Dear St. Maarteners,
We are writing this letter to the editor because we want the hardworking business owners, island people to know the following:
Apparently some of our government officials find it necessary to have a bbq party with booze, no mask and no social distance behind the Sky Port in Simpson Bay with about 30 people on Wednesday, May 6, 2020 from early afternoon until evening hours.
We small business people are trying to survive this COVID-19 crisis. When we heard about the J’ouvert party we were furious, the fact that people could do such a thing and maybe spoil our possibility on freedom.
We want our St. Maarten special investigation team under Prime Minister Jacobs to investigate this and that all who participated come forward. Names are known and will not be mentioned right now out of respect to Minister Jacobs. We trust she won’t approve such behavior and will act on this immediately.
We are all struggling in these very difficult times to keep our small businesses open. Rules are for every one of us, including these party officials. When people get fined for things they should not do it’s more than normal that these party officials get their part also.
This breaks our hearts and makes us all furious!
We don’t want this to be seen as a small thing. It’s more than ridiculous that things like this even happen. Especially when these officials should be an example for the people of St. Maarten.
We hope, Prime Minister Jacobs, you take action and let the people of St. Maarten know how you feel about this.
Name withheld at author’s request.
Re: Questions of a concern citizen
Dear Madame Prime Minister,
To begin with, thank you for suppling the emergency food ration to senior citizens, and also for your sense of responsibility and leadership during this COVID-19 pandemic crisis.
The main reason for these questions at the end of this letter, is so many promises were made to the people of this country by politicians during the parliamentary election, but none were ever fulfilled as promised.
It seems many promises were made to the people of this country in order to get elected into office, but now they are seeing a lot of deception and empty promises.
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way of doing business in the country. One thing for sure is life will never be the same as before. The Internet, social media, and news media have progressed the way forward in bringing valuable information to the community.
However, I suggest to anyone with important questions to address them publicly to you in the same way I have done to get satisfactory results. Please find questions below. Responding to these questions in the news media is most welcome to let the public aware of issues affecting their livelihood.
Joseph Harvey
Questions to the Prime Minister
- Why the Treaty of Concordia in 1648 is not ratified by France and the Netherlands?
- When is the new hospital is going to be build?
- Why is the public library is taking so long to be repaired or rebuilt?
- Why are the tenants of SMHDF not receiving a financial relief from the COVID-19 pandemic stimulus package, and many people are out of work, with cost of living extremely high?
- How many people are unemployed in the country? Please give fair estimate.
- What are the government’s plans to keep the guilder pegged to the United States currency?
- Even though oil prices are low on the world market, why are the prices for gasoline and cooking gas still so high?
- How does your government plan to generate income in this pandemic crisis?
- The people of Belvedere were promised to earn their unit, the tenants are still waiting for a public response from government as promised?
- What is the national debt of country St. Maarten?
- Why there is not a community center for the people of Belvedere?
Thank you for your co-operation in this matter.
Dear Editor,
Actions speak louder than words. It is pivotal to use Caribbean data as a new communication tool to let leisure and opportunities lead to new regional ventures. The Caribbean should begin executing a regional vision and encourage the diaspora to collaborate and invest in a joint vision.
A united vision can be expressed in three key aspects. Firstly, it is a privilege and benefit to enjoy being home in the Caribbean. Secondly, taking comfort in the fact that there are ample opportunities available to live and grow these cultural advancements and attributes in a sustainable and qualitative manner. Ultimately, having the confidence that people can live in a “human threat free” community, where there are no worries about natural threats and the disturbance to our state of normalcy.
The joy of being home
The stress-free environment of the Caribbean is a key asset that distinguishes the Caribbean from many other areas of the world. It is important for Caribbeans, whether living in the region or in the diaspora, to know that it is a joy being home in the Caribbean. The evolution of the idea to take off your shoes and have relaxed moments, can be considered the cornerstone; the hallmark of the Caribbean experience. Most locals in the region take this for granted.
There are several key issues that one can focus on. For one, structuring the ability to merge the feeling or experience of being at home in the Caribbean with the ability to adequately provide for one’s family. Another issue is the ability to have more freedom to define daily activities and find a balance between work and leisure. And finally, being able to actually enjoy the Caribbean experience knowing that it is the envy of the rest of the world.
Being exposed, having the flexibility, and the rare treat to reach out and touch each island in the region is a great excitement. So is the ability to travel to any desired international destination from the Caribbean. Understanding the Caribbean context can be used as a positive motivation to inspire and recognize the value of what it means “to be home in the Caribbean”.
Plentiful opportunities
There are enough opportunities available in the Caribbean that allow the Caribbean citizens to live in a sustainable and qualitative manner.
The Caribbean region should know what each island has to offer and provide a true analytical measure to help individual businesses and young ventures. It will recognize that their added value plays an essential role and is a privilege. Developing connected industry data centers for the Caribbean will enable to profile regionally what the capacity of the region looks like. In the key industries, it will help structure a true social and market support expression. It will provide the region with the ability to observe patterns, encourage innovation and help young and mature entrepreneurs develop new strategies.
Understanding the connective industries will require a cultural curve. It will also initiate a new “technical language” with terms like Industry 4.0 and Society 5.0. Industry 4.0, simply stated, refers to the use of technology in every aspect of our industrial manufacturing processes, while Society 5.0 speaks to the condition of technology being incorporated into every aspect of social life, meaning people living in smart societies.
The Caribbean is potentially the ideal place for all forms of individual, family, and business leisure activities. The majority of the islands in the Caribbean are still looking to tourism as their main economic pillar. However, over the last decades more and more alternative economic alternatives for stability have begun to evolve and mature. Some of the industries of note are the music industry, the fashion industry, the sports industry, the culinary industry, and in certain areas the agricultural industry. The main question is, what’s next?
A flourishing community
The Caribbean region has the potential for living in a “human-threat-free” community, which is resistant to natural disasters. Being able to meet this challenge will be a final support that will encourage the people of the Caribbean to feel safe. They can enjoy a healthy Caribbean-based work career while being home and being able to properly explore and innovate many of the necessary developments that will be needed for this new Caribbean condition.
The Caribbean will benefit once it identifies a formal structure that embraces a new and innovative vision. For instance, strengthening its position in the regional yachting industry by developing super-yacht maintenance and service centers and niche supplies. It is also essential to have a better understanding of the fishing and produce industries.
A necessary level of clarity and flexibility exists within the context of the many changing industries. The fast pace that technology is causing our global community to change from day to day, as the South Korean saying goes “Pali-Pali”, quick and quicker. The timeframe of change is rapid. It becomes even more necessary to define niche markets and to facilitate relearning programs. These are necessary to help innovate alternative products and strategies for the Caribbean region going forward.
The Caribbean is ready to define its foundation and become a region that will help bring fresh ideas to the world and open new avenues for diverse opportunities and innovative ventures.
Damien Richardson
By Alex Rosaria
Conspiracy theories. We’ve seen them on social media or had someone convince us to believe them at face value. They come in all flavors. The moon landing was faked, yet somehow all the Russian and non-American astrophysicists weren’t able to pick up on this scam. The earth is flat even though we’ve known since at least Aristotle that it’s round. Beneath the Denver International Airport there’s a colony of flesh-eating human lizards determined to enslave the human race. And, if you look very carefully, these reptile humanoids like Madonna, Barack Obama, Angelina Jolie, involuntarily shapeshift from human to reptile to human again. Conspiracy theorists now claim that 5G transmits the coronavirus.
Why would anyone believe these stories? A recent study in the Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition sheds some light. Evidence is provided that delusion-prone, narrow-minded individuals and religious fundamentalists are more likely to believe conspiracy theories (CT) as long as these theories mirror their particular worldview. If you were brought up in an environment that loathes the Western World, it is easier to believe the CT that AIDS was created in the US and Europe to kill black and brown people. This is why a CT believer doesn’t believe all theories out there, he’s selective.
CTs aim to calm the human fear of the unknown and come up with non-scientific reasoning of what seems to be unexplainable. These theories were never meant to find the truth, but to give us a temporary sense of relief from the distress in our lives. A brutal dictator may want to promote the theory that the abject poverty in his country is not due to his own mismanagement, but a result of blood-drinking human reptiles.
Proponents of these theories want to control the behaviors of their victims and push their own political or ideological agendas. CTs can wreak havoc on society. We’ve seen that with the destruction of 5G antennas, a surge in measles, the recent Pittsburgh synagogue massacre, killing of albino children in some parts of Africa and many more.
CTs are not unlike religions. In ancients times, people invented a god to explain things people didn’t understand. Different societies, each with a different set of experiences and explanations, had different god(s). They were never interested in the scientific truth. We’re seeing the same thing happening as conspiracy theories permeate larger sections of societies. CTs are taking on the role of religion and they are feeding fundamentalist beliefs.
Like religions, CTs don’t just emerge in a vacuum. They aim to simplify things and provide believers with a sense of reassurance in a fast-changing world. We should avoid belittling them, but at the same time we can’t afford to ignore CTs. They have become too mainstream now.
What can truth seekers do? Confront all believers with factual evidence (fact-checking). But caution, it may not work, especially when dealing with fanatics who blindly believe what they want to believe.
~ Alex David Rosaria (53) is a freelance consultant active in Asia and the Pacific. He is a former Member of Parliament, Minister of Economic Affairs, State Secretary of Finance and UN Implementation Officer in Africa and Central America. He is from Curaçao and has an MBA from University of Iowa (USA). ~
Dear Editor,
I recently watched a tourism promotional video clip issued by the Department of Tourism of Malaga, an old Spanish city, and some thoughts ran through my mind:
St. Maarten/St. Martin has so much to learn from places like Malaga, in the Southeastern section of Spain, when it comes to the “how to” part of tourism. But then, Malaga is a bit older and, in this case for sure, a lot wiser.
On our island we have to fix our outdated and terribly deficient tax system so that everyone can with great ease and not a lot of effort pay his/her fair share of taxes. Because without money in the coffers, no government can achieve the level of service and services a population must be able to expect at a minimum and more.
Then simultaneously we have to attract the best and the brightest of our own people to fill crucial positions needed to go forward with a vision. Then we need politicians that are able to govern with integrity, wisdom and selfless passion, providing leadership that, while focusing on the nuts function of Government, they and it do not get in the way of “free enterprise”, but facilitate it.
Our judicial system must be swift in meting out fair and consistent judicial oversight, that encourages people to do “the right thing” and quickly punishes those that don’t.
We must stop importing “poverty” and where we do not have qualified locals (people with roots either through family ancestry and/or investment and/or blood, sweat and tears), we must not be afraid to attract/import and pay for the best and the brightest from anywhere in the world to help raise “the levels that will allow all boats to float”.
And then, as a community, we the people must contribute our fair share of whatever “positiveness” we have to offer St. Maarten/St. Martin and stop accepting mediocrity, stop hiding behind “I from here and you are a foreigner”, stop playing the “race” card when we run out of solid arguments.
We must learn to respect one another for who and what we (hopefully all) are: lovers of this incredible 37-square-mile island in the Caribbean sun.
Mike Ferrier
