I love the rich history that defines the St. Kitts and Nevis I have grown to know and love. I marvel at the rise and fall of the crescent hills, the warmth of our people, our love for music, our competitive spirit, and our fiery passion for living. St. Kitts is not merely a place I call home; it is the face of my identity; the "who I am" is somehow entrenched in my little St. Kitts. There is nothing I can possibly do today that will change the fact that on one sunny day in December, my navel string was severed from my mother's womb. I am a proud Kittitian. 
 
Residing on either of the pristine lands that comprise the Federation is no measure of the depth of one's love for country. In our quiet place; in whatever part of the world we dwell, we search our souls; there to discover what St. Kitts and Nevis means to us. 
 
I declared myself a St. Kitts-Nevis ambassador during my undergraduate matriculation. Being Kittitian allowed me the opportunity to share snippets of my culture with my academic peers, dispelling some of the laughable myths too many of them believed, including the fact that we lived in huts, dangled from tree to tree, ate with our hands, or crossed the Atlantic much like Olympic Gold medalist swimmer, Michael Phelps. Given some of the bizarre assumptions many of my colleagues made about the Caribbean, one would easily think I attended college in the 19th century, but I did come to accept that I too was being assumptive that in the great almighty USA, everyone understood world Geography.  
 
Our people today- like our ancestors before us, and generations yet unborn - face a myriad of challenges that will certainly alter the course of our Federation. What is it we value most about our Kittitian and Nevisian heritage? What do we want those after us to carry on? In fact, what do we want our legacy to be?
 
For several months this year, the Federation has been embroiled in heated verbal exchanges, fueled by the two main political parties in St. Kitts. Nevisians too have had their say about the state of affairs on their island. However, depending on which supporter you ask, every legal punch, every act of political posturing, every derogatory comment spewed from one party to the next is embraced by supporters, while the guilty politicians walk away as heroes. 
 
While real people suffer real losses and real setbacks because of a world plunged into real economic crisis, politicians forge ahead with their unreal political agenda, supposedly for love of country. And when the elections would have come and gone, after lives would have changed at the expense of political expediency, citizens are expected to return to normalcy. Indeed, a tall order for our leaders to make of us!  
 
One may argue that our Federation has long practiced "tit for tat" politics. But shouldn't the laundry list of known abusive and spiteful acts meted out by both PAM and Labour administrations against our Kittitian and Nevisian people be an indication that we need to do something different in our practice and style of politics? Isn't it extremely disturbing today to hear sensible people say, “So what if Labour do it; Pam, do it to Labour people" or “Wait 'til we get een no; we gon give dem a dose a wat Labour give PAM”. At a time when we claim to be serious about not committing political sins of the past that have seriously affected our nation, we choose to be quiet about the commission of wrongful deeds so long as our party leaders are somehow involved. Can someone say "double standard or is it politics as usual?"   
 
We vehemently speak out about our desire to save our nation from the dangerous grip that crime has taken of our young men, but society in itself begs for liberation from the infestation of its own political gangs, who, for the sake of victory at the polls, see nothing wrong with unscrupulous acts against each other. In the end, an entire Federation suffers. 
 
At what point do we declare wrong WRONG and right RIGHT? How is it we have allowed the 'grey area' to charm us so? How do we keep our politicians honest if our focus is merely to tell our leaders what they want to hear so we in turn can butter our 'royal bread'? How can it be acceptable to put one citizen against another and claim to love our country? What a display of public disservice.  
 
Unfortunately, some of us live for the drama of political polarization, seemingly an absolute staple of the political mix in St. Kitts nowadays. We have become such slaves or lovers of warmongering and divisiveness. But we are the same village of people who have to work together after an election to address the high incidence of crime, upgrade our education system, lower the national debt, revisit the constitution, enhance our health care system, improve the electricity system, tackle growing immigration issues, revamp our Federation's infrastructure, address the issue of economic diversification, grow our tourism product, demand public integrity and transparency from our leaders, assess the value of implementing term limits and address a host of other issues concerning the path of our people. How can we even heal or carry out the business of development in such a politically-charged environment?  
 
No matter where in the world we travel, no matter what we pursue in life, our center, our love for country runs deep. We love our St. Kitts and our Nevis. But how does love for country translate to "destroy my fellow citizens no matter the cost?" How can we verbally crucify our young men who align themselves with red and blue for love of gangs, when all around them adults wave their political colours for love of party, even when an issue is non-political? How does the potentially destructive love for power supersede our love for human beings? 
 
Our journey for love of country presents us with an abundance of social and political challenges, but we must demonstrate a greater level of respect and tolerance for our differences as individuals first. Only then can we collectively transcend all barriers where no verbal sword or political spear can conquer, making us a nation of people bound together by our love of country first. What a legacy!