Dear Editor,
I believe that the term is “in proportion to”. I believe that businesses employ in numbers in proportion to their steady clientele. I believe that restaurants also do the same. Yes, I am aware that nowadays because of modern technology in order not to have to be bothered with the so-called aches and pains of hiring human beings more and more the robotic arm is being used. But it still remains that when it is about dealing with human behavior, whether to protect or serve it takes the involvement of another human being.
I would be that last person to go against the police because I believe that I can count myself among those who really know the ins and outs of policing in St. Maarten. St. Maarten is a unique country and policing should be carried out in a unique way. That is why I do not agree with those who claim that publicly demonstrating will not hamper the police work.
I know different. I have decided to write this letter today because of the contents of the sermon preached on Sunday, the 11th, in the Anglican Church.
Part of it was “There are some things you do not do” and that reminded me again of my parents who would always tell us, “Not because something is not forbidden, you should do it if it is not the right thing to do.” The judges, the prosecutors and even the defending lawyers know the reason for having police in a country. When there is an optimal functioning police force this should be just like a heartbeat, silently supporting our life. The visibility of the police has always been a deterrent to crime and it will not change.
Police action should not be at the expense of the public. Security cameras do great work in policing but as long as there is not the correct follow-up it makes no sense.
The heading of my letter is reckless behavior, because that is what it is. We have a traffic ordinance which in my view could be thrown out the door. Drivers do what they want in broad daylight because they are not being reprimanded for their reckless behavior.
The latest infringement that I have witnessed is a female driver with East Indian features. She drove from Cannegieter Street to Back Street, made a U-turn in the intersection Back Street/Hendrikstraat and drove back towards Cannegieter Street. The traffic on Back Street had to back up a little in order for her to be able to complete the U-turn. It was not a rental number.
It has become a norm for some people who own off-road bikes to drive in opposite direction over the roads like Back Street and the different alleys between Front Street, Back Street and Cannegieter Street. Stopping without pulling to the complete right of the road when using the cell phone to text has become a norm also. Drivers of heavy equipment vehicles constantly disregard the width of the road. I can go on and on with the infringements.
Sunday mornings on the way to church riders ride two and three next to each other not taking into consideration the row of cars formed behind them. Not to talk about the dark tint and the different ways of driving while using the cell phone.
Someone asked me one time why is it that on small island like St. Maarten the police are not contented. I have said it for at least 10 years now. When politicians need votes they disregard law and order. And in these last 10 years we know how many elections there were and how much the politicians needed the people, so it became a habit to disregard law and order. And I will challenge anyone of them who has been in government to prove me different and show the people the facts.
Much work is needed between government along with the police brass and leaders of the police union. The policeman is not a tradesman. His/her duties are not the same as a public servant. The police are there to protect and serve and should not be made to be distracted from that. Too often there are people who did not walk in the policeman’s shoes deciding. This will always cause discontentment. Police officers do not complain, they comply.
Russell A. Simmons
Dear Editor,
Networking surely works and there is always a backstory.
It was late last year or earlier this year, Mr. Bren Romney, Chief Education Officer, Government of Anguilla, reached out to network with me on and around finding a donor to help purchase remote learning devices (laptops) for some students living in the island nation of Anguilla.
Dear Editor,
In recent weeks we learned of the cries of many nationals abroad who were denied the opportunity to return home on vacation. The reason given was to protect the island from the COVID-19 pandemic. I myself returned home very recently from a working visit and had to go into quarantine. I did not make this an issue seeing the policy in place and I’m not vaccinated.
However, time and again we see various persons are allowed to come and work, participate in meetings with government officials while they are in quarantine under the so-called essential worker label. As an elected official I raised the question on numerous occasions: if members of the Island Council, the highest elected body of the land, don’t fall on the essential worker status. In a discussion with one of the leading policy-makers for this COVID-19 pandemic, I was told that if requested that I can be granted the relevant permission in line of my function to take part in meetings with the relevant adopted protocol. Over a week ago, since my return from the Netherlands, via the officer of the Registrar of the Island Council, I made such a request and this was denied by the powers that be.
What I find a double standard is that late last year and most recently we saw that State Secretary Knops at the height of the pandemic was allowed under a special protocol to visit the Island for various meetings. He also visited different projects where he interacted with several persons, and at the time we did not begin the vaccination process on our island. Recently he visited and sat in meetings with the Island Council and without a mask and that was okay. During the very same meeting with the Island Council, he was asked if he had taken the vaccine and he said no because this was done by age groups.
Today again we see members of the College for Financial Supervision visiting the Island and meeting with the Island Council, among others, and this seemingly is normal. Whether they are fully vaccinated or not, the point is they came from high risk countries and could have contracted the virus.
Are we to conclude that the government is measuring with two different yardsticks? What is good for the goose should be good for the gander. Is government busy promoting a South Africa apartheid culture on this small island?
July 1 we celebrated 158 years of emancipation. Are we truly emancipated or still trapped in a mental colonial paralysis?
Clyde van Putten
Island Councilman St. Eustatius
For trespassing Africa the Motherland, no charge
For disturbing my peace, no charge
For capturing me, no charge
For destroying families, no charge
For shipping me across the oceans, no charge
For stripping me of my language, no charge
For prohibiting my customs, no charge
For violating my way of life, no charge
For not housing me properly, no charge
For traumatizing my children, no charge
For the murder of those lost at sea, no charge
For the unpaid labor forced on me, no charge
For lack of rest and recreation, no charge
For lack of food, no charge
For lack of education, no charge
For lack of health care, no charge
For the lashes and abuse, no charge
For the insults and disrespect, no charge
For the enduring torture, no charge
For the rape of women and children, no charge
For delayed so-called freedom, no charge
For so-called freedom without compensation, no charge
For oppression that endures, no charge
For the racism, no charge
For the discrimination, no charge
For the lack of reparation, no charge
For lack of respect, no charge
For lack of employment opportunities, no charge
For lack of fair housing, no charge
For lack of equal justice, no charge
For the lack of voting rights, no charge
For the reality of voter suppression, no charge
For the lack of economic justice, no charge
For the lack of social and cultural justice, no charge
For your unwillingness to listen, no charge
For your unwillingness to act, no charge
For your unwillingness to see and hear, no charge
For the continued suffering, no charge
For enabling the hate, no charge
For not seeing me, no charge
For killing me, no charge
For all of this and more, no charge
Emancipation, honestly
You got yours
Mine is still pending
Glenn Schmidt,
For the Ancestors,
St. Eustatius
Dear Editor,
No one asks to be born. It happens. It might be planned to some degree but there is little we have control over. Time. Place. Race? Orientation. Limbs. Human. Life. Death. Beauty. Poor. Rich. Short. Tall. Inequality. Ad infinitum. Sometimes we are born into luck; at other times, less; most times, a lot less. Predictably too many times. That is the tragedy of life; it happens not only when you are born.
So the idea of birth and belonging is a dubious ideal. But yet we must, limitly, for there is an interconnectedness of and with humanity, one recognizes (or should) each other – that is our existence, a social contract of sorts, our humanness, our destiny, our ability to avoid interconnectedness, our ability to think, to care, to empathize, to hate, to love, to destroy, in this Anthropocene.
Our capacity and capability to exist has taken millions of years, from walking on our hands and feet to developing another artificial intelligent species – Sophia. There is much that evolved on in our brain, which we take for granted, because it took centuries to create and cultivate from various homo species, animals, atoms, and neurons. This complexity allows us to not only to understand but also to reflect.
Try as one might, in spite of all this developed brain of millions of neurons, and the grand power of our existence and the ability to use language in its many forms, and to think (in)finitely, (though mostly we cannot know what we do not or cannot know). How can it not be a wonder that we live in such a world as we do.
Given that existence, a particular conclusion is that we lead lives of different tragedies. And trajectories; it is only fitting then that we try hard to lessen these tragedies as much as we can.
Lately, in different instances, there have been revolving tragedies. Tragedy after tragedy that could and should be lessened, if only there were little instances of not only kindness and empathy but interference and action on a personal, societal, institutional, and governmental levels. No one or nothing is left without blame. We are handful. But ultimately, all four are guilty, for tragedies continue unabated, generational.
From the different crimes to the sexual and/or physical abuse, these are not the only ones though; there are many ills of society: poverty, discrimination, climate/environmental degradation, gender inequality, health care, media, ambition, overpopulation, immigration, bullying, technology, depression, racism, drug/alcohol addiction, abuse, obesity, hunger, illness, and ultimately – weaponized dissent.
The effects of these tragedies are compounded, through the generations. Many times, it’s a revolving door. Someone has to shut the door. This could happen in various forms. If not the abused, who was previously abused will become another abuser. The thief will become the bigger thief, the abused becomes the abuser. Tragedies manifested in different forms. The consequences of tragedies persist. Hardly ever is there a regression. The logical conclusion is obvious.
So the consequential pain of these societal ills and tragedies is felt deeply every day by our mothers, fathers, grandparents, sons, daughters, cousins, uncles, aunts, friends, and strangers. The hope of a just and moral society is that we try to get out of life unscathed by these tragedies. But this is an impossibility. The question is what is possible?
If we don’t recognize the tragedies in their many forms, in the guise of the different and desperate lives around us, these instances will continue to happen – unabated. We have to live, however, up to the ideals of the rights and responsibilities of the existential presence.
If not, in the end, the tragedy of life may not be life itself but to recognize the self in others.
Pedro de Weever
