Now we talking!

Now we getting it right! I was more than overjoyed to view/hear the Media Briefing given by the International Airport Development Corporation (IADC) on Monday of this week. CEO Rudy Mathias and the Airport Project’s Chief Engineer Jeffrey Cato laid it all out for us, giving a comprehensive overview of the project which provides the basis for debate, discussion and dialogue.{{more}} As one of the communication companies here is proud to advertise: “NOW YO’ TALKING!” My fullest appreciation to the IADC for what was more than an update.

One can only hope that the information provided is used to further the kind of constructive dialogue so necessary on such a vital project. That certainly has not been the approach in the past. Our quest for an international airport has long fallen victim of our narrow partisan politics. Maybe time and whatever honesty may survive in the political world will give, if not us, future generations, a more accurate picture of the hesitancy to proceed with the international airport project a decade and more ago, when it was clearly more affordable. Even within the then NDP administration there were differences of opinion, not readily admitted now for obvious reasons.

Perhaps, ideological and other reasons (Lack of vision? Fear of displeasing those who will not help us with the airport even though standing to benefit most from it?) combined to hamstring the Mitchell government from making the plunge. For, in spite of opening the diplomatic gates to Cuba and receiving Cuba’s national award, it is difficult to imagine Sir James Mitchell being comfortable with substantial Cuban involvement in the project. Maybe funding from the disgraced corrupt dictator Marcos, as was publicly booted and now conveniently forgotten, was preferable. But Castro, whom Mitchell’s allies in the right-wing CDU/IDU bloc had said was building a Cuban-Soviet airport at Pointe Salines? The same Pointe Salines where both American Marines and American Airlines were to land later with impunity?

Whatever the reasons, we seem to confuse national priorities with partisan ones and to wish to turn national dreams into national nightmares. That is our approach to Argyle. The nay-sayers would base their objections/concerns around the national outcry over the Ottley Hall project when the NDP was in power. But one can never equate the Cuban government, nor those of Venezuela, Taiwan, Mexico or Trinidad and Tobago with the likes of Dr. Rolla and his shady cohorts. To do so would be the greatest insult to state-to-state solidarity and co-operation. The realities of Ottley Hall lend unquestionable testimony to this.

Our experience with Ottley Hall, and those of neighbouring countries with other vaunted macro-projects which never materialized the way they were supposed to, must teach us lessons from which we must learn. We must be more questioning, more engaging, more challenging on Argyle and all such major national initiatives. Yet, we must be able to situate it in our own thrust for national development. Dollars and cents are critically important, but dollars sometimes cannot help when you are stranded and insulted in a neighbouring country. At times like those you would willingly part with dollars for respect and convenience. We cannot deny that an international airport is a Vincentian dream, even as it is one of the people of Dominica.

But it is not going to come easily, or cheaply. Should we not be collectively exploring how we can all contribute to this regard? I have criticized the ULP for a sometimes narrow approach to the airport building, but if truth be told, it is often a reaction to the negativity of those in the Opposition who seek to divide every step as if they do not share the national dream. Where does the NDP stand on the building of the airport?

Most sickening for me is the ingratitude implied or explicitly expressed towards those who help to make our airport a reality. It is the NDP which officially recognized Cuba, to its credit. To be talking of “who will pay for the Cubans” is downright dishonest. In today’s world, that kind of co-operation is a rarity, a precious commodity. We are treating it like dirt and encouraging the less knowledgeable among us, to bring out their basest instincts rather than their most noble aspirations. Whatever you think of the governments of Cuba, Venezuela, Mexico, Trinidad and Tobago or Taiwan, they are those, who in our hour of need are providing us with the support so necessary if we are to advance. While they commit themselves to economic diversification, those on whose altars we kneel, refuse to even wet our lips with Holy Communion.

The airport is OURS and we must find ways, while voicing our concerns and criticisms openly and all along the way, of finding a national consensus on it!

Renwick Rose is a community activist and social commentator.