As difficult as it is for most of us to acknowledge, the humbling truth is that we have almost always depended on the kindness of strangers from faraway lands. Yes, foreigners! Another ineluctable fact: In 200 years we’ve done little to lift the anchors of our past, perchance to pursue a future of our own design. Conceivably we’ve been too busy expending time and energy blaming one another for our plight, with minds blighted by books we did not write, and words designed to keep us nailed to our self-hatred, our suffocating insecurity and our unshakeable belief in the notion of free lunches.
Lest I be too quickly understood: when I speak of foreigners, I refer not only to our earliest ancestors but also those who brought them here in chains. However abhorrent might be the thought, we are all descendants of foreigners, whether from Africa’s West Coast, from Britain or from Portugal. So much for today’s history lesson. What remains to come to light is why some of us seem desperate to foment xenophobia even when our very existence relies on the object of our everlasting animus.
Almost from the moment the electorate demonstrated 11-6 its disappointment with the previous government, the House opposition has sought to portray the new administration as especially partial to the prime minister’s “friends, family and foreigners.” If by that they mean to accuse Allen Chastanet and his Cabinet colleagues of nepotism, then why not boldly state the N-word before the appropriate tribunal and let the law take its course?
I am especially concerned with the aspect of the allegation that applies to non-native contributors to our economic and social development, those who live and work among us, or have chosen to retire here, as well as locally registered but foreign-owned bodies that afford Saint Lucians full-time employment. The widespread fear is that should there be a change of government following the next general elections, the categories last mentioned will be in for some stormy weather.
As if that were not already ominous enough, the opposition continues to threaten potential applicants that should it be elected to government, all passports granted during Chastanet’s time under this country’s CIP and CBI laws will be meticulously reviewed. This can hardly be good for business. It would make more sense, it seems to me, if the opposition would state clearly what most disturbs them about the work of the related government departments and how best to remedy the problem—without the risk of throwing the baby away with the bathwater.
Already widely reported is the fall-out from the opposition’s threat to the CIP. Which reminds me of our days of “green gold.” Despite the repeated warnings that the preferential treatment afforded us by the World Trade Organization was not everlasting, we chose to believe the self-serving forked tongues and carried on as if without our bananas the wider world would perish. (By the way, I daresay that we could not have done as well as allegedly we did when the industry was “king” without the assistance of entities altogether foreign! Even now, as we fantasize about the return of a banana economy of sorts, our potential dream market is foreign.)
Ironically, it is our nation’s “best brains” that concoct the xenophobic tales they hope will drive the poor and poorly educated majority to rise and mutiny—in the same way banana farmers in the heyday of the industry were encouraged to turn one against the other in the disguised interests of politicians.
What have we learned? Not much in the way of solutions to our problems: crime continues to overwhelm us despite our efforts at containing it. Unemployment remains a recurring headache as more and more jobs are rendered redundant by technology. We’re not sure what to do about educating our citizens for life in a world we barely understand.
Meanwhile, this is how a campaigning politician this week addressed his audience, mainly women: “You living with a man. A boyfriend, a husband, whatever. Another man comes to you. He sweet talks you. He promises you this, he promises you that. And you believe him. You leave your man for him. Then after a while you realize he fooled you. All the sweet talk was just to get you to leave your man so he can get access to you. Now that’s where you find yourself. You left what you had for promises that turned out to be empty. You have no other choice but to pick up yourself and return to your man.”
Whatever his intended message, the campaigning politician inadvertently exposed his Neanderthal soul. At any rate, his assessment of women who, by all he said, can be persuaded to walk away from their families simply by waving a dollar or the promise of a dollar under their noses. There’s a word for such women. And although the campaigning politician did not actually voice it, there could be no denying he saw women as commodities available to the highest bidder. Presumably, time and the women of Saint Lucia will prove him wrong!
