You have to give it to the people of Egypt.
Following in the footsteps of their sister North African nation, Tunisia, which is where the Arab Spring began on December 18, 2010, when a street vendor set himself afire in protest, Egyptians took to the streets in massive numbers on January 25, 2011. And within seventeen days, their President, Hosni Mubarak, was out of office.
By June 30, 2012, Egyptians had a new President, Mohammed Morsi. They wanted to give him a fair chance, and they did. But he quickly revealed his corrupt and dictatorial nature. And the people decided that they would have none of it. They wanted full democracy and nothing would stop them from getting it. The people’s revolution would continue.
And from the now famous Tahrir Square in Cairo, to Luxor, to Port Said, to Alexandria, to Suez, to Aswan, and across the length and breadth of that great country, 33 million Egyptian patriots, young, old, men and women, and poor, rich and in between, took to the streets, day after day, without relent, the largest mass protest action in the history or the world.
And yesterday, July 3, 2013, the Egyptian Army came to the people’s rescue. It booted President Morsi out of office, and placed him under house arrest. All without violence.
When asked if this was a military takeover, a top Army General said no. He said it was, instead, the Armed Forces heeding the call of the people for democracy and transparency, and for an end to corruption in government. He said that the Army had, as its first order of business, the moral obligation to defend and protect the interests of the Egyptian people, and that it was discharging that obligation.
That obligation to defend and protect is to be discharged, not only against external aggressors and local insurgents, but also against leaders who’re out of control or corrupt, or both, and who’re as much a threat to the Constitution, to democracy and to stability as are the external aggressors and the local insurgents.
And in such cases, the security forces must stand with the people.
The Army General stated that there’d be an interim government of technocrats, that within a year, an election for the people to choose a new President, and that, in the meanwhile, the security forces would block any effort to frustrate the people’s will and their desire and determination to have an Egyptian democracy for today and for the future.
One young lady was asked if she and others weren’t afraid that the Army and the Police might turn on the people. And she said no. She said that Egyptians, including soldiers and police officers, now knew enough, that they too wanted democracy and an end to corrupt leadership, and that the security forces would not wish to see any Egyptian blood being shed.
And so far, so good. A national defence force taking a stand for its people, a stand to give democracy a chance, and to rid a nation of a dictator, a tyrant, a corrupt leader. A stand taken when the institutions and instruments of governance provide no immediate and just alternative, and when it would be massively wrong to do nothing. A stand in the cause of social justice.
Just in case you’re tempted to think that I’m being seditious, you’re wrong. Let me put this to you. Suppose the institutions and instruments of governance weren’t there to constrain the leaders of the USA, the UK, Canada, the Bahamas, Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad & Tobago, and suppose the leader of any of those countries was to behave as Morsi has behaved, don’t you think that the Armed Forces should and would step in to protect the people, their democracy and their nation? Isn’t that what they are sworn to do?
It’s well known that by the declarations of their respective governments, the armed forces of the USA, the UK and Canada, have from time to time been deployed to protect democracy in other countries, sometimes even with the primary goal of removing a leader. So why wouldn’t they do so to protect their own democracies and their own people against the excesses and the egregiousness of their own dictatorial and corrupt leaders?
History shows us a long list of leaders who’ve been the greatest threats to democracy and human rights in their own countries, and who’ve done far more damage than any external aggressors or local insurgents.
Indeed, I’d venture to say that one of the greatest threats to a people and their nation is a bad leader. There is hardly a force more destructive!
For example, Denzil Douglas.
He’s incompetent, reckless, power hungry, self-serving, and ‘lie’. He’s crude, crass and vindictive. He disrespects, uses and abuses everyone in this country who allows him to, and he disrespects and abuses the high office which he occupies at the behest of the people. He likes to have people kissing his backside. His modus operandi is to turn people against each other, and to compromise them.
He ran up a national debt of $3 billion, and dismissed and mocked people who voiced concern about it. “We are land rich”, he said.
So incompetent and reckless he’s been, that in order to do a routine thing like paying civil servants’ salaries, he had to mortgage thousands of acres of sugar lands to the National Bank. And by the year 2006, about 8 square miles of the island had been mortgaged to the Bank. A good leader would’ve paid civil servants on time anyway, but without having to cough up 12% of the land mass of St. Kitts.
He forced the country under IMF supervision, and ‘erased’ the Government’s $900 million debt to the Bank by a special deal in which the Bank is to sell the land in order to get back its money. However, to date, the Bank hasn’t collected a penny of that $900 million. And if it sells the land to get back its money, the new owners of the land will be foreigners. So Douglas not only bankrupted the Government, but he put the Bank in jeopardy, and he sold out the people’s land and their birthright, reversing history.
You see why he needs a Morsi?
Meanwhile, many of the people who have received Government houses are stuck with mortgages that are too high for them, so they are defaulting. And Douglas knows that, so he cruelly keeps them falling short of the mark and depending on him, when lower mortgage rates would greatly relieve the pressure on them, and at the same time provide an opportunity for increased collections by NHC.
The man needs a Morsi.
Then there’s the VAT on food, on medication and on funerals. He has vatted the people from the womb to the tomb. And he’s okay with that. So at what he considers to be the right time, he’ll grant relief on this, as he’ll do when he lifts the ban on civil service increments, and maybe offer a pre-election drop on electricity rates as well. And people, whose expectations and self esteem have been so lowered, will praise and thank him.
Also, people who’ve paid for house lots have been unable to build homes because the infrastructure is not in place. The infrastructure would cost $50 million plus. If the money had been made available, those people could’ve already built their homes, creating some wealth and comfort for themselves as homeowners, as well as substantial economic activity for the country, and additional revenue and reduced debt for the Government.
So when, finally, the infrastructure is put in, the cost of building these homes will double, and many of these people won’t be able to build.
But does Denzil Douglas care? He can find money to give to South Street Properties, a US-based firm which specializes in buying and flipping distressed real estate. South Street Properties bought Christophe Harbor on June 3, 2013, and Douglas found $43 million from the SIDF to pay them for 30% of the project on June 10, 2013. So South Street properties owned Christophe Harbor for one week, then flipped it, getting our SIDF money, and laughing all the way to some bank overseas.
And Douglas also found SIDF money to buy The Golden Lemon Hotel at Dieppe Bay for Kittitian Hill, because, it was said, Kittitian Hill needs beach front land. Nonsense! Remember the problems the former owners of The Golden Lemon had with the fishermen of the area? Why make poor people’s lives harder?
And guess what. The first cheque to pay for The Golden Lemon bounced.
Douglas can find money for all of that, and for people coming here with big talk and small bank accounts, speculators, hustlers and all, but he can’t find money to put in infrastructure for homes to be built for locals, so that our architects, engineers, contractors, truckers, tradesmen and tradeswomen, suppliers, service providers, etc., might find steady work, and for our young people to have full-time work instead of the YES , then the PEP, and for our economy to enjoy real and steady growth.
And he can’t find money sustain our health and education institutions, or to make life and work a little happier each and every day for our nurses, teachers, and security personnel.
That kind of common sense approach to the economic, fiscal and political management of this country does not appeal to Denzil Douglas. It does not suit his narrow, selfish, dictatorial interests.
For these, and many other reasons, it’s high time now for our Police Officers, our Fire & Rescue Officers, our Prison Officers, our Customs Officers, our Soldiers and Coastguardsmen and women, and our Traffic Wardens and Crossing Guards, to stand with, by, and for the people of this country against Denzil Douglas.
Their paramount duty is to the people, not to the leader. Their counterparts in Egypt know that, and have acted accordingly. Their counterparts in the USA, Canada, the UK, the Bahamas, Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad & Tobago also know that, and would act if they need to.
A good leader gets his or her strength from the people’s strength, while a bad leader seeks to strength by keeping the people weak. Douglas is a bad leader.
And it is time to give him a Morsi. No violence, but a Morsi.
