Woke up with this morning with this on my mind. It’s long but take the time to read it and digest it. Elections are right around the corner, political parties have postulated, and everyone has begun campaigning vying for the vote of you the people. However, there is one thing that I would like to bring your attention concerning this electoral process, which is simply one word: vision. To politicians and politician hopefuls, when you are elected, you are elected not because you are our favorite candidate or party; you are elected to lead us to a better St. Maarten. However, a problem arises when you all don’t even know what a better St. Maarten looks like yourselves. In order to lead, one has to have at least an idea of where they want to go. We have slogans like: St. Maarten First!” Cool story bro, but St. Maarten first with what? “Stand with US!” Well, what are you standing for? “We Ready!” Awesome! Now where are you ready to go? If you tell me to follow you but I can’t see where you are going, then I am just as dumb for following you because we both will end up falling in a ditch helpless to save anyone else and much less ourselves. You have to tell people where you envision St. Maarten before you ask them to follow you to that better St. Maarten; that is a foundational principle of leadership. Another problem arises when everybody has a different opinion of what a better St. Maarten looks like. This has been evidenced time after time over the last four year during Parliament meetings. Whenever a Parliament meeting is adjourned, I always wonder what are the action points going forward? There are none because everybody has a different idea or opinion of what they want done. There has to be ONE common vision of where you want to see St. Maarten be and what you want to see St. Maarten do that unites you guys as politicians that everybody whether in government or in opposition can get behind. If not, we will have “di-visions” or two visions that will ultimately lead to division and, as we are all quite aware of given the last four years, a house (parliament) that is constantly divided against itself just cannot stand. That is the reason we have had political stagnation over the last four years and that has overflowed into national stagnation (no growth). So to the politicians and politician hopefuls: where do you see St. Maarten in the long run? What do you want St. Maarten to be known for? I believe that this is the first step in moving towards a brighter future. If we want to be taken seriously as a nation, then we need to begin to diversify and move away from trying to be the tourism mecca of the Caribbean simply because of this one simple fact: the rest of the Caribbean is trying to be that as well! The tourism pie is simply too small to be able to sustain the ENTIRE region. So what are some viable alternatives? What are some other pies that we can afford to take a huge slice out of? Here are some for starters: To be one of the premiere economic centers of the Caribbean. To be among the leading choices for medical treatment in the Caribbean. To be the regional leader in education for the Caribbean, on the same level as UWI and UVI or even higher. To build an athletic presence in the region and the world (Olympic level). To become a contender in the agricultural exports market in this region. All of these and more are “pies” that as of this moment St. Maarten can afford to help itself to a huge slice of but it takes leaders with vision to see that. If we collectively decide adopt one of these visions, it is all for the common good of ST. MAARTEN. Therefore it doesn’t matter WHAT political party gets elected, everybody can catch this vision and run with it. The thing about visions is this: where ever there is a vision, there is automatically provision. This means that if as a country we decide to go after one or more of these visions, jobs will be provided. Do you realize how many jobs are built into those several visions I just mentioned? Think about it, government wouldn’t have to worry about creating jobs because the vision has jobs built INTO it already. So there is no need to “create” jobs per say. Just follow the vision and the jobs will come (that indirectly solves the dilemma of students not returning home to contribute to the island). That means that government can then continue concentrating on developing ways to push and promote the accomplishment of the vision it has adopted. If parliament can adopt a vision and run with it, trust me, irrespective of where they were born, people will join forces to help accomplish that vision. There has to be something that unites ALL of us as ST. MAARTENERS and it makes no difference whether it is for UP, NA, DP, US, OSPP, or whatever other political party is out there. We all share the same demonym: ST. MAARTENER! It is not about personal gain, it is about national sustainability, not only for now but for generations to come. The best part of embracing and running with a vision is this: whatever proceeds are derived from the success of these visions, the ENTIRE country gets to partake of it. To quote a post from my cousin Jonathan Reid, slightly amended to fit our situation of course: We are 16 square miles of about 40,000 – 50,000 people. That means we are small. Small means we are nimble. Nimble means we can move fast. Moving fast is an advantage. In other words, since we are not big like the U.S.A. or Europe, because of our size it should not take us 20 years to achieve whatever vision it is we decide to embrace. Of course, this notion presupposes that we ALL agree beforehand to work together to achieve a common goal. So during this election campaign, LISTEN and OBSERVE ALL the postulated parties. Find out what their vision for the country is and allow the parties to explain their policies, plans of action, and describe their views of good governance. Observe and interact with many candidates as possible, both old and new. Ask them to outline in detail their strategies and solutions to combat issues that threaten the evolution of St. Maarten and see if it fits with the party they are representing. Please, don’t vote blindly! As a people are more educated, more knowledgeable, and wiser than ever before. Now is most definitely NOT the time to vote like times past but it is time to vote intelligently and informed and more importantly it is your RIGHT to vote and if there was ever a more pertinent time for you to exercise that right it is now because the future, both immediate and long-term, rests in the decisions that WE the population make. Let that sink in for a second. St. Maarten in 2030, 2040, 2050 and beyond can and probably will be affected by the decisions made by us during this upcoming election. Is that a risk we really want to take? We talk about nation building but the things that are essential for nation building we pay no attention to…what a paradox! For years we have had party bashing and individual squabbling and how far has that gotten us? What example are we leaving as a generational heritage? Crab in the bucket mentality at best. Time for change! If we don’t do that then what kind of country will we leave behind for our succeeding generations? Or a better question is: if we continue on this current trend, what kind of country can we expect to see in 50, 30, or maybe even, 10 years?
Posted on: Sun, 13 Jul 2014 13:36:47 +0000
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