Dear Editor,
There I was, nibbling my toast and drinking my coffee and starting to read Saturday’s Editorial, and after a very few sentences nearly choked and shot coffee out of my nose.
There, in black and white and in a newspaper that purports to be in touch with the real world is an Editorial that suggests that it somehow makes sense for Government to spend roughly a quarter million dollars to support a Carnival, while a huge percentage of the population is either homeless and/or living in hopeless desperation.
The Editor makes the case (which I happen to believe is absurd on its face) that first, tourists by the thousands plan their vacations here around these Carnival dates, because it is such a world-class social event rivaled only by the World Cup, and secondly, that the tourist industry itself will surely collapse in ruin if the Government decides to maybe, put roofs on people’s homes or flat out giving them subsidies to live on, since a whole bunch of them are out of work and broke.
With all due respect, Mr. Editor, your logic is, at best, absolutely insane and at worst, heartless and cruel in the extreme. My father was the City Editor of a major daily newspaper for 50 years, and I can tell you that he would have spiked that piece before it every got near the copy desk. Let me understand this clearly. You want to tell some family living in a home where the rain pours in and that has no food to eat, " Sorry...you don't get a roof or food because a bunch of guys want to get together and get drunk for a week or so, and raise hell so they can feel good for a bit" Really ? That’s the best advice you can come up with at a time when real people are suffering terribly? That makes the golden flag pole look like the greatest humanitarian gesture of all time. And, just out of curiosity, where do you think the money is going to come from for people to spend at Carnival? Or where are all these hotel rooms where all these mythical Carnival travelers are going to stay?
Newsflash, Mr. Editor. Nobody plans to come here just for Carnival. They wake up at 3:00am in their hotel rooms and say, “Geese, what's all that noise?" And only then do they discover what Carnival is all about. Do the locals love it? Absolutely and they deserve their time away and their week or two of drunkenness and celebration. They plan for it big time and it is a serious deal for them, both culturally and economically. I get it... really.
But do you honestly believe that any one of those parade goers or participants is willing to say that their few beers and 105 db. noise is a worthwhile tradeoff for them or someone else to be living in a house with no roof? Do you believe that the Carnival organizers are so completely selfish and callous and so out of touch as to say, “Our event is more important than people's very lives and survival?” All I can say is,
"Geeze, I hope not", because if it turns out that you are correct about all this and I'm wrong then there is simply no hope at all for this culture or society as it exists here now.
Steven Johnson
Editor’s note: Mr. Johnson clearly has no idea how many regional visitors and particularly from other Dutch Caribbean islands come to St. Maarten at the end of April, especially for Carnival every year. The Daily Herald stands by its editorial.
