Iguanas matters too. The rise of the Black Lives, White Lives and All Lives matter too movements has helped to raise awareness of the sanctity of every human life, regardless of race, colour, culture, socio-economic status, religion, sexual orientation, etcetera.

  The narrative in recent times has shifted in many human relationships from one of toxic “you versus I” to one of inclusivity and accommodation. Lines of “otherness” in many instances that were once distinct, pitting one group against another, on the basis of acquired differences (wholly by accidents of birth) has been blurred.

  As a species, we are approaching, albeit slowly, the realisation of our shared humanity and in the process we continue to hope for and envisage a moment sometime yonder when we will either by social and/or biological evolution divorce ourselves from the superficial importance we have accorded our existence.

  This attitude of “humans come first” has propagated its fair share of harm and has been largely responsible for the carnage we have caused to befall members of our own species and other life forms. But are we really any more important than iguanas?

  The iguanas of St. Maarten are an endangered species, meaning – they are on the brink of becoming non-existent, never to be seen again on the island. And this is so despite the humongous efforts of members of the St. Maarten Nature Foundation, animal activists and other pro-life individuals. Nevertheless, I am not sure if the battle to save these wonderful creatures will be won.

  However, the question that can invite us to act collectively to reverse their impending doom is whether the battle can be won and what does that entail from us? I choose to err on the side of being optimistic that with greater sensitisation and awareness of who we are in relation to iguanas, we can at least provide some flicker of hope.

  No iguana has an interest in crossing our busy roadways fully aware of its imminent fate, but it does so all the same because it lacks the consciousness to determine and undertake a safe course of action. It’s a dreadful, unpleasant and extremely sad sight to observe iguanas degutted on the roadways while humans continue to display a callous and disgusting disregard for their mangled bodies. A human life that meets the same fate under similar circumstances will almost always elicit and stir feelings of grief, sadness, lost etc. Why should it be any different with another life form whose very existence forms a part of the collective web of life which we are connected to and consciously or unconsciously depend on?

  We are living in an era where money has become the single most important currency of value. The value of the environment, culture, animals, plants, morals, etcetera, has all been subordinated to the relentless pursuit of money. We are producing and consuming at an alarming rate not taking cognisance of the damage, some irreversible, that we are inflicting on other facets of life, all in the name of “progress”.

  We are quick to dismiss intangibles, everything must be measurable, quantity over quality. Our selfish predisposition has forever etched in our minds the thought that we come first. We have granted ourselves the right to dominate and diminish the importance of other members of our own species, let alone iguanas.

  Iguanas will continue to encroach upon our space, in some cases inadvertently getting killed or injured and in other cases violently hacked to death and dismembered. Their being in proximity to our abode should not be construed as a threat, justifying our quickness to terminate their lives. As a matter of fact, it’s the activities of man and not nature, as some are inclined to think, that are disrupting their habitats pushing them closer to cohabitate with us.

  Iguanas have no business living among us, they lead more flourishing and natural lives when they are in their natural homes. One only has to visit an iguana’s sanctuary and you become instantly enthralled with the intricacies of their behaviour and personalities, tame, calm, aggressive, attentive, curious … they are free to be the creatures they have evolved to become, living harmoniously, something humans have hitherto been unable to accomplish collectively and which seems to be constantly eluding us in spite of our best efforts.

  Our progress as a species appears to be fluctuating with increments of forward motion followed by prolonged reversals. It is known that every organism that has been imbued with the life force of nature is entirely at the whims and fancies of time and with time comes decay, aging and death. Implicitly this awareness is an equaliser which places us all on a level playing field performing different roles.

  Human beings have been endowed or evolved (depends which side of the fence you are on) to augment and support the preservation of other forms of life whose capacity to adapt has declined over time for varying reasons. It is not wholly by chance that we are an ecological success, the only species that can survive almost anywhere on planet earth. This awareness oftentimes tempts us to succumb to the thought that we are inherently superior to other creatures and we commit the mistake thinking we are, by attributing meaning and thought to this observation which in itself is just what it is – pure observation.

  The realisation that one of our roles is to protect and impact the lives of other species that are differently capable than us and whose roles are equally as important for maintaining equilibrium of our planet can help to bring about attitudinal change in our approach for the preservation of nature’s creatures.

Orlando Patterson

Dear Editor,

  Over the years two different people told me that they were embarrassed by Immigration officers of the country that they visited. When they were asked and answered that they lived on St. Maarten the response that they got from the attending Immigration officer was, “That corrupt country.”

  Because I know that the only way for evil to win is for good people to keep quiet, I asked them what did they do about it when they got back home. The answer I got was, “Who you want me to complain to? You think they going to do anything about it when they know the people right?”

  One might say, “Why after all these years is Russell only now writing about it?” I probably never pinpointed it, but I believe that almost all of us know how to gossip, so we should also know how to pick sense out of nonsense or even read between the lines. This is not a question of fine print. On several occasions I have mentioned that the Dutch, who are the masters in infrastructure development, have not taught us a thing in all those years. That is why I always use the term “laat ze maar rotsooien.”

  No, I do not have to hint anymore, it has reached so far that even the Dutch defendant has used “corruption being rampant on Sint Maarten” as part of his defense in court. I believe that that is a general insult to the people of St. Maarten and part of his sentence should be, besides giving back the people their money, that he should write a letter in public stating that he has contributed towards defaming the name of St. Maarten internationally. If he knows that corruption is rampant in St. Maarten and he has been doing business with the corrupt ones, along with people in government, for so long, then at the least he is guilty by association and encouraging corruption.

  When I Google the word “corrupt” it says, “Having or showing a willingness to act dishonestly in return for money or personal gain.” So, who paid who and whose fault is it? When actually did it start? Now this.

  When I started to work, my father sat me down and told me that it would be a challenge for me because, just one year after leaving Aruba to go to the police academy, I was back working as a policeman in San Nicolas, Aruba, where I was born and raised. “People are going to try bribing you, but it is better to get 10 guilders every day, than for someone to give you 100 guilders today and you are not sure where you are going to get the rest tomorrow. It might not be much,” he said, “but it is a steady income and you can make a budget on that.”

  I believe that MP-elect Grisha means well, but I cannot budget on handouts from supermarkets. Customs has to control and administrate the contents of those containers in the right way, then the prices in the supermarkets will be under control, and if the seniors’ pension is made livable, then we can budget on that also.

  Another one from my father while teasing my mother who was in his skin for not reaching home on time: “The problem with silence being golden is that silence is also consent.”

Russell A. Simmons

In February 2018, I got introduced to the, what I like to call, “towing mafia” of St. Maarten. Allegedly, my vehicle was parked at a wrong location in Philipsburg and I found myself going to the Police Station where I wanted to find out where my car was. The police were able to track my vehicle to a towing agency in Dutch Quarter, who used intimidating strategies to make me pay a 75-dollar towing fee. Under threat of a dog, I was explained that I could only pay in cash because “the machine was broken” and I did not receive a receipt. On top of that, the St. Maarten Police KPSM never provided me with a formal fine, only adding to the lack of transparency of this experience.

  After multiple requests to the KPSM to provide me the evidence for why my vehicle was towed, I asked the Ombudsman for assistance. This eventually led to a hearing with the Deputy Chief of Police because never was the KPSM able to provide the requested evidence, nor were they able to provide me the legal or policy basis for how a towing process works. The sole documentation stating the processes of how cars are towed, was from January 2019.

  During the hearing, it became clear that the KPSM, nor Government has contracts with towing agencies. Yet, they seem to be able to tow away vehicles as they please and make a business out of it. It is unclear why and how a specific company is allowed to take a vehicle while legal basis seems missing. When a vehicle gets damaged during the process, nobody can be held liable. The amount to be charged by a towing agency is not regulated. Moreover, there seems to be no tracking system of where the money actually goes. The towing mafia is probably not the only one making money on this scheme.

  While I am still waiting to hear an apology or receive back the money I was forced to hand off, I would like to encourage everybody who got their vehicle towed before January 2019, to make an inquiry about their case. It is time to hold government and its public bodies accountable. Yearly elections do not seem to work. Perhaps inquiring on a mass level with specific public bodies will.

Humera Alam

By Alex Rosaria

Eight years ago, the statue of Peter Stuyvesant was removed from the secondary school in Curaçao that bore its name. The responsible Minister of Education removed the statue and immediately promised an alternative location for it. Today no one seems to know its whereabouts. The current minister gave local authorities two weeks to find the statue. It hasn’t been found and nobody seems to care anymore.

  In the months preceding the removal of Peter Stuyvesant’s statue, activists contended that Stuyvesant was an extreme racist who targeted blacks, Catholics, Jews and energetically tried to deny them any basic rights. Counter-protesters felt that Stuyvesant, Director-General of Curaçao from 1645 to 1664, had become part of our heritage and that his statue should remain as a historical symbol.

  History cannot be erased. That’s correct. But should we remember history or historical facts with statues that celebrate those who have perpetuated heinous acts? Or do we, while not denying history, honour those who fought against atrocities committed throughout history?

  Protests and counter-protests on symbols of hate have been going on in the U.S. (Confederate symbols), South Africa (Apartheid symbols), Canada (symbols linked with the genocide of the Canadian original population) and elsewhere for some time now. Germany doesn’t have a single Hitler statue. Germany will never fail to remember its bloody history, but not via Nazi statues. The German example may be a bit extreme, but it makes the point.

  Returning to Peter Stuyvesant, it is very interesting to go back in history, as I did in an article I wrote in February 2011 and establish that the statue of Stuyvesant has absolutely nothing to do with honouring his place in the history of Curaçao. The statue arrived in Curaçao in 1940 (almost three centuries after his death) simply because of a whim of a single man, Wybo Jan Goslinga.

  According to the monthly Neerlandia, March 1944, Dutchman Wybo Goslinga, Education Inspector in Curaçao, held a speech in 1939 as member of a local service club in which he made a strong appeal to have a statue of Peter Stuyvesant, a “very brave man.” He was fascinated with a statue he had seen earlier in New York. He then convinced the KLM Director to go to New York to negotiate with Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, the designer of the Stuyvesant statue in New York and was able to convince her to make an identical copy at cost price. Mid-1940, the statue arrives in Curaçao. And then the problems started.

  According to the abovementioned edition of Neerlandia, nobody knew what to do with the statue or where to place it. The statue spent the first year after its arrival in a dusty barrack of Curaçao’s International Airport, Hato.

  Then a lucky break in 1941. In that year Curaçao’s first secondary school was founded and Goslinga, still passionate about Stuyvesant, named the school after his hero and automatically decided that the statue would be placed in front of the new school.

  The statue was moved from Hato to a dusty gym facility where it would stay for two more years because the Department of Public Works did not consider this project to be a priority.

  Finally, the statue was placed in front of the school, Peter Stuyvesant College, in 1943. It should be obvious that the presence of Stuyvesant’s statue on Curaçao is bereft of any kind of historical meaning whatsoever.

  Interestingly, a Jewish activist group is now demanding New York City’s Mayor de Blasio to scrub all traces of the anti-Semitic Dutch ex-governor from city property – even Stuyvesant High School and the original Stuyvesant statue in Manhattan’s Stuyvesant Park – as part of his campaign to rid the city of “symbols or hate”.

  Meanwhile, we wait and see where Stuyvesant’s statue in Curaçao is located. It should not come as a surprise if it turns up in a dusty barrack somewhere because “l’histoire se répète.”

  ~ 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). ~