In my first article of this series, I listed a number of topics I would aim to cover. This week my topic will focus on “Unity in Diversity” which will touch on more than one of the areas I listed. But before I go there I want to say just one more thing about the draft Labour Code.
Many of our youth are unemployed. Many of our youth are bored. Those of our youth who are making trouble, or getting into trouble, are doing so precisely because they are unemployed. What better opportunity than a new Labour Code to introduce an incentive for employers to train and employ young people? I can only hope that this opportunity will not be thrown away by our government.
Wikipedia defines Unity in Diversity as a concept of “unity without uniformity and diversity without fragmentation”, that shifts focus from unity based on a mere tolerance of physical, cultural, linguistic, social, religious, political, ideological and/or psychological differences towards a more complex unity based on an understanding that difference enriches human interactions. In my view, Anguilla has a unique opportunity to become a model community in this respect.
It is not a coincidence, I suggest, that nobody has been thrown in jail yet for some of the financial and property misdemeanours and thefts in Anguilla that we are all aware of. It has been suggested that the reason can be traced back to the history of Anguilla and “the development of a national psyche that avoids confrontation with neighbours and protects its own from all pressure from the “outside”, and that this would explain Anguilla’s continuing failure to adhere to the most basic standards in public life”.
While this is ostensibly a fatal flaw which no amount of good governance can surmount, I suggest that that is not necessarily the case. The challenges to governments in a small country such as Anguilla – or taking as another example the Falkland Islands – are as different as chalk from cheese from the challenges in major nation states. In the Falklands, for example, there are no political parties. In major nation states, the major political parties cannot even contemplate compromise or understand that difference enriches human interactions.
So why, you may ask, can’t Anguilla be more like the Falkland Islands? Surely, the people of Anguilla are big enough and wise enough to understand that every person, however extreme his or her views, is entitled to his or her own opinion within the limits imposed by the law, and that that entitlement should be respected not dismissed.
But the difficulty in Anguilla lies, I suggest, in the fact that those who are the greediest tend to be those who control, or can influence those who control, the mechanisms that are ostensibly available to prevent abuse, but which are discouraged because it has become the accepted norm that privilege carries with it the de facto right to immunity. The little man does not get a look in. That reasoning would not wash in the Falkland Islands, because the people are so interdependent and have what might be described as a “common enemy” to defend themselves from – Argentina. But here in Anguilla we have a false sense of security, but one that is wearing very thin as conditions deteriorate and opportunities become scarce.
But Anguilla’s potential has never been greater if we can only but harness it. What would that take? The ballot box is at one and the same time a divider and a unifier. At the last election the ballot box largely unified the country based on the false promise that for the winning party “It’s All About You”. That lie cannot, I suggest, be successfully repeated. Success requires faith and I see all around me young people – the future of Anguilla – who have faith at least in themselves. IF you, those people, can come together, however diverse your opinions, provided you have faith in the future of Anguilla, Anguilla will be strong again. The canker of favouritism, corruption, isolationism, failure to respect the law and failure to enforce the law, and above all the hostility towards differing viewpoints, will be eradicated. When that happens, Anguilla will find itself attracting investment and back in the race to resume its rightful place as “Tranquility in Blue” – and one of the most desirable and successful destinations on the planet.
To accomplish all this, I repeat that we need to find a way to raise the level of community and political debate with a view to developing an entirely new political movement, and a form of consensus government in Anguilla, that will “make Anguilla roar again”! I shall suggest ways we might approach this opportunity in next week’s article. In the meantime, I invite everyone who shares this vision to register their interest by email, however brief, to palmavon.webster@gov.ai
