncaring, incompetent and dangerous government. Uncaring because of what they’ve done to us: the loss of our banks, the obliteration of our shares, the unprecedented commandeering of the banks, the refusal to hold anyone accountable for the ruination of at least one of the banks.
Those of us who remember our history, remember quite well why 1967 came about. We remember that we were living under an oppressive regime and we had had enough of it. We can recall the battle cry of the Boston Tea Party, that of no taxation without representation and all that it entailed.
Adding insult to injury, our government is taxing us in ways that are unconscionable. How can they in all fairness tax an 85 year old woman whose tax bill on a two bedroom home used to be eight hundred dollars, which is now $2200 dollars, a woman I might add that’s living on limited means? And what is even more unacceptable is the fact that no one knows what will happen if they can’t pay the tax bill, or if they refuse to pay the tax bill. Is this what you call compassion equity and fairness? Seriously. Can you in all honesty say that with a straight face?
It is a given that money has to come from somewhere to maintain the government, but to squeeze a people with limited means is not the way to do it. How can this government, in all honesty, do this when they collect their exorbitant salaries and all the other perks that go with the office? What is it that you folks do to warrant a 30,000 a month salary? Give up the damn vehicles; sell them if you have to. Who gets their own private SUV and chauffeur? Since when did we become too proud to drive our own vehicles? You folks must sleep very well at night, knowing that you have basically ruined our country.
The rest of you who have been deathly silent while this one man wrecking crew has been unleashed on the people of Anguilla will be remembered very well.
I suppose we had this coming, for we tend to leave well enough alone. We did not ask the right questions. We didn’t ask how the manifesto would be accomplished. So in a sense we are complicit in our own demise.
So the question that should be on everyone’s lips now is, what do we do? Do we pay those exorbitant taxes to keep Victor’s government afloat, or do we engage in civil disobedience? Will he try to lock us all up? Well he better start building internment camps, for it will be an awful lot of us that will be locked up.
We have seen incompetence taken to a new height. We have seen everything that we hold dear, being trampled by those who can only be classified as charlatans and carpet-baggers. The day will come when the people will rise and say no more. In Bradshaw we had a common enemy and I honestly believe that we are very close in identifying our new nemesis.
We have short memories. We tend to forget what has happened in the past. Our government is counting on our short memories for in so doing they don’t have to deal with it. Czech writer Milan Kundera famously said that: “The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.”
If we don’t remember from whence we came, we can’t very well know where we’re going. My fellow Anguillians, how can you stand by and do nothing? How can you let a government that you overwhelmingly elected, sell us out. How can you stand by and let them tax our elderly out of their homes? How can you stand by and not be seriously disturbed by the fact that our government stole our private property? How can we do this? What do you do to that 85 year old woman whose tax bill jumped from $800.00 to $2200.00? Will you lock her up when she can’t or won’t pay? Victor, I am talking to you? How can you sleep at night?
Folks, we have short memories, but there are those of us who remember. We will never let the dream of our forefathers die. Just about everyone you talk to starts out the conversation with Boooooy! You know where that is going. When an irresistible force meets an immovable object, something’s got to give. You’re damn right something’s got to give. Something has got to give. We are now seeing the same pattern that happened with the banks repeat itself at our airport. Just as those tasked with making sure the banks adhered to best banking practices, didn’t do their jobs, history is repeating itself with our airport. Why can’t we leave politics out of the hiring process and give the job to a Human Resources Department which actually knows what the hell it is doing.
We will knock ourselves out trying to fix the place and then we will turn around and give the top level jobs as political favors. We will then turn around and hire the same ne-er-do-wells from the last AUF administration. Folks when will we stop this blasted nepotism and cronyism? I don’t care how much longer you make the airport, and even if you put the damn horse before the cart, what difference will it make – we will muck it up anyway. When will we get it? Here we are once again playing defense on our heels. Why didn’t we know that the airport wasn’t living up to standards? Wasn’t an airport manager being paid an exorbitant sum to see to it that things worked like clockwork? Is it because people see us as being too gullible that we find ourselves in these places all the time? What’s next?
Until we get a handle on things. Until this government does the things for which they were elected – then and only then will things turn around. Until then may God bless us all and may He continue to bless Anguilla.
