Look within for the true villains

29.JUN.07

EDITOR: We joke that it will prove mighty difficult for us to fight with the Taiwanese, Cubans, Venezuelans and Mexicans for control of our country when the present Government administration is finished with it. Here we are courting international opponents when we have only to look within our own country for the real villains.{{more}} Yes the murderers, child abusers, gunmen, pedophiles, corrupt state officials and politicians seem the obvious targets, but we still need to look closer to home – we need to look at ourselves: engage in a little introspection and figure out how we the simple men and women of this country contribute to the worst case scenarios in villain-ism? If I may be so bold as to coin this terminology.

In his June 1st article “Why Choose Violence Over National Pride?” Saboto Caesar highlighted some major deficiencies in the mentalities of our Vincentian people and the present direction or rather, lack of direction that our nation is taking. Caesar suggested that ‘love is the answer’ and while I couldn’t agree more with this assertion, I am left asking what exactly about our country and our present situation should we love? I know that some may suggest that we love the people, others the culture and the true optimists would shout everything is worth loving. However, when confronted with and confounded by our present realism these things may prove too simplistic and this love too difficult.

You grow to love a country when you are taught about that country – its history, its struggles, its triumphs. Out of this knowledge grows appreciation, national pride, patriotism. Once again my boldness comes into play when I suggest that the origin of the major problems we now face as a nation is embedded in our ignorance of our country.

Cry shame! We have one national Hero and still our children and a large majority of our adult population cannot produce a paragraph of information on him! What happened to the Garifuna history – the language, the culture, the folklore? How many mainlanders can say that they have visited and know about the Grenadine islands and their distinctive histories and how many residents from the Grenadines can express the same knowledge about the mainland?

These simple things we don’t know and then we have the audacity to wonder why our country is going down this road of disconnect and anarchy? Why our young men are now subscribing to the drugs and gun culture abducted straight from the African American culture? Why so many of our young people can no longer represent themselves as articulate and well versed ambassadors of our country? Well the answer to these questions is not so difficult; it is simple because we have no culture!

The lack of culture in this context not only refers to the absence of traditional values and a way of life but in a more innate sense it speaks to the lack of drive, interest, ambition and coherence within and among our people.

One would argue that the beheading of the young lady in the sight of hundreds of Vincentians and their apparent lack of response can be attributed to shock, but a closer analysis shows that as a nation and by extension as a region we are becoming both accepting and desensitized to these occurrences that in the past would have enraged us as a nation and cause serious citizen vigilantism. But no! Now we just meet in our little groups shake our heads and lament about how sad it was! It is not sad – it is unacceptable! And unless we collectively send this message out to the murderers, gangs and gunmen we are unwittingly giving them the right to control this country, we are giving them the right to dictate the direction of our country and like Jamaica we will find that our children are growing up in a culture of violence where massacres of entire families is an accepted and daily occurrence!! We cannot allow this to happen.

We have failed to realize that the building of any great nation is a give and take situation. As progressive generations of any nation dominate, they take something from what have been established and they endeavour to give something that will improve upon what they met and to leave a legacy of development and advancement for the generation to come-and so the cycle continues.

As a nation we have become too selfish. The struggle between individualism and nationalism is almost tangible and sad to say individualism is winning.

Our present attitudes have major implications for the future of our nation and if as a people and as individuals we do not endeavour to change, then…Farewell Hairouna!!!

Marion Isaacs