ON February 22 1979, St. Lucia gained Independence and since then it’s been asked many times whether the teardrop island truly is independent. Well, the recent turn of events surrounding the IMPACS shake-up has led me to ask that question yet again.
As St. Lucians are quite understandably still reeling from the findings of that report, I can’t help but notice that our nation has been reduced to a whimpering Uncle Tom who’s being held by the jewels by the Big Boss USA.
We’ve been somewhat crippled as the leading country of the free world has told us to buck up, shake up and do as they say or we’re on our own.
Now don’t get me wrong for one second…that shake-up was long overdue and to be honest, we need shake-ups like the one we got from the Jamaican team in pretty much every sector. My gripe is this, WHY did it have to take the USA’s LEAHY Law and an IMPACS report to finally stir up some action? WHY wasn’t such radical but oh so necessary action taken sooner? Are we living by the mentality whereby we only act when our arms are being bent so far up our back that we are forced to say uncle? WHY can’t we take it upon ourselves to do what is best for our country without having a headmaster hovering around us with a “lolobef”? Most importantly, I get that the U.S is the biggest superpower of nations and if you want anyone on your side then it’s them but why are we coming across as so desperate and needy that whenever the U.S says “Jump” we respond with a quick “How high?” rather than “Why?
As far as I can see, the U.S is no angel. In fact they have a pretty unscrupulous law enforcement system as well, a problem that dwarfs ours. In other words, what I’m trying to say is that maybe the U.S needs to remove that huge plank in their eyes before taking the twig out of ours.
According to CNN.com; “On average, at least one person is killed by a cop every day in the U.S. In contrast, not a single one was killed in Britain last year, where police fired their guns a grand total of three times, according to The Economist. In 2011, when the FBI reported 404 justifiable law enforcement homicides in the U.S., police killed six people in Australia, two in England, six in Germany”
Take a look at 19 year old Tony Robinson who was killed last week by an officer with an itchy trigger finger. He was exonerated in a 2007 fatal police shooting. Then there’s 12 year old Tamir Rice of Cleveland who was shot in a park by a police officer two seconds after he arrived on the scene and saw the boy with a toy gun (the person who called the police warned that the gun was fake) and I don’t think I need to go into details for Michael Brown, Eric Garner and Trayvon Martin…all unarmed black males gunned down. What happened to the shooting officers? Nada! And that was just a handful of names…there is a trail of thousands and yes, there is a very obvious trend.
And if I may add the cherry to the rotten cake, as if to be wrong and strong, after every killing, the background and history of each VICTIM was made public and if they did as much as steal a bag of skittles in their past… “CRIMINAL”.
But the largest fraternity in the U.S, Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE) was featured in a leaked video last week where a bunch of prissy twits were clearly heard chanting; “There will never be a n****r in SAE, There will never be a n****r in SAE, You can hang him from a tree, But he’ll never sign with me, There will never be a n****r in SAE” and what happens? The university closed down the fraternity and the twits received a smack on the wrist. Note well, I called them twits because unlike the unarmed black men gunned down in the streets like stray, rabid dogs, there has been no exposure of the identities of the individuals involved…nothing as yet… no one knows who they are.
Now if you see nothing wrong there then your moral scale needs to be checked out by a professional.
I’m not going to pretend to know how arms deals and all that jazz operate…I haven’t got the foggiest clue so I’m just throwing suggestion to the wind here, but if Russia, Germany, China and France all fall behind the U.S. as the biggest suppliers of arms AND they too are our allies, why don’t we get our supplies from them?
Again, I’m saying that I don’t know how the governments go about settling deals of this nature but surely the U.S isn’t our one and only source?!
The same goes for funding. Whilst we should vie to stabilise our footing, I also know it is impossible for St. Lucia to stand on its own…heck, even the U.S borrows but I don’t understand why St. Lucia should come almost to a halt because the U.S has threatened to stop funding us. Where’s the plan B?
We’re currently sitting on an active and rumbling volcano which is due to erupt at any minute and I think it’s a good thing because we needed this. Just like when building a dream house, one has to make a royal mess and then rebuild from the ground in order to achieve that masterpiece. So whilst things are looking rather scary and threatening right now, we should “hold tight” and stand strong…look at the bigger picture and see all the good that can come out of this.
At the same time however, we must be very wary and not get trampled on whilst we’re already down. So the U.S. is threatening…tell them to clean up the nasty mess in their backyards before pointing fingers and judging us.
Shake up and wake up St. Lucia but not because THEY said so, let’s do it because we know that we need to…let’s think for ourselves.
