Dear Editor,

  Quite a number of Black intellectual continues to misleadingly dominate the climate of opinions on the theme; reparations for the descendants of enslaved Africans by former colonial European institutions of slavery. The idea that contemporary institutions and governments of former slave holding European empires should make amends for the “atrocities” that were committed against the ancestors of people of African descent has no basis in logic and neither can it be empirically supported.

  The logic that A (A being Governments and institutions of former slave-holding countries) is responsible for what B (the ancestors of A) did is at best specious and outlandishly absurd! Notwithstanding, some Black intellectuals, very much aware of this fallacy, quite often skillfully resort to the intricacies of language to argue fervently for redress for the “wrongs” that were supposedly committed against their ancestors.

  The formation of any concept or idea to aid in one’s understanding of what the nature of man has done to his fellow man usually has strategies for its formation; strategic goals to be achieved, whether it be political, moral or economical, and slavery and reparations being concepts/ideas, and neutral ones at that, is no different.

  The concept of slavery was conceptualised eons after man began naturally enslaving man and continues to be a state of nature to this day; apparently more biological determinism and less of free will. Seemingly it’s one of our many human frailties and “default” settings which it seems no amount of education and nurturing can undo. However, the operation of language by many black intellectuals pays scant regard to this fact, instead choosing to play on the moral sensibilities of Africans in the diaspora in pursuit of their personal goals.

  Slavery is a natural phenomenon that still persists and alarmingly so, particularly on the continent of Africa, and a combination of factors have caused and still cause and enable some groups to be dominated and enslaved by others. And no amount of moralising and intellectualising will alter or adjust this cruel and inflexible truth.

  So, thus far, has the narrative of reparation done more for the advancement and empowerment of people of African descent or has it encouraged the perpetuation of the culture of mendicancy and handouts? Let’s look at the pros and cons of reparations. Let’s look at the scientific evidence from any cost/benefit analysis for reparations. And finally, let’s look objectively at the concept of slavery in its entirety. Then and only then we might very well begin to recognise all the myths and falsities supporting its foundation.

Orlando Patterson

Minister Panneflek: Do we really need another public holiday for our businesses to stay closed or have to pay overtime if we chose to open anyhow? Why did the [Council of Ministers – Ed.] COM not just give their employees the day off and leave the rest of the economy do its thing! We are this COVID year already losing our shirts and really do not need Government to play Santa Claus at private sector’s (and your empty coffers’) expense!

Mike Ferrier

NAPA Auto Parts (SXM)

Dear Editor,

  “Whether you think you can or you can’t, either way you are right.” The preceding quote from Henry Ford continues to resonate throughout the short history of man, inspiring and motivating multitudes in its wake. Ford’s famous and timeless quote has no doubt over time become permanently etched in the minds of countless humans, never departing from their consciousness. Presumably, it must have played a pivotal role in the conception, birth and reign of his automobile empire. Similarly, the historical Jesus Christ of the bible if indeed he performed “miracles” must have been able also to achieve his supernatural feats after believing first with every fibre of his being that he can.

  Henry Ford, like Jesus Christ, like so many others were able to convince themselves that any conceivable outcome or possibility that is stored internally is attainable once one is capable of removing any iota of doubt from one’s awareness. As humans including Jesus Christ, Henry Ford, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, etcetera, etcetera, we seem to share in equal doses a predisposition and impulse that enable us to accomplish a psychological state that assures us something is true even in the absence of proof. 

  But of course it’s quite understandable and reasonable too for us to think and conclude that the idea of just believing doesn’t exist in a vacuum. As simply persuading oneself that something is achievable or true in the absence of supporting proof doesn’t automatically translate or is equivalent to absolutely guaranteeing its manifestation or coming into being. Evidently, there are other forces and factors that partake in the realization of one’s goals held internally, whether it be material, spiritual or mental. The gestation period from the conception to birth of one’s internally stored beliefs does require also physical and mental labour which apparently seems to vary with different individuals.

  Seemingly, some among us seems to labour disproportionately less than others to bring about similar circumstances. There is purportedly an ideal internal state that one has to emulate or assume first, which subsequently influences other contributing factors such as physical exertion necessary for achieving one’s aim. Since this state of one’s mind when in belief mode is not perceptible and remains largely immeasurable and unobservable it becomes humiliatingly difficult to articulate. So, when we claim that we believe, how do we know that we believe when we cannot say definitively what it means for one to believe.

  Believing is a highly subjective matter that is at best unlearnable. Ford might have been right and so was Christ in particular when he said, “Believe and it shall be done for you.” But regrettably both men were aware of their limitations to provide provable accounts of the psychological state that characterises what it means to believe. They (Ford and Christ) were acutely aware that believing resides outside of the faculty of the intellect and couldn’t be accessed and understood by intelligence. To experience the state of mind Ford, Christ and others advocated for by way of their inspiring quotes requires one to enter into contact with these titans and that, I am terribly afraid, is easier said than done.

  This confidence without clarity which distinguishes believing in the absence of proof is an inspiring and powerful force which motivates us all to act convinced of a particular outcome even when we are surrounded by evidence that points to the contrary. Depending on the intensity of our inner convictions our spirits ignite causing it to burn in some cases uncontrollably throughout our bodies. Those who toil ceaselessly fuelled by this inner confidence and burning will persevere and labour incessantly until their beliefs are made manifest. They are so consumed by an unwavering certainty that reassures the externalisation of what is held within that their bodies now become enslaved and subservient to their inner beliefs so much so, that it ceases to be cared for, regarded and respected.

  Sadly, there aren’t any known litmus tests or units of measurement to quantify or examine the strength or force of our beliefs; nothing to say or inform us how much we actually believe in the likely manifestation of our goals. And even if some among us are able to attain absolute belief unawares – they somehow unknown to themselves have  assumed the psychological state that characterises absolute belief – this might very well be wholly inadequate in the realisation of their beliefs.

  So, Henry Ford’s “whether you think you can or you can’t, either way you are right” and Jesus Christ’s “believe and it shall be done for you” may very well be just what they are; just purely inspiring quotes and statements. Ford and Christ, amongst other authors of motivating quotes that call one to believe, probably were unable to articulate and verify the complex processes involved from believing in the conception of an idea to its birth, leaving us instead with rather highly stimulating but at best unverifiable and empirically impoverished statements.

Orlando Patterson

Dear Editor,

  “When the best has left us and there is nothing that remains but the worst in a life that is so stupid we can cry, we must know how to still smile. We must know how to hold fast to our dignity in spite of all, and, no matter what it may cost us, walk away without looking back.

  “Faced with destiny that is disarming us and happiness that is eluding us, we must know how to hide our tears. When there is no more love being served, we must know how to leave the table without hanging on looking pitiful and without being quarrelsome or loud … .” (Charles Aznavour, Il Faut Savoir, 1961).

   This is my abridged rendition of the first four stanzas of Charles Aznavour’s hit song, Il Faut Savoir (We Must Know). The esteemed French crooner died two years ago on October 1, 2018, leaving the world a treasure chest of beautiful lyrics, of splendid song-poems. He was in his mid-30s when he wrote and recorded Il Faut Savoir in 1961.

  I have always elected to ignore the dramatic ending of the song because it negates everything that precedes it in the lyrics. In its surprising ending, emotions, feelings override reason; there is no more “love being served,” but the heartbroken protagonist cannot bring himself to “leave the table,” he “cannot” practice what he preaches.

  I heard a recording of Il Faut Savoir on the radio a year or so after it was released in France. In the 1950s and early ’60s, it took a while for all such things to reach Saint Martin by way of Guadeloupe or Martinique; the calypsos, meringues and American hits got to the island much faster. 1962 and 1963 were turning point periods in my life and, as the research of the late Daniella Jeffry suggests, they are also landmark years in the modern history of Saint Martin.

  I was not experiencing any romantic issues during that period – they came later! I do not know why the lyrics of this song spoke to me the way they did back then, apart from the fact that my father, who was abroad and seriously ill for a long time, died during this period. From 1962 onward, Il Faut Savoir has helped me to cope with many of the difficulties I have faced. I have often relied – as I am doing today – on the first four stanzas of this song.

  Time flies, indeed, and much has changed in the 40 years or so since I started this scribbling of mine. Several of my relatives and friends have departed; there is no use lamenting their absence; no way of filling the void their passing has opened up in me. In his Salt from My Attic, Professor John A. Shedd (1859-1928) remarks: “A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.” Indeed, ships are made to sail the seas. For the last nine months or so, we have been confined to our place of residence and (legally) obliged to wear a mask everywhere else except when outside, in open air and at some distance away from others.

  These very last weeks of this most challenging year COVID-19 continues to spread hardship, sickness and death worldwide. We are like ships roped up in harbor during a storm, but this is not what we were wired for; we are social beings designed to live connected, interdependent – inextricably linked. Hopefully, the various vaccines that have been developed will soon enable us to get back to the way we were made to function, to live. And maybe the virus will have helped us to better appreciate that connection: the link that binds us as human beings.

   Looking back at my journey, from the sunny days of my modest childhood and adolescence in Sandy Ground, the old Sandy Ground of the 1950s and 1960s, fast forward to these sunset days in my 70s, I am amazed, truly astonished that I have made it this far in such relatively good shape. It may be a kind of proof that one should never despair, for one never knows what the future has in store. Maybe we must just keep on doing and hoping for the best – the way the fishermen used to do in the Sandy Ground of my youth.

  Tooled up with a sense of purpose, shears (a wire cutter), a pair of pliers and a machete, the fisherman worked at “making his fish pots” in the shade of a tree. The “chicken-coop wire” for the enclosure and the “galvanized bracing wire” for the tying were essentials for the making of his fish traps. He usually got these articles on credit from a merchant who “trusted him,” who had confidence that he would settle his account as he worked his fish pots. Other essentials were much easier to obtain: pondside sticks of a certain thickness and length that he would cut and scrape clean of all of their bark.    

  Like Mr. Eustache Maccow, our master tailor in Saint James, who fitted us in our Sunday best, the fisherman, using his shears, his wire cutter, would carefully cut out, from his precious role of chicken-coop wire, the three sections he needed to make his “fish pot”: two identical regular hexagon-shaped pieces (the top and the bottom of the trap) and a narrower rectangular strip or section to fit around the six-sided regular hexagon-shaped “fish pot”.

  But in order to give his “nasse” its local “fish pot” shape, the top and the bottom hexagon-shaped sections had to be amputated, each one of them, of two of their six equilateral triangles; so he would carefully mark and cut out two adjoining equilateral triangles from the top and the bottom hexagon-shaped sections. The two sections that remained – each one consisting of 4 equilateral triangles – was the final shape of the top and bottom sections of his fish pot: masterful geometry!

   As I recall, cutting, shaping and installing the “fish entrance” at the apex of the angle that was opened up by the “amputation” was somewhat challenging due to the tricky downward pitch that, seemingly, was required to make the entrance most effective, most welcoming to the fish! It was also very important not to forget to cut out and install a back door, the exit for emptying the catch. A novice fisherman had, reportedly, forgotten to add this door to one of his “fish pots,” an omission from which the poor man could not fully recover!

  When all of the sections were cut and assembled and the form of the “fish pot” was achieved, the craftsman/fisherman would attach some of the thicker (stronger) pondside sticks to the outside (top and bottom of the trap) and all around the six-sided fish pot. He would then insert and attach slightly thinner sticks all along the many seams or joints of the assembled chicken-coop wire trap. Now, all that remained to be done was the “bracing”: tying firmly all of the sticks to the chicken-coop wire assemblage.

   Working with his pliers and with segments of the stubborn galvanized bracing wire, he would “brace his fish pot,” that is firmly tie the tough pondside sticks to the chicken-coop wire on the top and the bottom of the trap, all around its six sides and all along its joints or seams – everywhere! 100 or more of those strong, tight, solid galvanized stitches! Beautiful craftsmanship! An object of utility and art!

  Before taking his “pots” out to set them, he would, sometimes, bait them with roasted lobsters! Yes, such is the absurdity of life. Alone or with a fishing mate, he took them out to sea, one, two or three fish pots at the stern of a small craft. He rowed his boat out of sight, usually down beyond the point of the Bluff, where he dropped his precious traps, or rather where he set them “blindly,” that is without a buoy, a floater or marker, but with near pinpointed crossed (onshore) references. The “joke” among fishermen was some version of a novice pescador using a “thick black cloud hanging over Marigot Hill” with some other land feature as cross references in marking the location of his pots!

  In the Sandy Ground of my youth, the fishermen seemed always hopeful that they would trap enough fish to enable them to feed their family and some close friends; to make some money that would allow them to settle their debts and to carry on: to keep “going back out,” revisiting their traps, “pulling their fish pots” and trapping, catching enough fish to get by, to make ends meet.

  If the wise and gifted Wallace Stevens (1879-1955) could find his way back among us, I think he would, most likely, concede that poetry – alone – does not, as he opined, “provide the resistance to the pressure of reality …,” but that music (rhythm and melody, particularly); poetry (such as his); curiosity; consensus (democracy) and science – this quintet – and in that order, may very likely offer us vistas toward a sense of wholeness on our way back into the unknown of being, back into our existence.

   We are not certain of this, my reader, but it seems that we, you and I, will make it through this most challenging year; for this we can be grateful; for this we must be thankful. I wish you a Merry Christmas and a healthy and Happy New Year (2021). Farewell! Adieu!

Gérard M. Hunt