Dear Editor,
There was a time when decision-making in Sint Maarten took place rapidly and efficiently. Particularly in the era of Claude Wathey, the dominant politician whose outstanding communication skills and understanding of the community, led to quick results and rapid advancement of the territory. Fast forward to 2019 and decision- making has clearly become so difficult, that serious questions arise in respect of governance of the territory.
There are, of course, huge differences between the nature of decisions in those early years. Many decisions were made in Curaçao until 2010. The institutions that played a role in decision-making were far fewer. The constitutional processes for decision- making were far fewer. The territories’ challenges were more obvious.
The constitutional processes are of Dutch design. Decision-making processes were the nuanced result of centuries of development. Endless entities to cover all eventualities to ensure good governance and equitable management of public resources are the basis of the Constitution and government structure. A model that was relatively successful in Europe and well regarded, but showing a dramatically different track record in this very young governance entity that is Sint Maarten.
The failure to function is not leading to a fundamental review of the structure, it is instead leading to extensive rhetoric against “the Dutch” who have inherited the seat of blame from Willemstad, the earlier incumbents of this doubtful honour.
The backdrop to this decision-making is a stratified community. The private sector is dominated by persons without strong connections to the core political elite. The population with the most local roots is challenged in respect of its identity and is searching for solutions that avoid it being overrun by newer immigrants; a group of highly varied origins.
The control of the public sector therefore becomes – from their perspective – vital to its protection in the long run, and hence the intense conflicts in the public sector leading to logjams in decision-making and instability as the conflicts are not resolved. The focus on the public sector inevitably leads to a lesser focus on the private sector and the economic motor that supports the country as a whole.
The further backdrop is a community where the social control that existed in a small island community is waning, and social media, television, access and view to many lifestyles is the basis of increased expectations. Those expectations are increasingly voiced, but do not translate into governance execution.
There are clearly opportunities for innovative leadership both in the Sint Maarten government as well as the Kingdom government to escape the logjam position the country finds itself in. The instability and lack of decision-making has been with us now for the majority of the country status period (2010 to 2019 ) and there has not been any action that is likely to reduce the instability. If there is any surprise, it should not be about the continued instability but more about the lack of action to prevent it.
Robbie Ferron
Dear Editor,
The votes of no-confidence tabled against Ministers Miklos Giterson - VROMI; Cornelius de Weever-Justice; Perry Geerlings - Finance and Emil Lee - Health were imminent for quite a while. What has stalled these executions is that the MPs, who support these verdicts, were acting on a directive of how and when to implement them. The chain of events is there to enlighten the public as to who is behind these commands.
However, viewing the argument brought forward to dismiss the VROMI Minister is debatable. Even though the implications of the court’s ruling do not fit the behaviour that is expected of a minister, is it a fair call to discharge him? If the motion was based on his inability to manage his ministry, then the proposal would be justified. It would be interesting to see which opposition members will vote for the motion, because publicly, one of them has ordered the Minister not to resign.
It is so clear that the minister is not dancing to the tune of his piper, because it is rumoured that before the ink was dried on the minister’s resignation letter, one of his cabinet members made some inquiry as to the procedures into him becoming the next VROMI minister. Miklos had to fire him a long time ago. Besides, the minister had to expose the young MP, who is dictating how he should run his ministry.
With regard to the Minister of Justice, he too is being caught up in a spider web, spun by those who have used him for their benefit. Now that he has served their purpose, and is refusing to bend to their wishes, they want to push him aside. When it was announced that the coalition asked two ministers to resign, the people need to question if it’s the entire coalition, or a few rabble rousers, acting on behalf of their captain?
Yes, the minister has failed to communicate effectively with the people, but what does one expect of an introvert? A few years ago, an inmate was shot dead in prison. Did the then Minister of Justice resign after this horrific crime? Children are being molested every day. Guns and drugs have literally penetrated every district in this community. Which Justice Minister has done the honourable thing as gesture of his failure?
Finance Minister Perry Geerlings has done a horrible job with the budget and should take full responsibility for the chaos he has created. To present a budget on the heel of the upcoming financial statement is unacceptable. This is a display of his incompetence and a complete waste of taxpayers’ money. His cocky attitude has defiled him. For sure, he would have been better off if he had hired some local consultants and heeded the genuine advice of Parliament.
Minister Emil Lee needs an article for himself, but I will try to compact my thoughts. I believe the population is being bamboozled, every time this minister addresses the public. Whatever he says, one has to take it with a grain of salt. Minister Lee has never admitted his failures; instead, he tries to wiggle himself out of every situation that warrants any form of transparency.
Almost four years ago, Minister Lee campaigned on building a new hospital. To date, nothing has materialized, but he is still obsessed with an idea that was not his to begin with. Will the hospital be named ‘Emil Lee General Hospital’? And then he plans to erect another huge building. Why the obsession with buildings? I guess the population will be greeted with the sign ‘Welcome to Emil Lee Smart Complex.’
Well, the straw that broke the camel’s back was when MP Christopher Emmanuel asked the minister to pull up the letter on screen again. All of a sudden, the letter was nowhere to be found. Is this not a familiar scenario from the minister who claims to be transparent? And, I must say that the Vice Chair ought to be ashamed of himself, to allow the minister to get away with that tactic. But as the saying goes, “The longest rope has an end.”
Chairlady Sarah Wescot-Williams, it is time to acknowledge that Minister Emil Lee has failed miserably; therefore, you cannot in good conscience keep him there any longer. Your decision to recruit him has been the worst judgment of your political career, which has eventually led to the demise of the Democratic Party.
MP Wescot-Williams, you have no control over the minister’s heart, thoughts or decisions. What he thrives on is your support. Therefore, for the good of the people and this country, it is time to withdraw that support and send him home!
Joslyn Morton
Dear Editor,
“Knowing how to live is a duty, it is the ultimate form of knowing how to die. … When contemplation and knowledge compete with a good deed, it is the good deed that takes priority.” So states Michel Onfray in his latest book, Sagesse – Savoir vivre au pied d’un volcan (Wisdom – Knowing How to Live at the Foot of a Volcano), Albin Michel/Flammarion, 2019. Sagesse is not yet available in English; I have translated its title, various passages of the text, and I have, necessarily, paraphrased the author throughout this summary of his book.
Wisdom attempts to answer a number of very concrete questions centered on the most fundamental of all concerns: how to cope with the time that one is allotted – how to live? How to be strong when in pain, when suffering? How to try to age well? How to tame death? Whether or not one should have children? How to keep one’s word? What is love and friendship? These are the main questions the author tries to answer as he discusses activities such as “speaking,” “laughing,” “avenging”, “consoling,” “endeavoring,” “owning,” and a number of others.
“Like Pliny the Elder in 79 A.D., we are living at the foot of a volcano that is about to erupt; in a civilization that is crumbling.” The Greco-centered Judeo-Christian philosophy of the West is mythology: “esoteric theories” that are foredoomed. How should we cope and carry on? Onfray suggests that we read; that we study the writings of the ancient Romans that are full of examples we can try to follow. In a rain of volcanic ashes and fire, Pliny the Elder sets out to assist a friend in danger; Pliny dies while trying to rescue his friend.
There is no way I can to do justice to 500 pages of scholarly information and analysis in this review. In Wisdom there are enough gems to ignite the curiosity of most readers. One such diamond must suffice as an example: “Lucretius’ Cynical Poem.” This is a chapter in which Onfray discusses Pierre Vesperini’s Lucretius – Archeology of a European Classic (2017).” By all accounts, this study of Lucretius’ immensely influential poem, “De Rerum Natura” (On the Nature of Things) is revolutionary in its implications. It is a devastating critique of what Vesperini calls “the myth of Lucretius.”
Vesperini’s reading of Lucretius’ poem is in line with that of some trail-blazers: Karl Marx, Gilles Deleuze and Michel Serres; and with contemporaries: Jacques Lezra and Thomas Nail among others. Contrary to Stephen Greenblatt’s book The Swerve: How the World Became Modern (2011), Vesperini’s argues that Lucretius was not a faithful disciple of Epicurus. According to Onfray, Vesperini’s research points to Lucretius being a “paracynique”; that is, “he utilizes the arguments of the Cynics without subscribing to their tradition.” Onfray cites one of the key sentences in Vesperini’s book: “The Romans did not believe in the study of the philosophers.”
Onfray explains that Lucretius’ famous invocation to Venus negates the teaching of Epicurus that considers the gods as superstition; that in Lucretius’ poem there are strong elements that point to an opposition between two civilizations: the Greek’s, more concerned with ideas than with reality, and the Roman’s, more interested in the real world; more indifferent to mental constructions. He adds that the opposition is also between two individuals: an Epicurus of frail health who “extrapolates” (projects) his idiosyncrasies onto his disciples; and a Lucretius full of health who believes that love is not a poison that must, absolutely, be shunned, but “a mechanics of fluids: a clogging of atomic molecules that calls for a therapy of unclogging as with faucet valves in plumbing” (p.177).
According to Onfray, Lucretius counsels to beware of exclusive love, of passionate (romantic) love in particular; he views the fusion as an illusion; he knows that desire satisfied in pleasure leads to another desire; and that all of that wears off, ends in unhappiness, in pain, suffering and regret. “Lucretius celebrates a passion that is serene: of the old couple where love is built without Venus, after her, beyond her, without her. … Lucretius’ poem is an epic, like the Iliad and the Odyssey … an epic of what? Of all that is … It is more in keeping with Aristotle’s encyclopedic genre than with Epicureanism … Lost as we are in the dance of the atoms, Lucretius proposes a clinamen (a swerve) for a new world – one for a tragic life rid of the double madness of hope and despair” (p.167-178).
Having praised the ancient Romans throughout his text, the author concludes with a chapter in which he reviews their numerous shortcomings, but not without comparing their civilization to others, particularly that of the ancient Greeks, and their followers: the Greco-Romans, the Christians, and to our modern Western (Judeo-Christian) civilization “that is imploding, crumbling.” Onfray calls for a return to the writings of the ancient Romans (annalists and historians), he lists a number of their works, and on the last page of his “Conclusion,” he writes: “Wisdom is nothing other than a book that proposes to retrieve the courage to face death for all of those who do not believe in God” (p. 474).
Gérard M. Hunt
Dear Editor,
Dr. Mercelina claims he tabled a motion against Minister Lee because of his “love for country”. I question this, and here is why: What this country needs now more than anything is for personal ego’s to be parked, power plays to be put on hold and the economic challenges to be tackled by all. Stability in government now more than ever HAS to be everyone’s focus, especially for all those that have signed on to the present Governing Accord. Being part of a coalition with a very slim one-seat majority takes more skill and political savvy to maintain the abovementioned stability. And then this: St. Maarten, a geographically small island nation, with a not yet decade-old parliamentary democracy, has a lot going on and not all of it is good!
Hurricane Irma was devastating, but prior to that event, there were quite a few social and economic challenges. The economy wasn’t really growing, there were and still are clear signs of inequality; there are growing divisions among the various groups and the government was and is financially constrained. To recover from Hurricane Irma and with few if any reserves to cover disasters, St. Maarten must deal with a single donor with whom, unfortunately, it has a strained and complicated relationship. Conditions and requirements (set by the donor) make for “slow going” as it relates to investment of actual funds for the reconstruction and recovery of the community.
According to the Prime Minister, $22 million has been DISBURSED to date. That is $22 million of a promised $550 million after 22 months. As former Minister of Finance, I have gone on record with my position regarding the Trust Fund. The process is overly bureaucratic and too focused on procedures rather than social/economic effective results, especially on the short term, when the needs for so many post-Irma continue to be huge. So, getting our economy up to speed, thereby creating jobs so people can continue to help themselves while awaiting the release of Trust Fund money, HAS to be our focus! No other viable alternatives (PLAN B’s) have to date presented themselves! Instead, on July 2nd, 2019, we are still without an approved national budget 2019. And after days of unbecoming, downright low-level grand standing by some MPs, where are we?
Following countless hours of questions and long-winded, often off-topic monologues, there are two motions of non-confidence pending; one of which has the potential to cause a crisis in government. Specifically, the motion tabled by MP Doc Luc. What are these motions supposed to achieve? Who benefits? The people of St. Maarten? Really? Members of Parliament, representatives of the people, who earn nearly 15 times the minimum wage, retire at the age of 60, receive redundancy pay when they resign (or are fired), and can have side jobs, feel that the most important thing for the budget debate is a change of ministers? To be clear, the opposition doesn’t really need a reason: the way politics works in St. Maarten is that being “opposition” means disagreeing with government: basically, just be against everything government proposes.
But how about the true motive for the motion from a coalition MP against the Minister of VSA? What is really going on there? According to MP Doc Luc, he wants a constitutional revolution. Really? As I know my limitations, I have asked people smarter than me to “unpack” this: Here is what they came up with: “Constitutional” relates to the basic principles governing the country. A “Revolution” is a change that occurs rapidly and massively, leading to a fundamental transformation of society. We have all heard about “silent marches”, but the “Revolution” MP Doc Luc refers to, must be the quietest version ever! No riots, no protests, no strikes, no referendum. Just one MP out of step with his fellow Coalition Member colleagues.
The MP mentioned several points to support his call for revolution, including dollarization, getting rid of the CFT and making English the “only official language”. Never mind that these issues cannot be achieved on short term, they will do little to improve the recovery and reconstruction of our country and have no effect on Budget 2019.
More importantly, what does this “constitutional revolution” and all the 10 reasons provided for it, have to do with the motion against the Minister VSA? And the opposition is onboard with this call for a “constitutional revolution”. I guess they DO understand how the dots connect, because they SIGNED the motion. Maybe they can explain it! And can the opposition and/or MP Dr. Luc also explain why the Minister of VROMi and the Minister of Finance have to leave as well. All these changes….are they part of the revolution?
With all the proposed changes in the Council of Ministers, I wonder who is going to execute the Budget 2019, assuming it passes? Who is going to make sure the money gets into the reconstruction? Who is going to do all this “caring about the people of St. Maarten”? Does it really matter to those Parliamentarians playing the obstruction game? I guess not. St. Maarten has been waiting 22 months and counting. No skin off their noses. They keep getting paid. Come to think of it, it is hoped enough money was budgeted for redundancy pay for ministers who are leaving and salary for 3-4 new ministers.
So, MP Dr. Luc, I ask again: What is the end goal? I don’t know about a constitutional revolution, but I believe your (in my opinion) ill-advised motion against Minister Lee MAY head us to our next constitutional crisis. As I understand it, there is still time for you to have a change of heart and really do the best thing to guarantee our continued, albeit annoyingly slow recovery. Personal political interests and ambitions have nothing to do with the needs of St. Maarten and its people.
And to quote my learned friends: “Democracy allows, in fact encourages, diverse opinions and ideologies. But if the freedom to disagree, criticize and oppose is taken to absurd and impractical extremes such as we are witnessing in Parliament, the only thing that will be achieved is chaos”. Several St. Maarten politicians shout at the top of their lungs that “others” are taking over, but ignore the fact that THEY are the ones who are facilitating the division that will allow us to be conquered.
But what do I know? Viva la revolución!
Michael J. Ferrier
Dear Editor,
Please allow me to use this platform to air my concerns as a senior citizen.
I’m an elderly independent woman who has lived in St. Maarten for over 40 years in various districts of the island.
I enjoy gardening and I have put a lot of effort in watering, grooming and maintaining my private gardens and property landscaping for years. I am now in my golden years where I can now enjoy the beauty of my blossoming gardens despite the devastations that Irma and Maria brought to my wonderful plants.
The other day I was walking my dog in my private driveway and I saw a stranger with a knife trying to steal my aloe plants that I had been growing for many years. I was very upset and angry that this person was doing this in my private property without permission no less. I scolded him and asked him to please leave my aloe plants alone.
I returned into my driveway to continue walking my dogs, and my daughter-in-law informed me that there was a man peeing in our private roadway and his car was blocking the road. He did not even greet or apologize for doing this and just drove away.
Another day I also caught two women again trying to steal my beautiful aloe plants without my permission in my driveway and I informed the ladies that this is private property and that they should purchase their own aloe plants or at least ask permission. The women informed me that they were using the plant to make their natural hair products.
I love nature and I try to preserve it and I spent many years doing that and I think it is very disrespectful that people think that they can just come into my private property to take up my beautiful aloe plants and use them without asking.
I would therefore like to ask these persons to leave my aloe plants alone and go and grow your own.
This is fair warning as I have chosen not to contact the authorities about these “aloe plant robbers”. But just to be clear, I have surveillance cameras and I also have your number plates should you attempt to try to steal my plants again.
I love my private garden. I have worked many years to enjoy it so please stay away and leave my aloes alone!
Thank you for your understanding.
‘Guardian of MY Gardens’
Name withheld on request.
