Political Poison and Crime

For a very short period just after the 9/11 attacks, America actually came together, united around the outside threat of terrorism from the radical religious group we have all come to know as Al Qaida. In what must be the most eerie and devastating political event at a most unfortunate end to his first year in office, President Barack Obama and his administration had to face the loss of Ted Kennedy's seat in the Senate to a Republican from Massachusetts, Mr Scott Brown -- an event that has conservatives salivating.

But what a most tragic and ironic turn of events for the President and the Democrats! In one fell swoop the Health Care Bill on which Mr Obama staked his political life was dealt a virtually fatal blow. This is not to mention several other initiatives of his administration which now seem sure to be in jeopardy, given that the filibuster proof majority has disappeared overnight. In just one year a most popular president is in major political trouble and may now be scampering for his political life. A Nobel Peace Prize in his first year in office and being ushered in by a wave of unprecedented popularity and love in modern American life, Barack Obama's candidacy and presidency captured the imagination of the United States and the world. Both he and his administration had reasons to rest for a while on his laurels so to speak.....at least for two years one would have thought.

Now, just one year later, he fights to keep his proverbial head above a 50% approval rating, having fallen 15% points over this very difficult period. What lessons can we here in the Caribbean and especially in St. Kitts and Nevis, learn? Clearly no one is invulnerable and no political party or leader immune from defeat or failure! But it seems, especially in the Caribbean, political parties get lost in their rhetoric and delude themselves with the arrogance and intoxication of power. It is for this reason that they invariably never listen to 'the people' and even in a democracy never seem to govern with a consensus mandate for the good of ALL the people and the country. They listen to themselves only! They breathe in the stale air that pervades between themselves and their lackeys, rarely allowing those outside their camp to critique, challenge or even encourage them.

Polls are taken by the parties, but they are for private consumption and are not made available to the people without spin and propaganda. Power, getting and holding on to it, becomes an obsession, while the interest of the country and all its people fade perilously into the background. We in the federation of St. Kitts and Nevis have learned seemingly nothing from our distant Caribbean neighbors, whose economies and politics are much closer to our ancestral cousins on the continent of Africa than the rest of the Caribbean. But our leaders look to our immediate Caribbean neighbors for advice and guidance, use their stories to spin their agendas, while sliding toward a mountain of debt, crime and security failures and very grave political instability.

We in the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis are unique as a tourist destination. That is what our tourism brochures inform us. That uniqueness is definitely not sun, sea and sand tourism, which exists in abundance elsewhere. But it is sun, sea and sand, combined with a peaceful and lush environment, and friendly and intelligent citizens. We have a few added bonuses which include a lure for potential investors of an investment climate relatively friendly enough for them to do business with our government.

However, our lack of serious enough attention to our security and crime problems along with the seeming inability of our political parties to come together and dialogue constructively, make the specter of political instability and general insecurity far too frightening for both tourists and investors (and locals alike). Perhaps we don't realize that those who have invested in the country and built homes to live among us, are ready to take flight. They and we, live as if in prison, behind burglar bars, constantly locked doors/houses when one is at home and have been forced to become virtual slaves to our possessions, sometimes hiding and taking them with us each day when we leave our homes.

Let us not be fooled however into thinking that they will abandon their properties in the way that the landowners of the aristocracy spoken about often by Washie, will just leave them as they did during the economic drought of the 40's. After they took up and left, our government simply divided up the spoils and doled the lands out to those who had worked on them as laborers. No, this time, because of the economic maturity of the Federation, and the much smaller size of the world today, homeowners who feel forced to leave will just make sure that they get back their investment dollar with some reasonable return on that investment.

Those few professionals fortunate enough to be involved in the transactions will get some short-term financial benefit of course, but the country will be poorer with its conscience and morality seared with burning coals of indifference in the face of its destruction. Those who leave and sell out will be replaced by others who come, but they too will abandon the Island if nothing is done about our nation's security. Each person who leaves our shores because of the fact that politics has overtaken common sense, good judgment and a true love of country will leave in their trail bad vibes, bad press and bad karma.

Tragically, political propaganda replaces reality and facts on our once peaceful shores. No one seems to know what the truth is anymore except the cold hard reality of their existence. Those who lead are so caught up with the political realities - they spin the facts and what is staring them in the face to what they believe is their political advantage. Those who support their party then drinks the poison handed them by their leaders and argue from that framework. Or they make up their own defense of their flaws and then their leaders drink their poison.....but the poison is passed around for all to drink at the party conventions - formally and informally held.

For example, those who are in power and those partisans who support them will come up with excuses for why security and crime have worsened. Some of them who function in a state of blatant denial will actually tell you that things are actually not worse. There are others who will remind you that things were ALSO bad under the previous administration and in fact they will point out what they will pass on as fact that the previous administration is responsible for starting crime in the first place and its spread. They will actually give you 'facts' to support this.

Then there are those who will tell you that crime is up everywhere - after all they will argue, if it is on the increase around the Caribbean and the US etc. then why shouldn't we expect it to be exploding here? I have even heard some say that our murders are being committed by youth gangsters which they are of course. This therefore means that they will solve the violence problem for us as they will just kill each other off. And on and on the justification for crime and not doing anything about it goes. Of course none of these excuses and rationale allows either of the two administrations on both Islands to take responsibility for our security.

If they don't who will or should? None of the excuses looks at the fact that while crime can exist everywhere else, we can ill afford it happening here because of our size, uniqueness as a destination and vulnerabilities. And watching our youth kill themselves gives me personally no comfort at all. It promotes barbarianism, more violence, and the chance for it to spread to the rest of us. The proliferation of guns, accommodation of bandits who are political assets or seen as such, is and will DESTROY the nation!

Politics has a destructive effect on the thinking brain! Persons who become very partisan don't allow themselves to think objectively, exercise good judgment in terms of their thinking about the good of the country and others outside of themselves or reason things out with the necessary clarity of mind and spirit. Sadly, they become so blinded, that even their politics cause them to lose perspective and judgment, sometimes allowing them to make poor decisions about even their own political fate.