Dear Editor,
It is with great pleasure that I read in your newspaper of January 7, that Prime Minister William Marlin said that Government will be looking into the possibility of allowing St. Maarten students pursuing studies in the Netherlands to vote in the upcoming election in September. Especially so, because I championed this constitutional right of our citizens residing overseas since 2013.
It would have been nice to receive support for it then, especially when all the arguments word for word, used by the honourable Prime Minister were used by me in 2013, when I first had my article on this issue published in your newspaper. A year after my first article on this issue, the then honourable Member of Parliament Mrs. Gracita Arrindell championed the cause in an article she had published in your newspaper, after which, I published a second article on this same topic.
The difference between the championing of the cause by Mrs. Arrindell and PM, William Marlin versus mine, is that I did not exclude other citizens of this country merely because they do not reside here any longer. After all, this is the constitutional right all Dutch citizens born in the Netherlands have no matter where they reside within or out of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Are we to discriminate against and refuse this democratic right to our citizens just because they choose to live overseas like the sister of our Prime Minister did?
My son also choose to live overseas. His reason was that the subject he studied for does not provide work opportunities for him here yet. However, if this opportunity for work never presents itself does this mean that he might not want to come back in his old age and enjoy his pension here? After all, I was born in Curaçao but spend the majority of my life (40 years) on St. Maarten, building a future for him and his sister to benefit from. It is their inheritance and the only place they call their country.
My son, who by the way was born here, speaks of Canada as his second home; second is the key word here. On top of that, they look forward every year to come here on vacation and spend time with their loved ones and friends whom for the greater majority are citizens of this country. Am I to believe that they may not have a say in how this country is run? Did we ever stop to consider that when someone made a choice to live overseas it might be because of lack of opportunities back home and greener pastures elsewhere?
We are a tolerating country that permits over 114 citizens of other countries to call St. Maarten their home, all in search of greener pastures. They number thousands. They get a passport and with it, the right to vote. Yet our own are discriminated against and are told you made a choice to live overseas. Shame on those of us for thinking so little of our own. Think of all the non-purchased votes, the educated votes and the want my country to one day be a place with a government to be proud of, votes we are denying by excluding all born-here citizens residing overseas, the right to cast their votes.
If it can be done for a selective group, then it can be done for all citizens of this country. Yes, we should start with Holland, but not start with students only. I too hope. Only I hope that we one day, sooner than later, will not look down on our own but rather lift them up as part of “we” that they are.
Louis Rudy Engel
