We are, by tradition, self-reliant

Editor: Yesterday, I watched a video of Nigel ‘Nature’ Stephenson explaining what I now believe is responsible for Vincentians’ transformation from a state of self-reliance into a state of dependency, where they beg and complain constantly.

I have often asked the question, why have my people become so alien in their ways? It was a mystery to me that a culture, where I learned to be self-reliant has become so enslaved by dependency.{{more}} Many of you have heard me offer suggestions as to how individuals can form cooperatives and accomplish great things by themselves without depending on the Government.

Each time I heard people complain about their insufficiencies, it honestly annoyed me, because I am an advocate of doing for self and I simply regarded complainers as lazy. The creator has endowed each of us with abundance and the existence of needs initiates creativity. We have seen this throughout history. The Kalinago did not have the technology that we have today, but that did not prevent them from cutting down great oaks and making canoes, in which they could travel the seas.

Thus, when I see our people today that are just wasting time complaining or begging, it seriously bothers me. I am an advocate of self-reliance. This is my main reason for supporting education. I believe that if one has the ability to do for self, he will always be free. On the other side of the coin, if one is dependent on another, he is essentially the slave of that benefactor.

The video I saw left me rather angry. In this video, Mr Stephenson shows the roads of my former neighborhood, Queensbury Rd, in Vermont. From this video, certain facts are established. 1. the roads are deplorable and 2. the roads desperately need fixing.

Now, any rational mind knows that the country is economically undeveloped. Therefore, there are a lot of things that need to be done, but the Government cannot obtain sufficient revenue from the people who are taxpayers to do it. Therefore, there must be alternative solutions. One alternative solution is self-help.

Mr Stephenson alleges that he obtained the materials needed to fixed this particular road in Queensbury, and he was getting support in terms of manpower from the community, but the Government threatened to put him in prison if he led this community effort to get this needed job done.

Hearing this story angered me, because I have often advocated self-help as a great solution to improving the quality of life of poor Vincentians. Why would the Government not want the residents of Queensbury to have good roads is a question I would like to direct to Julian Francis, the Prime Minister and Jomo Sanga Thomas.

Mr Stephenson was duly elected by the people of South Leeward to serve them. Why would the Government prohibit him from using all possible means to get this job done – not just a job, a desperately needed service that the administration itself has not provided. This is the equivalent of declawing a cat and rendering it helpless. The cat is unable to hunt for its survival and you refuse to feed it. Why would the Government want to promote and encourage helplessness?

We are not a begging people. We are a people who have always been able to work together to do things for ourselves. Whether it was a task to build a house for a couple or bury our dead, it was a community effort. Men and women volunteered their services in exchange for goodwill, a little strong rum and some food.

This cannot be the way. What good is education if people are prevented from exercising that knowledge to do for themselves? We cannot have a society where we condition individuals to be dependent. That by no means is progress. Government cannot provide the needs of all of the people and if Government is prohibiting people from providing their own needs, it is setting the people up for death by starvation.

I would like to hear an explanation from Mr Julian Francis as to why the community is prohibited from helping themselves and why he threatened to put Mr Stephenson in prison for attempting to help the community, but chose not to arrest him for driving an unlicensed vehicle?

Helena R Edwards
Mount Vernon, NY