We are once more at a crossroads, and if we’re not careful, can lose it all. There are those right now who would like to see Victor get his comeuppance and fall flat on his face. Even though, it might be justified, that would not be in Anguilla’s best interests. As I’ve previously said, the sharks have a sense of blood in the water. When things are not going well, there are those who will look for the slightest opportunity to take over. We’ve seen it happen before and, as Churchill so famously said, “He who does not learn from past mistakes is doomed to repeat them in the future.” Sure we have problems and we need to take care of them one at a time. We need to make sure that our indigenous banks are reinstated. We need to make sure that we get to hell out of the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union for it serves no purpose. We need to make sure that we reclaim our sovereignty and that we get as far from the OECS as we possibly can. Those organizations have nothing to offer us. We in turn have everything that they want – our resources.
How did we get here? Ask those who went away on Anguilla’s dime to study? Ask them what did they do to uplift the nation? Ask those who continue to be treated like royalty even though they behave like spoiled brats, based on who they know or who their parents are. Ask them what have they done for Anguilla lately? Ask the AUM and the AUF what have they done for Anguilla over the years other than drive a wedge down the middle and pad their pensions? Ask them if they think that is what our forefathers envisioned? Is that what my father Walter Hodge, and Atlin Harrigan and John Webster and Ronald and all the others, fought for? Ask Victor where the hell was he when we were manning the picket lines. When we were guarding the beaches, when we were collecting money in St. Thomas to send up by Beavan or Maurice whoever happened to be flying that day. Ask Victor if what he’s doing is commensurate with all that we did to get to this point? Ask him where the hell does he get off selling us out?
Right now everyone is sensing blood in the water and the sharks are circling. Everyone is jockeying for position. Each and all of you are nothing more than opportunists right now. We have a legitimate opposition member in Ms. Palmavon Webster who has tried to keep this government honest. The fact that she gets no support in the House of Assembly or in Island Harbour is shameful. She will get up there and do the very best she can despite the fact that when she needs your support you abandon her. If you will come after me, who was part of the Revolution then anything is possible. Folks we have to be honest with ourselves. We have to speak truth to power and once we do that anything is possible.
As we throw rocks at each other and hide our hands, the world is changing drastically. We watched as the British people decided to exit the EU. We watched as the Democrats staged a sit in on the floor of Congress until the government decided to do something about gun violence. I find what has happened in Great Britain both ironic and hypocritical. Ironic because at a time when Britain is fighting to reclaim its sovereignty they are passively standing by and allowing us to concede ours to the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank. Hypocritical because sovereignty is something that they’re entitled to and we’re not?
To those of you who would bring Victor to his knees, you’d do so for solely selfish reasons. You who are masquerading as wolves in sheep’s clothing, we know who you are. You may lavish us with praise, and you may think that we are not sophisticated enough to detect the condescension with which you are treating us, but to the contrary. We get it. When you had the chance you did not stand up for the people. The ones in power now are no different, but now that you sense blood in the water, you are circling like thresher sharks waiting for the kill.
To those of you who are jockeying for positions right now, I want you to think about this: Where were you, and on whose side were you when our indigenous banks were being stolen by this government? What did you do? Did you stand up in the House and vociferously object to what was happening? You remember that Thursday. It was Thanksgiving Day in the United States, a place in which the majority of us now reside because we had to leave Anguilla to better ourselves. A day that we should have been giving thanks for all that we were able to accomplish when, instead, we listened with bated breath while our government, under the guise of international banking standards, sold us out. As the lone Opposition Member fought with every last breath that she could muster, she got no help not even from those who should have stood with her. I want you all to remember that day, for it will come back to haunt the lot of you. God help you if you were on the wrong side of that vote for it will be permanently and indelibly etched in the Anguillian psyche, and that’s a promise.
I wholeheartedly agree with Conrad Rogers’ assessment of where we are as a people in Anguilla. The people should come first and foremost. To this government, you didn’t start right and, as the Mayor always say: “If you don’t start right, you won’t finish right.”
You all came to us like beggars with outstretched hands looking for support. You used our airwaves to get your message out and after you got what you wanted, we were discarded like empty tin cans. There is an old saying that says: “live by the sward, die by the sword.”
I remember the same Conrad Rogers admonishing this new government upon their investiture: He said: “Don’t be strangers. You used the media to get elected and therefore you should use the same media to communicate with the people, your constituents.” Can any of you honestly say that you’ve done any of this? Sure, when you were pressured, you came out and had some haphazard meetings with very little notice. One might be inclined to believe that you really didn’t want to talk to the Diaspora. Was this because the plan was so heinous that the people wouldn’t buy it? Mr. Banks, whatever your reasons, we will never forgive you. You did us a disservice and for that we’ll forever hold you in contempt.
I don’t know what to say except to ask the question, who are you working for? Does anyone in this government have a clue as to what to do? Does this government understand that everyone is hurting, from the businessman who put everything that he possessed into his business while his government is out there gallivanting in New York spending the people’s money? Does this government understand that these businesses have to make a weekly payroll, something that is increasingly harder to do when there are no customers? Does this government understand what the implications are? Does this government understand that when everything that people have are being taken away it is because they can’t pay their bills through no fault of their own?
Does this government understand that it serves at our pleasure, and if they no longer please us that we, being their employers, have got the power to fire their behinds? Does this government understand that their loyalties first and foremost are to us and not some Central Bank or some deep pocketed supporters? Does this government understand the Hippocratic Oath of “do no harm?” When we see what has been done to certain members of the Diaspora, at the expense of others, the day of reckoning will put everything into perspective and it will not be a pretty picture. Gentlemen and ladies, if you had no plan for taking us forward, then you had no damn business getting into this game. That falls under the heading of fraud. So if that’s not what it is then ? For goodness sake tell us what it is?
In Anguilla we are stuck in a never ending cycle the likes of which we can’t seem to get off. We have in place a government which, by all accounts has sold us out. Just like the Lexit camp which failed to provide the necessary answers to the people once they won. Our government also failed to offer a program to save the banks and get the economy going once again. Instead, we’ve been inundated with bad choices detrimental to us by this government. Instead of standing up and facing the Opposition Member, by defending the choices that his government has made and why, the Chief Minister walked out of the House in a manner that was both disrespectful and unbecoming of our leader.
Folks, there are lots of wise old sayings out there and we can use them until we’re blue in the face, but until we look ourselves in the mirror and do a self assessment, an honest assessment, we will be nothing more than a bunch of greedy pigs who are willing to get down in the mud with the rest of them to get whatever it is that we want. Someone said to me, the other day, that it’s important to know the past, but not live in it. I agree, but until we reconcile the past with the present we won’t know what the future holds in store for us.
So once again we find ourselves at the crossroads, and the direction in which we choose to go will determine whether or not we sink or swim. We have much too much invested in this rock, from the high end investor to the average person. Our forefathers envisioned an Anguilla that included everyone, for the golden rule told us to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. And with all that is happening in Great Britain with Brexit, we have to give pause and ponder our future. What happens to us here in Anguilla? We have no one looking out for our best interests right now, so it’s back to 1967 when we had to take our destiny in our own hands.
Now is not the time for weak kneed politicians who don’t have a clue and who didn’t see this coming. It is also a time for strong leadership. In the movie “The American President,” the president is told by his Chief of Staff that: “People want leadership. And in the absence of leadership they will listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone. They want leadership. They’re so thirsty that they will crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there’s no water, they will drink the sand.” The President responds: “Lewis, we’ve had presidents who were beloved, who couldn’t find a coherent sentence with two hands and a flashlight. People don’t drink the sand because they’re thirsty. They drink the sand because they don’t know the difference.”
There are an awful lot of microphones out there with a lot to say. We must be very careful to whom we listen – that we don’t crawl through the desert looking for water only to discover that we’re stuck in a mirage and wind up drinking the sand. There is much work to be done and with everyone on board, and God at our side, we can do all that needs to be done. So till next time, may God bless us all and may he continue to bless Anguilla.
