By: Real Patriot
This is a question that I have thought long and hard about, even before the British invaded our country and took our rights. We can all blame the British for what they have done to hurt our country, our economy and our individual lives. But that's just passing the buck and a game that we as Islanders do. Why do we do that? Because we are lazy and vain. Yes, I said. People who know me know I talk real. I want to talk real now.
The reason we are in the horrific condition we are in with the British has some to do with our mentality. We have missed the boat and we need to confront our mistakes. We are lazy and roll with the tide and waves instead of swimming to safe land, because it's easier and we don't want to help each other. We fail ourselves by drawing conclusions instead of doing the work to find out for ourselves what we need to do. We let someone else do the work and then complain when the outcomes stinks. I was proud of us with the constitutional talks because at the last minute some of our leaders decided that they would take up the cause and put their objections in writing. But how long did it take for us flailing around rolling in the tide without an anchor? There was no working together.
Look at what it has taken for us to realise that we are being extorted and taken advantage of by the British. It took us so long because we were rolling with the tide lulled by the retched stories of Michael Misick instead of paying attention to what was really going on by the British. Nobody could reach us in our mental block. We allowed people like Shaun Malcolm to control the water and we just floated in it. We didn't do the work.
When we finally got our heads right and realized that we had a monumental, life changing political catastrophe with the British occupation, what did we do? We went our separate ways trying to distance ourselves from that group or this group because it wasn't an advantage for us personally. I heard so many people say that they wouldn't attend a constitutional meeting planned by our own because there wouldn't be enough in attendance and they would look foolish attending. Then you have websites bringing awareness and political transparency like TCI POST but you have the same 20 people commenting and participating. This is the only website that will reach readers beyond our islands that calls attention to our plight and only 20 people are participating. Nobody from other parts of the world are going to read our Facebook pages that shows how we feel. For all we know the world thinks we like the British rule and that only 20 freaks are complaining. Turks and Caicos Informers have a Google Group forum saying the same things as TCI POST, but it's not public. Why haven't TCI POST and Informers joined forces to get better exposure? See what I'm talking about? We are too vain not wanting to share resources or ideas, everyone wans it to be there own idea and control it.
That is why we were paralized when the British got here because we had no cohesion, we were lazy and vain. I just read a Wikileaks cable from December 22, 2010, only a few short months ago. The Bahamas questioned why CARICOM was not more forceful in stopping the British invasion to Turks and Caicos. Do you know what CARICOM said? I will quote, "TCI [was] too 'fractured' to launch a credible opposition to UK rule". The political parties and their constituents would not come together to launch a credible opposition. OUCH! That hurts but doens't it really say it all. We don't joining together and we keep ideas and resources to ourselves because we are vain. We have paid the ultimate price for our mistakes.
So who's to blame for where we are today? I think we should take some blame for being too lazy and vain. I heard someone say once that we are too passive as a people. No, we are not passive. We are passive aggressive and we feel it is our right to disconnect when our vanity is at stake. That is what is causing us to lose the battle for our rights and freedoms. We have a few groups discussing the plight taken up here or there, some radio shows, on Facebook, on Informers, sometimes in our newspapers, sometimes in an individual political thesis that is only for exclusive reading by email. But how will that get anything done? It took us two years to get our heads right to see that the British government here means us no good. What will it take for us to do the work to oppose this?
Look at our employment problems. I say we are lazy thinkers. We want something for nothing and when it came to our past employment issues we let it tear us apart and create divisions. We spend so much time worrying about which foreigner going to hire Belongers and fighting about it that we didn't see a creative way to compromise so that everyone can win. We are still talking about it to this day. How many hear Expressions and Robert Hall give his opinion about hiring non Belongers. I like what Robert said. He said that it's not always about job qualification that gets someone hired, it's an attitude and compatibility. We think that because someone other than a Belonger gets a job that we should be angry at the employer, the person who got the job and the system. We let positive solutions escape us by focusing on petty things. We are lazy, we had no ideas. I think if we passed around a piece of paper every one of us could think of five ways to solve the old employment problem. But no, we dwelled on it and we dwell on it to this day. You know, we can blame whomever we want but we also created a division with the expats, yes the same expats that nearly triple us in population and now want to run our government. We need to be more marketable as workers and allow businesses to succeed the way they needed to for our own economic growth and we can take advantage of that by creating products and services from the extra visitors. That's how our local economy can thrive. We can offer incentives for foreign employers to hire Belongers but we shoud not hurt relationships with bitterness and laziness to find a better way. But now look at what happened, we are not just competing with foreign workers, we are being axed from our jobs and replaced by British nationals. I blame us to some of that because we didn't focus on where we needed to be. That's what my mother use to call "Penny wise but pound foolish."
We are keeping our own selves down. We have the same 20 people staying consistent with their public message when there should be thousands of us. Our leaders are doing their own things and should be joining the public debate not keeping their opinions guarded and sacred, it's not the time. Other people have opinions but won't join together for one reason or another and we are being foolish.
Have we not learned from any of our past? We are sinking. We are riding the tides and waves of others doing and nobody is swimming for their lives or for our lives. We are drowining and it is our fault. Where are the other people joining in the debate, putting their opinions out there, taking a chance to show their solidarity? If there was ever a time to have courage and put our laziness and vanity aside, it's right now. 20 people cannot fight for all of us, if the saying is that there's unity in numbers then the numbers are against us.
