Dear Editor,
When tourism first started in St. Maarten in the 60s, it led to many people learning the skills associated with hospitality at institutions like Mullet Bay. It is not unreasonable to conclude that many people learnt fast and that St. Maarten quickly became known for its ability to attract and provide service to guests.
Most guests were hotel guests and looked for good accommodation, good food and the welcoming and entertaining hospitality that St. Maarteners quickly became adept at.
Fast forward to the 1980s when a new type of guest also began to arrive. They came by yacht. They were also looking for services but only some of the services were the same as the regular hotel guest. Besides food and drink they also wanted their engines repaired, sails repaired, cushions recovered, their boats painted, dockage, hauling, anchoring, etc.
These were many more demands than those of hotel guests and some of the demands were and remain difficult and complicated.
This same scenario has repeated itself throughout the Caribbean. The demands were also relatively inconsistent and varied so that skills needed to be constantly adapted and often required efficient logistics and handling.
In short the yachting (or marine) industry presented to St. Maarten and other islands a diversification opportunity that was real and profitable but more complicated than regular stayover tourism.
Different territories in the Caribbean are grasping the opportunity differently and some enjoy particular advantages. Which territories will be baffled by the complexity and lose the opportunity and which territories will grasp it and benefit from the diversification possibility?
Robbie Ferron
Dear Editor,
We are grateful to once more celebrate International Women’s Day 2022. It took a courageous woman named Clara Zetkin who started a protest movement in 1908 fighting for shorter working hours, better pay, and the right for women to vote. The rest is history (her-story).
Nineteen-ten (1910) was the year International Women’s Day became an internationally recognized event because of her stance and determination to make a ground-breaking difference in her life as well as that of other women across the globe. Today the world continues to commemorate the advancement made for and by women including at the social, economic, financial, scientific, religious and political levels.
This past century barriers have been broken, obstacles removed that made it harder for women to achieve their full potential in most countries in the world. Great advancements are made in the areas noted above. Yet a lot more remains to be done to keep gains made while removing biases at all levels of society. For example, too many women are still underpaid, overworked and exploited. St. Maarten is no exception. Take a closer look around you!
Please take note that International Women’s Day, March 8, 2022, will be celebrated on Friday, March 11, at John Larmonie Center in Philipsburg. The program opens at 7:30pm and includes two guest speakers as announced in a previous release issued by Peridot Foundation.
Our first guest speaker will be Ms. Lysanne Charles, a strong woman who has taken the lead in breaking stereotyping barriers at an early stage of her life. Ms. Charles is also co-founder of the regional organization Eastern Caribbean Alliance for diversity and Equality ((ECADE).
We are also pleased to announce our second presentation by well-known attorney at law Brenda Brooks. No stranger to facing and overcoming personal adversity, attorney Brooks fights to do justice for especially the marginalized and those discriminated against because of their social standing in society. A more extensive biography of her achievements will be shared on Friday, March 11, upcoming. We look forward to hearing her views on this year’s theme for International Women’s Day: #BreaktheBias.
Our programme is highlighted with performances by talented students of Charlotte Brookson Academy of the Performance Arts. Three students will perform the St. Maarten song, while two other students will marvel our audiences with their stellar dance and song renditions.
Some attending guests will be surprised with a gift to commemorate the occasion of IWD 22.
The colour purple is chosen this year by the International Community of Organizations in celebration of International Women’s DAY22. Peridot Foundation shows solidarity with the world as we join in sharing the symbol with crossed arms in front of our chests to highlight the movement of #BreaktheBias.
Being a trail-blazer starts with you! Happy International Women’s Day 2022.
Gracita Arrindell
Dear Editor,
And so the world woke up last week to the Russian Army marching over the border into the Ukraine. As usual, there is shock and dismay. How can this possibly happen? Our diplomats with their fine speeches were making so much progress. Our political leaders had threatened “sanctions” and all manner of devastating response in case something really did happen. In fact, my hopelessly incompetent, illiterate and feeble President of the United States, Joe Biden, went so far as to threaten to “unfriend” the Russians on his official Facebook account if they invaded. That sure slowed them down.
In the meantime in Europe, who by some strange happenstance gets 40 per cent of its energy from Russia, their overwhelming response was to ban Russian athletes, limit access to all the banks except those which happened to be handling the energy business and write several mean letters to Putin’s mother telling her what a bad boy he was being.
And how did we get here? Years, if not generations, of hopelessly weak governments on both side of the oceans unwilling to meaningfully pursue energy independence and bowing to the political nonsense of the mythical carbon footprint.
As pointed out recently in another publication, “The world has surrendered its energy independence to the whims of a Swedish teenager.” Nuclear plants are closed. Coal fields are abandoned. Oil reserves are untapped in the hope of capturing the elusive “carbon footprint unicorn”. And so, what happens? You give one nation like Russia the power to make you freeze in the winter and grind your industry to a halt. When you give a bully leverage the only result is that you get bullied over and over again. No number of canceled concerts, banned athletes or the meaningless endless platitudes of those who stand by with their hands in their pockets will change anything.
The Chinese build a military airbase base in the middle of the ocean on an island they don’t own in territorial waters that are not theirs. Sharp words are exchanged. Political appointees so dumb you wouldn’t let them mow your lawn file formal protests and in the end, what is the result? The Chinese have their airbase and no one does anything about it. Maybe the fact a large part of the Democratic party in the U.S. have billions of dollars’ worth of business interests in China might have something to do with it? No, probably not. That’s just coincidence.
You would think that the world would learn. The last time appeasement was tried we ended up with the second world war. And what are you looking at now? Will NATO do anything against the Russians? No. Biden knows that if he commits American troops to protect someone else’s border while his own Southern border is a sieve that Americans will never elect another Democrat in modern times. That will probably be the case next November anyway, but putting boots on the ground in the Ukraine after the Afghanistan debacle would be political suicide.
Will the EU step in? Nope. they do too much business with Russia and besides, they don’t want to be cold next winter. And besides, they have no stomach for the fight any longer anyway.
And so the Russian strategy becomes self-evident. They will succeed because they face a world that has sacrificed its self-sufficiency to a fantasy and that is being led by hopelessly weak individuals far more interested in their own self-enrichment rather than their own nations’ best interests.
What’s next? China moves on Taiwan in the next 12 months. Why? Because they know they can. If the U.S. tries to stop them, China won’t ship any of the electronics it makes that keep 85 per cent of U.S. industry alive. We sacrificed that independence long, long ago.
Where is Ronald Reagan when you need him? … But I would more than settle for Donald Trump.
Steven Johnson
Dear Editor,
Reading the message from MP George Pantophlet in respect of the fact that the Dutch can afford to cancel Sint Maarten’s debt makes me realise that we have lost our ability to live like adults and take responsibility for our own actions.
Just because the Dutch can afford to write off the debt, it makes no sense at all for them to do that. We are sitting on an island the size of a small town where politicians earn on average a salary far above any other politician in the world.
Also, most state-owned companies on the island are filled with individuals on multiple boards who earn way above the norm, hence the fact that a profit for the country is seldom realised. None of these individuals are prepared to sacrifice towards the good of our island but the Dutch must do so because they can afford it? It is like saying to the bank, absolve me from my debt because you can afford it!
The amount of residents paying tax on the island sits at a poor 35 per cent because we feel it is always somebody else’s responsibility. If we don’t contribute towards the island’s economy what can we expect to achieve?
As a child I wanted an item that I could not pay for and I asked my dad for help. He looked at me and said: you have a pair of hands, use them! So, I washed dishes in a restaurant over weekends and delivered newspapers morning and night and eventually I managed to buy what I desired. The feeling of having achieved that made me proud and I think we as St. Maarteners need to be prepared to sacrifice and work hard to achieve our goals instead of holding out our hands like beggars.
We can do anything, but have to put our mind to it. We have to learn to behave independently and self-sufficiently, but this can only be achieved through hard work and discipline.
Rene Lammerse
Dear Editor,
I told you so since 2006, it is a new start; many nations will seek democracy rather than being a communist nation.
If Russian people keep a massive protest right now it will put Putin in more serious problems to govern Russians. I quote: NATO and Europeans be wise.
Cuthbert Bannis
