Elect a black leader – Eustace’s daughter

Young people in St Vincent and the Grenadines should be more conscious and recognize the power that they have.

Maia Eustace, the featured speaker at the youth rally of the New Democratic Party (NDP) at Barrouallie last Saturday, told her audience that recognizing who they are is the first element of consciousness and they should recognize who they are as a group and that they are young and suffering.{{more}}

She encouraged supporters to elect a black leader in the upcoming elections.

“For 31 years not one of you has ever seen an elected black leader of this country.”

“They want you to believe that leadership carries particular complexion in this nation, but let me tell you something. All I see is people of every colour in this country, many of whom are black and why can’t black people too have a chance to take leadership.”

According to Eustace, when the ULP says George Bush wouldn’t see Arnhim Eustace if he spots him on the street, the ULP is saying the same about them.

“When they tell you that about Arnhim, they tell you that about yourself. You are invisible; are you invisible?” she asked the crowd.

According to Eustace one of the issues that impacts young people most is education.

“When you are informed, you make better decisions,” Eustace asserted. “When you have the truth, when you can compare one incident to another, you can make a choice.

“Recognize we catching hell as a group,” urged Eustace, adding that education is one aspect of this.

An empathetic Eustace stated that she knows what young women are going through in SVG in order to get employment and scholarships for further study.

She disclosed that when the NDP visited the Community College last week, a young man “wasted his opportunity to gain information” by asking NDP candidate for Central Kingstown St Clair Leacock “if he thief the wreaths.”

“He didn’t have a question about accreditation, he didn’t have a question about the direction in which St Vincent needs to go; he could not scratch beneath the surface,” she said.

Eustace, who is the daughter of president of the NDP Arnhim Eustace, told listeners that the female identified on the ‘sex tape’ that had been making the rounds on social media was a top student in the student nurse programme, but she was put out because she got pregnant with a second child.

“How on God’s green earth could any tertiary level institution, not a secondary… not a primary school, tell a young woman ‘you have had two children you must go, you don’t have sufficient support system, therefore we will not support. We will condemn your children to a cycle of poverty.’ See everything as it unfolds; what then are her options? What then was available to her?” Eustace questioned.

The young lawyer asserted that the ULP administration often uses the word ‘can’t’.

She said the ULP tells young people that they can’t speak out, because “Ralph Gonsalves has said he will deal with you.

“You have less right to speak in your country than he does,” she asserted.

According to Eustace, persons are being sued by the ULP leader when they express opinions about situations essential to their lives.

Another ‘can’t’ of which Eustace spoke is the manner in which government leadership has been transformed into that of a beggar.

“Every time there’s a trip overseas, the report we get, if we even get a report, is how much aid he manage to get, how much aid, how much he beg for and receive.”

She reminisced about a time when the country’s leader informed persons about trade deals and contracts acquired when travelling.

“Not how much we were going to be given, because somebody take pity on us; all those things are wrong!” she asserted.

Eustace told the crowd of NDP supporters that the ULP recognizes the power that young people wield because they have no memory of what St Vincent was like before they came into power.

“They have been in power 14 years – the youngest voter in this election was four years old – so you don’t know what it was like when the IMF said ‘much to praise little to fault’; when we had five per cent growth every year; when you drive into Kingstown and you have to face terrible traffic because banana trucks lining straight from Geest yard right back up Richmond Hill into Sion Hill junction; you don’t know about that! And that’s why they prey on you… because you have no idea about it.”

Eustace said that it once cost EC$100 for persons in St Vincent and the Grenadines to travel for the weekend.

“Vincentians used to go all over the Caribbean and on to other parts of the world, but you all can’t do that! Too many of you young people do not know that this is not how life is anywhere else in the Caribbean.”

According to Eustace, roads, schools and education are different in the Caribbean.

“Too many of you don’t know that roads do not look like this anywhere else in the Caribbean; that schools do not look like this; education is not done like this.”

Having been raised in Barbados, Eustace recapped when the was told as a student that “you are your country’s greatest resource,” which she says “is true for every nation and the people of St Vincent and the Grenadines, in particular the youth, are the country’s greatest resource.”

Eustace reminded the NDP youths that they were given the gift of choice by God.

“If the ULP is trying to deny you choice, understand how wretched and disgusting that is that somebody would take away your basic right to choose on an informed basis.”

She, however, urged the young people to make their own decisions and not be pressured to vote.

“Rub your eyes, remove the scales, open your ears and decide for yourselves when you are approached by the ULP to sell your vote, when they come to you, they are making of you a weapon which will not prosper against people’s choice.”

Young people should recognize their power as youths, Eustace reiterated, imploring them to research what it was like to not be able to have a vote.

She informed the Young Democrats that their vote is priceless and they should not be intimidated because officials should not know how they vote.

“Nobody in a free and fair election knows how you vote; the ballot is secret. After you cast that X in the ballot booth, only God and you know your choice.

“All of you want jobs and all of you deserve jobs, but the job you have to decide on first is who going to lead this nation.

“You have the power to hire and to fire; they have been hired for 14 years; fire them on December 9!” she said.(AS)