The anger in the NDP is scary

Fri, Aug 08, 2014

Open letter to my friends in the NDP

Many of you are way too angry. Your focus seems to be on tearing down rather than on building up and this is a huge turn off to folks who want progress. Yes, we all get angry from time to time. But, it’s not considered healthy to be angry every day.{{more}}

Your resounding message is anti-Ralph and anti-ULP, when it should be pro-building the country. You constantly enumerate the ills of the country to us without any solutions as to how you will correct them.

All Vincentians know the problems: rape, teenage pregnancies, high crime, abject poverty; high unemployment; low literacy, basically an underdeveloped country and an out of control political gang war.

All of this is happening in a country with limited resources. There are no oil wells; no gold; no diamonds; no money tree. Your resources are you, the people; the land and its natural beauty. When you the people are always fighting because of politics, the beauty of the country becomes blemished. Therefore you lose two of your resources; the people and the beauty. All you are left with is the land which few wants to cultivate. Some associate farming with slavery and backwardness. Therefore, they rather starve than cultivate food for their own consumption.

A large majority of the population has become too dependent on others whether it’s the government or relatives abroad. They have chosen to sit down with their hands out rather than taking cutlass and hoe and start to grow food for export and personal use.

There are great possibilities for development of the country with help from Vincentians throughout the diaspora, but you are not able to see them and utilize them. Your focus is not on building the country. It appears to be on revenge. You seem to want to hang “Ralph” for grievances he has committed. But you don’t see the grievances you are committing.

The disrespect you show to the office of Prime Minister is egregious. You talk about “Ralph” this and “Ralph” that. You refer to him as “potogee,” “big belly” and other disrespectful terms. These are the lessons that you teach your children, then you blame “Ralph” for the high crimes that are destroying the country. Look in the mirror at your behaviour and see if you too have become a monster! You disrupted a man’s funeral in church and could not admit the wrong in it. It was “Ralph” fault that he came to the church and maybe the Obeah that he is working caused the rogue crowd to misbehave, so that “Ralph” could score brownie points with voters.

Your leader, Mr Eustace, sat in the church and refused to show compassion to the family and the Prime Minister because the rogue folks were expressing their democratic rights in church. Now, that may make good sense to people who are anti-Gonsalves, but it is a huge turn off for folks who want progress and harmony in the country.

Look at Barbados and St Lucia that are next door. Do their people carry on like you? Is there no corruption in the Bajan or St Lucian government? Certainly, there is corruption in every government. The Bajan government laid off hundreds of workers due to hardship in the economy. No one saw them in the streets behaving like hooligans or at a funeral booing their Prime Minister! How can Vincentians who want civility and progress vote for an unruly government? How can you attract investors with such a rogue reputation? When you disagree with these investors, how would you handle the disagreement? Would you murder them and say they caused you to do it because they tried to cheat you? You have made Gonsalves with all his blemishes look attractive and this is why he will continue to rule because of you.

Helena R Edwards