Dear Editor,
Hurricane Irma taught me several things, but the most important of those things is this: “What was can no longer be.” This statement can be applied across the board economically, socially and infrastructurally. The implications of it are also so broad that I would like to focus this piece on what it means for our economy going forward.
Proverbs 9:1 NKJV: “Wisdom has built her house, She has hewn out her seven pillars...”
St. Martin can be likened to a house that has become a home to many. As a matter of fact, any St. Martiner should be familiar with the song “St. Martin is My Home” and for as long as I can remember, our main economic pillar was tourism and every system was built as a feeder line either to or from it and it was doing fairly well ... until Irma. Now our economy has literally come to a standstill with less than two months before our official tourism season begins.
This occurrence has confirmed what a few of my millennial contemporaries have been saying for a while now and that is: tourism cannot be our be all and end all. Change can either come by will or by force and Irma brought change by force through the most unpleasant and uncomfortable process imaginable ... destruction.
Think about it: the airport which is our main economic driver is devastated, the harbour is in need of repairs, over 40 per cent of our major hotels have either been destroyed or need of major renovation and rental car companies suffered significant loss.
In the coming months, taxi services will also take a hit, restaurants that are still standing will see a significant drop in activity, tourist activities and excursions will experience some shrinkage, and you can go down the line and trace the impact all the way down to the street vendors in the marketplace. In the next 3-6 months when things begin to regain some sense of normalcy, whether we like it or not the entire industry will experience a massive contraction which will take at the very least two years for it to rebound.
So, with our economy literally totally dependent on tourism, Irma has finally exposed (I hope) the fact that we need to focus on hewing out other pillars to make our economy more viable and sustainable. It behoves us to begin increasing business in other sectors to protect against possible industry slumps such as what we are about to experience in tourism as a result of Irma. Here are my suggestions of some post-Irma industries that we should begin focusing on expanding:
1) Offshore financial and international business services
2) Technology and Telecommunications
3) Health Care Services
4) Energy Solutions and Storage
5) Agriculture
6) Manufacturing
7) Niche Tourism (mass tourism is good, but targeted tourism is better. If you want to be successful find a niche and if none exists, create it)
All of them don't have to be developed to 100 per cent but each can be developed to account for a certain percentage that all adds up to 100 per cent. For example:
Offshore financial and international business services 10 per cent
Technology and Telecommunications 20 per cent
Health Care Services 10 per cent
Energy Solutions and Storage 5 per cent
Agriculture 3 per cent
Manufacturing 2 per cent
Niche Tourism 50 per cent
All of these industries are completely viable and given our small size, some can be developed for domestic consumption (although we will remain a heavily import-based economy due to our size, it can serve to slightly decrease our dependence on imports if things can be produced and consumed domestically) while others can be developed for regional and international trade.
Of course as time goes on we will see which sectors are doing better than others and either increase or decrease the percentages to reflect that. However, we have to know what category to fit each industry into and this way we wouldn't feel the squeeze as much as we are about to because we would not be solely dependent on one pillar to feed the entire country.
We need not look far for examples of small tourism-based countries increasing business in sectors other than tourism. Aruba, Bahamas, Cayman Islands, and several other Caribbean nations are steadily increasing business in sectors other than tourism so why can't we?
The Honourable Member of Parliament Claret Connor said in his opening statement during the recent parliamentary meeting that he doesn't have time for petty nonsense. With all due respect to him and the other parliamentarians and, by extension, the ministers, neither do the people of St. Martin.
I say that because they've mentioned each of these industries at one point in time in one meeting or another but if we as a nation are to emerge from the adverse impact of Irma the right way, it does no good to say that we know about these industries and still do nothing to implement them in our economy. Wisdom is the application of knowledge and right now the wisdom to apply and implement these industries into our economy should be the discussions occupying the minds of Parliament and the Council of Ministers.
Once we begin to use wisdom and hew out these pillars, we have students from SXM who are studying in these fields right now who are willing and able to come home. So if we want to secure the brightest minds of the future, begin to develop these industries and create an outlet for these students to come back and contribute through. That's sustainability.
That's when we can begin to see a SXM that we can be proud to call home in 10 years (I just presented a brief outline of a viable 10 year plan).
That is why we need people with an outlook of the future. Leaders who have seen the future have no problems leading people into it. It's detrimental to follow leaders who are more concerned about maintaining the status quo than breaking the status quo.
There is much about everything else: looting, aid and relief or the lack thereof, who did what, who didn't do what, Hurricane Luis in 1995, and then list goes on. At 21 days post-Irma let's talk less about the looting, talk less about the aid, and for heaven's sake talk less about Hurricane Luis of 1995! That's old news, there were lessons to be learned but now it's time to move on.
Let's elevate the discussions to things that benefit the people and the nation. We talk about everything else except the future. Let's talk about the future of our lives and our country. Let's talk about those futures! Let's go to that future, shall we? Let's do that!
Here is a quote that I believe is so relevant to us right now: “In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.” - Eric Hoffer. What this means is that those who do not learn to reinvent themselves in order to adapt to the change ushered in by Irma will find themselves unable to take advantage of the opportunities presented because of their failure to adapt.
So my question to our national leadership and my fellow compatriots is this: which side of the line do we want to be on, the side the moved to the future or the side that remained rooted in the past?
Darren Wilson,
A Future-Minded Millennial St. Martiner
