Elections at Ground Zero

Tue, Sept 14, 2010

EDITOR: As we try to excite ourselves about the upcoming elections, we ought to look at our reality in the eye without flinching, and name it for what it is. “Ground Zero” is my name for the situation that we are in SVG.{{more}} Looking at ourselves now in late 2010, don’t you see

our shiny eyes dimmed
twin towers downed
rubble around us and in us
busy with the business of spinning
top-in-mud

Political trading about money and gerry seats;
Our world bank located in challenged
Cities-taipei caracas Havana
Our bogey man to frighten our children
And god ungiven rights
And ralphocracy

We lack the dreams for the young
Visions for the old in an SVG made new
Inspiration for the battered
Majorities
Emancipation from voting
For buns and beer, bread and beef

Spekman and Buju
Airport or US friendship
In this ground zero elections they
tell us the choice is clear
Either red or yellow rubble

It may not be the worst of times, but neither is it the best of times having to vote for the mud, the dust and the rubble.

That is why we have to vote different this time. Voting for our own vision, a vision that we cultivate ourselves

Because only active cultivators, artists and sculptors, and God can make things happen with the mud and rubble and dust that the twin terror leaves behind.

Promoting our own God given vision

You remember the story of the young man/woman who took his worth and ran behind porn, pitbull, lotto and flash? Not too long after his ground zero, he went home to work on his brother’s estate. (Luke 15: 11). There is always a way out of ground zero. Unlike the example of some in the USA case, it is a way of cultivating unity, brotherhood and sisterhood.

Can we see ourselves calling out to each other to vote for a representative, a party and a leadership that stand for harmony in the nation? Will you join in the quiet revolution that envisions an SVG coming out of the elections on a path of unity, forgivingness for hard looks, words and victimisation, and doing joint clean up? Can we make this into a pillar of a people’s manifesto? Will I put Saboto Caesar and Bash to this test for my vote? Will you join this movement for justice, peace and bread for all?

You see the SVG that we will have after this election in the rubble depends on how well we consolidate our vision now, and clear the way for it during election time in ground zero. We have to vote different this time. Now is not the time for the red rubble vote or the yellow rubble vote, or the green dust vote. Now is the time for the new Vincy vision vote.

When we hear our candidates speak firmly for national unity in his/her constituency, and call his/her party leadership to take this path of harmony, then we have begun to clear the rubble of ground zero.

Oscar Allen