I visited a primary school yesterday on an invitation to speak with its Grade 4 students about our nation’s electoral system.
And what a wonderful experience it was.
I got there just as the Morning Assembly was ending. And I was greeted by the Principal and by the teacher with whom initial contact had been made on the visit.
The school’s physical facilities and amenities are in dire need of attention. Nevertheless, I felt an energy, a commitment, a pride of purpose, and a love in that place, obviously generated by the staff, which was very re-assuring, and sweet.
I also observed how smart, attentive, respectful, confident and affectionate the children were, which was even sweeter.
Their questions and comments were solid and searching, and I was impressed by how well informed they seemed to be, especially given their tender years.
A number of them shook my hand, and some hugged me, when I arrived and also when it was time for me to leave. One of them even gave me a pen at the end, and when I told him not to give it to me because I had pens, he insisted on giving it to me, saying that he had a lot of pens too.
And once outside the classroom and on the corridor, another asked if I could come back on Friday.
What an experience!
And presuming, as I was, that this Grade 4 was essentially no different from every other Grade 4 in St. Kitts & Nevis, I felt a sense of hope and optimism. I felt euphoric.
This was sweet. Kudos to the teachers, the support staff, the parents and guardians, and to the children.
But as I got into my car and drove away, my thoughts went in a different direction.
Every generation has the moral obligation to lay the foundation to a better future for the following generation. So I began to reflect on what these children in Grade 4, and their counterparts across the length and breadth of our beloved Federation, and what our children generally, were going to inherit from us?
What account are we going to give to them for our stewardship? Are we going to tell them the truth, or are they going to have to discover it on their own and become deeply resentful of us? Maybe they’ll be resentful anyway, given the mess that exists, caused, in no small measure, by us.
And the more I reflected, the faster the picture changed from sweet to sour.
Are we going to tell these children that we allowed a national debt of (now) over $2 billion, even with all of the talk of debt reduction, which works out as a debt of $50,000.00 on the back of every single person living in St. Kitts & Nevis, including (and this is the most painful part) these innocent 8, 9 and 10 year olds? What did they do to deserve this?
Are we going tell them that we allowed their Bank to be saddled with the burden of having to find nearly $1 billion to recover from the catastrophic consequences of its accommodating and facilitating incompetent, self-serving, reckless fiscal leadership by the person who has occupied the office of Prime Minister for the last nearly 19 years?
Tell me which commercial bank in any part of the world, operating on prudent principles and practices, would’ve continued to lend money to such an unreliable debtor, land or no land, and to expose itself to the risk that we all know has materialized, No, don’t tell me. Tell the children
When these stories and others are told, it’ll be the directors over the years who’ll have to take full responsibility for allowing the Bank to be used as a partner to Denzil Douglas’ fiscal recklessness and his contemptuous and sacrilegious reversal of history with this diabolical ‘haircut’ which has caused the Bank itself to lose at least $50 million, and the Social Security Board over $30 million (thus far), and also with this diabolical land-for-debt swap thing.
While we’re on the Bank, I’m told that shortly before its new Managing Director took office, an electronic apparatus had been set up to connect a certain person outside of the Bank to sensitive internal information, and that she has ordered that it be dismantled. Kudos to her, if the story is true. Maybe here’ll be fallout.
These precious 4th Graders, the holders of the mantle as it is passed from us, will learn from their teachers that in 1937 Marcus Garvey urged the people of St. Kitts & Nevis: (i) to gain control of the lands, because who owned the lands made the laws; and (ii) not be a nation of jellyfish, but instead to stand up for their principles, for their rights, for their freedoms and for their nation.
And teachers will no doubt also tell the children that in 1975, exactly 38 years after Garvey’s admonition, Robert Bradshaw stood in Buckley’s Estate Yard and acquired the lands for them.
Bradshaw acquired the lands from history’s oppressors for history’s oppressed. In other words, liberated the lands for the people of St. Kitts & Nevis. It was absolutely necessary for him to do so if the people were to proceed to true nationhood and empowerment.
The teachers will also tell the children that exactly 38 years after Bradshaw’s liberation of the land from the oppressors for the oppressed ( that, for the record, is how liberation works), Denzil Douglas publicly declared that he was now “liberating” the lands (from who else but the oppressed and for who else but a select few?), in what could be recorded as the most willful, dastardly and treacherous reversal of a people’s progress, and the most disrespectful, callous and cruel violation of a people’s patrimony and heritage, by any Caribbean leader in the last 400 years.
And the persons who have administered and managed the Bank and allowed this to happen, as well as his former and present colleagues (that includes myself), and you all, not only owe these children a big apology, but we need to remedy the monstrous situation that we’ve helped to create.
Meanwhile, the teachers will tell the children that even as Douglas committed these unprecedented violations against the people of this nation, he nevertheless insulted their intelligence and sensibilities by calling upon them to have full confidence in him.
The children will understand. And they won’t be pleased. They‘ll want this act of treachery punished and reversed before their turn comes to take over the mantle.
So if we want to liberate our land (for the second time in 38 years, imagine that), and if we want to set a proper foundation for our children and to redeem ourselves in their eyes, we have to act, and fast. We have to, as Douglas himself once said, “chop off the head of disunity”.
