Do you know Ernel Sylvester Lewis? He lives at Ponds Estate, at the corner of the road which connects the Newtown Playing Field to Valumart. He’s known as ‘Mr. Piggy’.
He walks around with a stroller, unable to venture too far away from his home.
What follows, as it relates to Mr. Piggy, was told to me by Mr. Piggy himself.
He was disabled in June, 2007, after being knocked down by a vehicle on the road mentioned above, just north of the Newtown Playing Field.
The driver didn’t stop, and the police never brought a case against him.
Shortly after the incident, a cruel and inhumane comment was made to the effect that the perpetrator had knocked down a pig, not a person.”Ah Mr. Piggy he be!”
Mr. Piggy endured a difficult four-month stay in hospital, where steel reinforcements had to be surgically implanted in his legs, and where he never received a single visit from the perpetrator.
He did, however, receive a visit from a woman who urged him not to have the matter pursued, because it would risk the perpetrator losing his driver’s licence.
Further, Mr.Piggy said that when, from time to time, the perpetrator has, over the years, driven past his home on the corner, he has tried to stop him to talk, but the perpetrator has had no time for him, other than to tell Mr. Piggy to stop bothering him.
All of this made Mr. Piggy (who, thanks to some good doctoring and nursing care, was able to save his legs) reflect on the fact that: (i)the man had knocked him down and kept driving, not paying him even a single visit while he was hospitalized those four months, not accepting responsibility for what happened, and not offering even a rusty five cents in compensation; (ii) the comment was made that it was a pig, and not a human being, that had been knocked down; (iii) the police had done nothing; and (iv) the woman had come to him, in his condition, asking him to spare the person who had put him in hospital, while neither she nor the perpetrator seemed to have any concern or compassion for him and the terrible situation into which he had been plunged by the perpetrator.
He wondered whether these things were related to the fact that his was a low and humble station in life, while the perpetrator was (and is) very highly connected, and whether justice was only available to the small man only if there was no inconvenience or embarrassment to be caused to the big man.
No justice for Mr. Piggy. He’s too small, too inconsequential, not of sufficient substance to warrant inconveniencing or embarrassing the big man who knocked him down and almost took his life. After all, “ah Mr. Piggy he be!”
And did I hear someone also say, ‘ah hog dey be’ ?
So now, after seven years, Mr. Piggy’s health, his finances, his hope, and his spirit have been severely crushed, and he has had to depend on the assistance and generosity of other persons. His sense of pride, honour, dignity and self-reliance has been severely wounded.
With all of that lost, what, in the earthly realm, does a man have left?
What has been done to Mr. Piggy is an abuse and desecration of every principle of good leadership, privilege and power, and a defilement of every aspect of righteousness, compassion and conscience.
But Mr. Piggy is not an isolated case. Indeed, he is a tragic symbol of the callousness, arrogance, disrespect, abusiveness, contempt and even brutishness, held in the hearts of the leadership, the powerful and the influential in this land towards the ordinary folk, and generally.
John Paul Freeman, who Denzil Douglas said he might have to sell, is also a victim. Journalists, who in press conferences have been accused of asking “stupid” questions, are also victims. The lady who Denzil Douglas told on the radio last week “Thanks for making yourself an ass” is a victim too. As is the lady who was kicked by a cowardly man several elections ago.
The children, teachers and parents of Basseterre High School, with the problems that still exist there, are also victims.
Also a victim is the child who bombastically told a teacher that her crude behavior, disrespect and misconduct were due to the fact that she was from St. Pauls, and warned that the teacher couldn’t punish her because she (the child) was a relative of Denzil Douglas. But not only is the child a victim, but so is teacher and the entire teaching community, because as the navigators of the next generation, our teachers are hamstrung and frustrated by a higher power which promotes a culture of lawlessness, brutishness, callousness and victimization.
And the whole of St.Pauls are victims, because they have been unfairly and undeservedly tainted and set a disgraceful example by the conduct of Denzil Douglas, to the point that a St.Paulian child would seek to justify her own misbehavior by reference to where she lives, and to defend her misconduct behind his power.
Now, recently, land papers and voter registration papers were being handed out in the Virgin Islands. The recipients will, in time, discover that they too are victims.
All, like Mr. Piggy, are victims of the toxic culture of leadership and power that has, like a swarm of locusts, come down upon this land.
And all the proponents of this culture want from the poor are: (i) votes; (ii) anger directed at each other; (iii) brutish, uncouth and disrespectful behavior, once not directed at themselves; (iii) short memories; and (iii) unquestioning shallowness and loyalty to them.
Meanwhile, they give to the poor as little as is necessary in order to get their votes, and to keep them under control and emasculated. Then they stage an election as if it is a Carnival, Music Festival or Calypso Show, ‘bambooozle’ as many as they can, cheat as much as they think they need to, then after the dust has settled mislead, misguide and mistreat for five more years.
So now Ms. Marcella Liburd has promised Mr. Piggy that she would bring Dr. Denzil Douglas to see him…..seven years after Dr. Douglas’ brother knocked Mr. Piggy down.
But Mr. Piggy understands, and feels deeply, the contempt with which he has been treated.
And while I’m sure that he’d accept whatever cash and other assistance he can get (and Dr.Douglas needs to give from his and/or his brother’s pocket, given the cause of Mr. Piggy’s plight), he, like thousands of other victims, has spotted the Douglas game, and now realizes that it isn’t in his interest or that of the country, especially the poor people of this country, to allow Douglas to continue with his game.
The eyes, the ears and the minds of most Kittitians and Nevisians have been opened, and more so with each passing day, albeit with much of it happening in a controlled and cautious way, given that so many people are afraid to reveal their true feelings.
Ernel Sylvester ‘Mr. Piggy’ Lewis and the thousands of others want, and deserve, a better arrangement. They want, and deserve, fairness and justice, and more faithful, humble, efficient and honest service from their leaders, and they want, and deserve, to be respected, and treated with dignity, compassion and humaneness.
They will no longer allow themselves, and their country, to be victims. They will end it. And they will end it one by one, vote after vote, stuffed into the ballot box with quiet, steely determination.
Happy Birthday, Mr. Piggy.
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