Dear Editor,

  An elderly gentleman was lying on his bed. He had become unwell shortly before.

  Some alarmed friends had helped him and put him on his bed. He could not stand up, he couldn’t walk, he even could not speak. They had asked him questions, he knew what to answer them, but he could get not one word over his lips. Not in any language.

  He thought by himself, “Is this perhaps what they call a ‘tia’? Or is it a ‘hypo’?”

  They gave him something to drink and something to eat, and he took it. He heard that in the other room they were calling the 911 or the ambulance department, explaining how to find the house of the elderly man and before he could realize what was going on, he heard the siren of the ambulance in his neighborhood. And suddenly they stood there in his bedroom: three heavy-built, full-equipped astronauts, carrying all kind of stuff, as if they just landed from Mars.

  Very professionally they checked the old man, measuring everything that could be measured, shaking hands with him to see his reactions and asking him to sit up. The patient was feeling better already. A piece of bread with strawberry jam concluded the ceremony. After some greetings, back and forth, the three astronauts happily disappeared back into space, after doing a wonderful job.

  Not much later, the patient was able to join his friends in the sitting room, with a thankful heart.

Gerard van Veen

Dear Editor,

  Two recent articles have prompted me to write.

  Clearly an individual who allows a child to fall from a motor scooter has,

I would certainly assume, underestimated the risk to another human being, despite his own expectations to avoid and to withstand misfortune.

  Clearly an individual who refuses vaccination for ideological and non-medical reasons puts a child who is currently too young to be vaccinated at an unreasonable risk.

  A civic and moral obligation must exist in our “free” society to protect those who cannot protect themselves.

  Reckless endangerment: not a healthy choice.

David Slavkin

Guelph, Ontario, Canada

Dear Editor,

  I’m not the only one to be saddened by this situation. Even in the middle of a storm, a captain (however challenged he may be) never abandons his ship. It is one of the main tenets that has made the navy what it has been for centuries.

  However, Daniel Gibbs, who has been captain of the Saint-Martin “ship” since April 

2017, seems to have done just that – given up and abandoned the people he opted to serve, long before the end of his mandate.

  From the onset, in April 2017, the members of the President’s Cabinet and his Communication Services have been serenading the population of his commitment to them as President: “President Gibbs is at work, he holds perfectly in check the Territorial Council, his majority and the administration.”

  As the President and his Cabinet began their term, a pattern emerged. Disagreements or concerns raised with President and the Cabinet were received with dismissal. The messaging was clear – any criticism of the President and his administration decisions was motivated by pettiness. People with personal agendas fuelled by their dislike of him. No more than “jealous enemies” that used social media, the press and rumours, to plant their seeds of disharmony. 

  And yet, what are the damages caused to the socio-economic development of the Collectivité to its roll-out of cultural activities beneficial to the Saint-Martin population?  More pertinently, what about the general population and the key stakeholders that are keen to help transition Saint-Martin from the devastation of September 2017? 

  Let’s start with looking at what solid and sustainable foundations there are, in order to highlight the culture of neglect and failures the current administration “gifted” us. 

  Mismanagement has been prevalent during President Gibbs’ tenure. Post [Hurricane – Ed.] Irma, his quarrels with the French justice, for which he will soon have to face scrutiny given the failures of his own administration. 

  Questions on lack of cohesion and cooperation among stakeholder groups. For example, tensions between the members of his majority, his Vice-Presidents and himself.  It appears that the Leader of Team Gibbs (or at least what’s left of it), is completely weakened and is judged by its base as: weak governance; mismanagement of the Collectivité; of abandoning outright campaign promises of 2012 and of 2017.

  On the above, I challenge him to demonstrate otherwise.

  Since the start of his mandate, Mr. Gibbs’ personal matters were his priority. What was important and beneficial to him took precedence over all else. The obligation to the office, was eclipsed by the management of his personal political career.

  Mr. Gibbs has completely neglected to commit to progressive measures to ensure efficient and effective management of the Collectivité, an approach that has eroded the already fragile infrastructure of the island, after Irma, resulting in adverse effects on the everyday lives of the citizens of Saint-Martin.

  The repeated strikes and protests, Caisse Territorial des Oeuvres Scolaires (CTOS), natural risk prevention plan PPRN, transportation professionals (bus and taxi, street vendors, etc.), as well as the very disturbing resignation of a Vice-President, the public criticism made by the Senator (member of the majority), are clear warning signs of this downward spiral. 

  In my opinion, no longer are there elected officials in charge of Saint-Martin, which I now call a “country adrift”. And I too regret that so much public money has been spent and wasted with so little results in five years. All of that for this?!

  To me it is clear that President Gibbs persists in disavowing and rushing forward impetuously each time a situation arises (or even, more often than necessary). And the last proof was brought to us by the Senator who denounced the failure of Mr. Gibbs to respect the commitments made to the population during the last electoral campaign.

  According to her, it was more a question of trusting elected officials chosen by the voters, and of giving administrators less important prerogatives than those of the vice-presidents. Here in Saint-Martin, we are not yet a monarchy, under a regime of “absolute rule”, even if some dream of it! 

  Besides, I wonder how can we therefore grant certain prerogatives to individuals who are not legally identified in the chain of the institutions of the Collectivité?

  The very new and recent controversy surrounding the vacancy of the post of Vice-President left by Steven Patrick worries many citizens and many professionals, including those in the construction sectors who foresee even more burdensome bureaucratic hurdles to overcome in order to obtain building permits and the realization of some minor repair and home improvement work.

  Some of them deplored the chaotic situation long before that. It is not worthy of a territory which, barely 10 years ago, asked its people to opt for a new status and for a new governance that is more responsible.

  I appeal to the responsibility of each of you to forge new paths together.

Jules Charville

Territorial Councillor

Dear Editor,

  Viktor Frankl, the late Austrian psychiatrist and holocaust survivor who founded logotherapy, said in his seminal book, Man’s search for meaning, that he witnessed the prisoners around him taking their own lives while he was incarcerated at Auschwitz. Frankl opined that the men at Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps could not find meaning in their subjective/objective lives for prolonging their existence. There was nothing, according to Frankl, in the psychological milieu or external circumstances of these men to inspire and sustain their will to hold on and continue being.

  Most of us who have lived long enough and those whose lives will be graced with longevity will attest to the fact that at some point during their lives they have and will question the significance of their existence. Some among us may surmise that there is no inherent value or relevance for our presence here on earth; life’s sustaining force, they may say, does not need us, it is us rather who are perpetually dependent on its merciful and patronizing nature to extend our daily vicissitudes and meaningless days. It never ceases to amaze me how easily we persuade ourselves that our coming into being must have been the doing of an omnipotent, super-intelligent entity. But we are often dismissive of the thought that it is equally probable too that our existence may very well be the result of a random act and chance occurrence, devoid of any meaning.

  The moment we begin to dwell and reflect on the thought that our life is bereft of any significance, the importance we usually accord ourselves starts to dissipate and fearfully so too. So, to help alleviate the fear and melancholy that accompanies the thought of the futility and pointlessness of our existence, we begin to plumb the depths of our souls to search for and mentally invent raison d’etre to restore our false sense of importance. Left without our sense of value and absolute necessity as a creature of life, we become relegated to a state of nature that renders us indistinguishable from other species of the animal kingdom.

  And so, in this state of nature as indifferent members of the animal kingdom, we become servants to the inhuman and hostile aspects of the animal in us. And since slavery to nature is less tolerable than slavery to institutions as a means of escape from the beast in us, we create social organizations and ascribe them meaning and purpose to suppress the Dionysian impulses in us and prolong the illusion of meaning in our lives.

  Our impulsive need to search for meaning in our lives is driven it seems by fear and legitimate fear that could only be dispelled and suppressed by replacing and adorning it with tolerable language and therapeutic concepts. If we are constantly exposed to the thoughts and languages that accompany the idea of the frivolousness of our presence here on earth, we may become liberated from the fear of death as was the case it seems with Frankl’s fellow inmates.

   Could it have been possible then that Frankl’s edifice of logotherapy was cunningly motivated largely by his fear of death, and served as an antidote for his discovery of meaninglessness in life which enabled his subsequent willingness to suffer and endure indignation, pain, dishonour, and sub-human conditions under the guise that he had discovered meaning in life?

  The men who took their lives at Auschwitz may have reckoned that it is pointless to endure and encourage their will to persevere under conditions where they ceased to be humans. The suicides of Nazi concentration camps were exercising sovereignty over their lives, and they felt it was morally and ethically correct for them to conclude to continue being under such pointless wretched conditions. The men who took their lives at Auschwitz, searching for and finding meaning were spiritually, morally, and mentally exhaustible undertakings that they were unable to realize.

  Probably what they were searching for – meaning in suffering and life – does not exist after all. But when in a state of fear and existential angst the less courageous among us may be able to find solace in logotherapy and discover value, relevance, and significance to lengthen their existence through states of hallucinations and delusions. Posthumously though, Vladimir Nabokov continues to remind us that “common sense tells us our existence is a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness". Humans appear and disappear, nothing more, no meaning, no pathetic purposes.

Orlando Patterson