Ancient history tells us that during the Third Punic War the Romans burned Carthage to the ground, killed many people and sold others into slavery. After leveling Carthage, they ploughed the lands under and salted them, so that they would lie barren for years to come. Wealthy Romans then competed with one another to build Greek-style homes and beautiful temples on cheaply acquired land.
Many Anguillians, myself included, think that this government is destroying any chance of our survival. Should Victor and his ilk be allowed to continue unfettered, without the help of the necessary checks and balances, we will have gone the route of Carthage, only in place of plowing under our land and salting it, wealthy foreigners will be allowed much in the same manner as Rome to come in and gobble up existing properties and our land.
So what are a people to do? That is the sixty four thousand dollar question, to use an old cliché, since rational reasoning no longer seems to work. We have marched and picketed, and we have held unity rallies all to no avail. The fact that we are so polarized as a country can be the only reason for this. We find ourselves in a very vulnerable position right now. We don’t know what’s going on.
It would appear that those in power won’t be satisfied until they return Anguilla to the fold. How else can anyone justify the actions of this government? Let’s revisit what’s been done so far. The passing of the Banking Act which has destroyed the two indigenous banks. The creation of an asset management company based in Antigua that will take our properties, devalue and sell them to the highest bidder thereby displacing us in our own homeland. The obliteration of our financial services business, not to mention the loss of half of Anguilla’s wealth, through the ineptitude of those entrusted to manage it and, for good measure, the ceding of Anguilla’s sovereignty to the Central Bank in St. Kitts. How could we have possibly allowed this to happen?
Our CM is yet to tell us how this will work and he has said that he sees nothing wrong with other West Indians owning Anguillian land. Can you believe that anyone least, of all our leader, would say something as stupid and inconsiderate as that? This is the same CM that is advocating for a class system in Anguilla. What’s next row housing to house the proletariat once they’ve had everything stolen? My general take is that we are witnessing the systematic destruction of a way of life of our people that we fought long and hard for.
With the election of Victor F. Banks, it was hoped that we’d see a new day in Anguilla, we’d see all the things that we were promised. The ones that come to mind are the saving of our indigenous banks and the repeal of the Stabilization Levy. But, needless to say, none of those things happened, to the contrary. What we hoped for failed to materialize and we instead wound up heading in the opposite direction with a government that doesn’t seem to know what to do.
This government and the two previous ones have consistently looked the other way when our people have been left to the mercy of others. Sometimes one was left to wonder whose side they were on. A perfect example of this was the late Hodge brothers, Kirby and Cardigan, who operated a very successful airline despite the hardball tactics used against them.
It has been 80 years since W.M.Macmillan published his famous WARNING FROM THE WEST INDIES in which he detailed a very unpleasant view of life in these same islands, the horrendous conditions under which we the people had to live, the sub par education that we were being given and a host of other ills.And while things have progressed somewhat, we are still out there in the desert wandering around – in some cases a victim of our own doing.
While we may not have suffered the same fate as Carthage, we find ourselves suffering a fate that’s equal to or greater than the carnage inflicted by Rome. And with the Brexit vote we are now faced with more questions than answers, for now we are conflicted once more. So we now find ourselves cast adrift in a sea of uncertainty as Ms Lolita Davis pointed out in her address at the Second International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism in Frigate Bay, St. Kitts on 12th May, 2009. According to Ms. Davis:
“The conflict of interest between metropolitan country and colonies played an important role in the 18th century history of the Caribbean and it would seem that it is playing a similar role in the 21st century.”
Ms. Davis goes on to describe the new conflict of interest that seems to have manifested its ugly head. A recent report in the Caribbean News Now suggests that with Great Britain’s exit from the EU, she may be forced to look to Financial Services and Tourism as a means of survival. Ms. Davis, either through a premonition or excellent outside of the box thinking, saw this coming. She said: “Today the commodity is not sugar and slaves. It is Tourism and Financial Services, but the issue is still the same, one of a Metropolitan country administering a territory and colony.”
Ms. Davis tells us that as a people who have struggled and fought for everything that we possess, we need to pay attention, and take nothing for granted, for if past history is any kind of an indicator, we are on our own. She admonishes us that as a people: “We need to understand the struggle which we are up against. And we need to take steps to prevent our people from being emasculated and dispossessed again in this new age of colonialism.”
If we can’t see what is truly happening to us, that we are truly not free despite what we may have done or think, then we are our own worst enemy. We are constantly reminded of whom we are and, after hearing the same thing over and over, we tend to actually believe the perpetrators of such nonsense. It is said that colonialism has turned the Anguillian into a shell. If that is the case, whose fault is it? The British? Our own? It is up to us to correct that myth. They told us that we were free to run our own affairs but yet they tied both hands behind our backs. They stood by and let administration after administration wreck our country. Tell me, then, are we really free? It’s an illusion, all illusion. Lord Short Shirt sums up our situation beautifully. He says: “You told the youth that they were free, and slavery had lost its sting, but they’re not foolish, they can see that we are lying deep within. Slavery has not left its doors, not yet I’m sure, we have to fight for the battle some more. The time has come for every man in the Caribbean to forge one common destiny-it’s time to set our people free. We have got to stand up for our rights, to lead the lives we choose; to change, to answer, to refuse. If you think the battles done, you are wrong. It’s an illusion – all illusion.”
Ms. Davis in perhaps a gesture from the heart, exhorts her brothers and sisters in the remaining non-self-governing territories with the last two lines of Short Shirt’s calypso to: “Come let’s forward together in social endeavor, our goal, social control only then shall we be colonized no more.”
Whether or not, we choose to heed the call of the few lone voices out there calling out to us, remains to be seen. For a people who have been abandoned since 1840, we have managed to, in spite of ourselves and other extraneous forces, keep our heads above water. How much longer we’re able to do that, is an entirely different story. As Ms. Davis so eloquently pointed out in her address on de-colonization: “We need to understand the struggle that we’re up against.” Our government, sad to say, has let us down, and it is up to we the people to make them pay for the error of their ways for, as Frederick Douglas famously said to his people, as I am now saying to you: “Power concedes nothing without demand.”
We once more find ourselves at a place all too familiar to us. We have started to write letters to just about anyone who will listen. Once again we are being ignored and once again we are telling the powers that be as we did some 58 years ago that: “A people cannot live without hope for long without erupting socially”.
So whether or not a fate similar to the Carthaginians await us, the die has been cast for the first verse of the soundtrack of the Oscar Lewis’ The Children of Sanchez, sums it up beautifully as written by Chuck Mangione. He says:
“——-Without dreams of pride and hope a man will die
“——-Though his flesh still moves his heart sleeps in the grave
“——-Without land man never dreams cause he’s not free
“——-All men need a place to live with dignity.”
So when all is said and done, we will look back and wonder how did this happen. Until next time, may God bless us all and may He continue to bless Anguilla.
