Editor: Discrimination in St Vincent and the Grenadines used to mean “racial”; now it means political. We know now that there are the few who skim off the cream from the top and then parade amongst the peasantry dispensing pittances of alms; that is the newly re-entrenched culture. You can steal an election, but you cannot steal a people’s minds and souls.{{more}} We few, ourselves and a few of our friends who still have the means, who have not been crippled by bankruptcy, but have been deprived of an opportunity for an income by the ULP, will, of necessity, be departing this country soon.

Ovid bemoaned his exile because his new neighbours dressed in animal skins and had no understanding of his poetry. He had left a cultured and civil society and was doomed to live out his life amid barbarians. Some in St Vincent and the Grenadines today find the reverse to be true and so now need to seek a more welcoming life elsewhere.

We were the future and the possibility of this country, and now many of us will be gone. The future for entrepreneurs and trained and educated young people obviously lies elsewhere. We have loved our country and depart with heavy hearts, but know that the cronyism and patrimony of the newly re-elected Government will not, cannot benefit us or our families or the future of our country. We have felt the lash and have the means to avoid it. “No wonder then if I seek an end of this and beg constantly for another land,” Ovid.

The real estate people will be benefiting by homes and lands flooding the market. At least someone will be benefiting, but at what price? Best of luck to the left behind. Good-bye.

HUGO