WHAT has come to the fore in relation to the DSH project in Vieux Fort is that this country is embroiled in a crisis of patriotism. And what is alarming is that St. Lucians are unaware of, or oblivious to, this crisis.
There is an aetiological nexus between the ubiquitous dysfunctionalities in our society and the waning of patriotism in all of its aspects. Hence in the stygian environment of our dubious and vaunted enlightenment, we with an enraged futility, seek solutions to the societal dysfunctionalities that surround, and have engulfed us. For example, law and order, juvenile and adult delinquency, public service unproductivity, public and private service venality, education lapse, environmental vulnerability, social insalubriousness and so forth. All of these for their containment or eradication must be predicated upon a template of love of country. That is Patriotism.
In the plethora of discussions we have been involved in and pronouncements we have been bombarded with in relation to the DSH project, the word that has been virtually conspicuous by its absence has been patriotism. And this is symptomatic of the malaise that pervades this society, with its system members bemused by its seeming perenniality. And it is as a result of this characterological deficit that we as a people are presently reaping the whirlwind.
There are reapers and there are the reaped: there are exploiters and the exploited. Both on their levels manifest the lacuna that exist in their individual and collective psyche. The common denominator is the absence of Patriotism.
DSH is a syndrome that emanates from this debilitating and deleterious absence and exposes in its putrid nudity our materialism, individualism, venality and hypocrisy. DSH is a timely revelation that is now forcing us as a people to grotesquely confront this existential question. What happens when PATRIOTISM dies?
Patriotism is not an abstraction. It is a reality – a sublime reality. And so the other question that comes to mind is this: Are we losing St. Lucia, and in the process of so doing, ourselves? It is indeed paradoxical that the Independence mantra for 2017 is “I am St. Lucia”. In the face of this self-lacerating experiment and experience in Vieux Fort, this mantra is anathema and incongruous to what DSH stands for, which is the rape of our independence and the obliteration of our individual, collective and national identity.
And so the question that has to be asked of all St. Lucians is this: Do you have eyes to see?
Why do you think that St. Lucia was targeted by DSH? Don’t you think that those people had done their due diligence on a multiplicity of levels, including our characterological profile and national cohesiveness? What they saw were a people virtually devoid of patriotism that was further exacerbated by a distressing level of illiteracy and its concomitance.
They saw ubiquitous greed, debilitating venality, inspissated arrogance, a lackadaisical mien and carriage and a perverse poverty of spirit. They saw a country ripe for conquest: people to be colonized with the connivance of the people, the majority of whom in their alarming cognitive innocence were oblivious to the calculating machinations of DSH and their agents at home and abroad.
Saint Lucia needs to be saved. You, very innocently, may ask, from what? The answer, very simply but not simplistically, is saved from itself. St. Lucia needs to save St. Lucia and you are St. Lucia. Can the distinct and spirited minority where a residual modicum of patriotism reposes save the day?
The five-year-old boy sitting on his plastic bench at school/nursery needs to be saved. This is where the saving process has to begin. It is there that patriotism begins. And so its absence at this stage is the genesis of the societal problems that we have been afflicted with throughout the many stages and phases of our lives, up to DSH.
When we consider the many ills, in their diverse forms, in our society, patriotism must be the universal template for their resolution. Without it, the Hobbean (1588-1679) drama/tragedy begins to unfold and life is becoming nasty, brutish and short.
Look around you.