A Candid Prayer
Dear Lord,
After three decades of Independence we look around to take stock. We know we are blessed by the breathtaking beauty of our surroundings – the sea, the hills and mountains; the flamboyants regularly announce their existence without any prompting from us; the independent yellow bells sprinkled throughout the country declare their happy presence; the colourful bougainvillea brings joy to our landscapes; we have flat land and scenic mountains; we have water and we have rich soils. Thank you, Lord!
We know we are descendants of survivors and therefore we have ingrained in our psyche the will to survive and we possess the genetics of warriors of determination and patience. Our ancestors survived the Middle Passage, the onset of disease, the onslaught of the sun in the canefields, and the tortures and deprivations of the Master in colonial times.
There is no doubt that we possess true grit. We see it in Kim Collins, who after a decade of running still holds his own as one of the top ten athletes in the whole world and we know this is no flash in the pan as we see our other athletes right up there behind him – Rogers and Adams.
We have seen our Netballers and our Cricketers shine in regional competitions, some even reaching the world stage. We have only to see our footballers and basketballers perform to know that the size of a village, town or island has no bearing on the quality of its output.
We shine intellectually as well. Our tiny island has produced no less than three Chief Justices in the OECS and the Chief of the Caribbean Court of Justice – Sir Dennis – after he had presided on an International Court in Rwanda etc.
Great authors (Caryl Phillips), great actors (Cecily Tyson), great orators (Louis Farrakhan), great musicians (Joan Armatrading) find their immediate roots in our Federation so we know that their genetics was wrought from the same fires that molded ours.
For all these signs of greatness among us, we thank you Lord!
A people with this abundance of potential never remain slaves forever. Sooner or later they burst out of their restrictions and so it was with us…we know now, Lord. So we experienced Emancipation; we experienced Statehood and finally we achieved Independence.
These proclamations all changed our physical restrictions, but our minds had been beaten into thinking that we were still inferior to your other human races/creations. We did not think we had the ‘smartness’ to fashion our own destiny; we did not realise how important we had been in our enslaver’s evolution as a world power; we underestimated our value; we did not realise they could not have built their universities, their museums, their railways; their civilization without us and the wealth they reaped from a free labour/slavery institution.
It was in St. Kitts that slaves first dared to defy their thinking in the riots of 1937. It was in St. Kitts that Robert Bradshaw as leader dared to declare the lands were rightfully ours because of the blood, sweat and tears our ancestors had shed for them. Our labour had not been paid for. We still seek reparation. He seized the lands.
Then came our INDEPENDENCE (really we know it was Interdependence). We had achieved the right to take our place among the nations of the world; to sit with them in council; to abide by their agreed rules and conventions; to borrow money from them; to benefit from their research; to participate in their common projects and aims for humanity; to abide by the standards they set for the world. In the Commonwealth we agreed to function as a DEMOCRACY – it was for the ‘common good’ of all.
In the first two decades of our Independence, Lord, we were proud of our leaders. It was clear that Sir Kennedy Simmonds had a clear vision for our country. As a member of the United Nations and the Commonwealth, he realized that he had to abide by their rules as well. He paid for the lands seized by Robert Bradshaw and set about putting down an infrastructure that would take us to greatness.
He fixed our roads, improved our electricity and water supplies and above all rebuilt our schools – they were mostly one room shacks then. He then set about expanding our horizons – he opened up the unused Peninsula and made it accessible by building a road through it; he expanded our Basseterre Port by reclaiming 24 acres of land providing a world class port that now allows cruise ships of all sizes to dock; he opened up Frigate Bay for tourism and built a by-pass road from the airport to that part of our country. He even began feasibility studies to build a bridge between St. Kitts and Nevis, thereby uniting our economies and magnifying that we were one people.
And he did not forget our people. Every effort was made to help them. Women were no longer punished when men impregnated them before marrying them; affordable houses and land now became accessible; school meals were provided for all children in primary schools and attendance greatly improved; a SELF Textbook Scheme was instituted to create an even playing field for learning and even exam fees were paid for by Government. He provided the funding to carve a road for our sportsmen to attend Olympics. Income Tax was abolished and numerous small businesses sprang up. St. Kitts Nevis became the envy of other Caribbean countries.
But Lord, so much has changed since we got a new Government in 1995 for their vision was not the vision of the previous administration. What is ten times worse Lord, they do not respect or admire the efforts of the previous administration and use every opportunity to belittle their fellow politicians.
The vision of the new government does not indicate that they are striving for the long term upliftment of our people. One look at the ‘half a hog head’ houses tell the story. In ten years it seems that our land will be criss-crossed with golf courses; our hillsides will be littered with luxurious villas, our coasts will be filled with marinas (none of these belonging to us) and these will be regarded as signs of our progress. Our rich soil is not given much value and our farmers appear to be outcasts not being able to acquire land for their crops.
But worse of all, our DEMOCRACY has taken a beating and is now in tatters; we are hopelessly in debt; we are breeding a culture of antagonism and fear; we no longer believe that our electoral process consists of one man, one vote. We are making a mockery of our constituency and constituency boundaries. And the checks and balances (the motion of No Confidence) put into the Constitution to deal with runaway dictators is being kicked aside. A private foundation (SIDF) has become the de facto government. There is unfair and unequal distribution of our monies. All this is happening as we approach our 30th anniversary of Independence.
So many of the intelligentsia of the country are ‘passing by on the other side’, just as the priest and the Levi did in the story of the Good Samaritan. They are touting that others are worse off in the region and the world. They look below to those worse off than they are, and they reap up things of the past to justify their actions; they look at the monetary gains they stand to lose, blinded to the fact that we can take our place among the stars; that we can become beacons in the Caribbean and the world, as others from our shores have done.
Dear Lord, does our future consist of a modern form of slavery for our people? We desperately need someone who can ‘bind up our wounds, pouring on them oil and wine”. You, Lord, have spoken of Unity; you have spoken of Faith, Hope and Charity. We know that we cannot maintain the status quo as it spells doom.
For the sake of our youth, Lord, who must never be allowed to mimic the conduct of our Leader, how he belittles our own, and the culture of antagonism he promotes, we ask that you bring your Wisdom and Guidance to the Unity Party enabling them to steer us off the rocks on which we now flounder.
Dear Lord, on this 30th Anniversary of our Independence, we beseech you to save our country.
