Many of our nationals have come home to visit and to participate in this year’s music festival. To you we extend a hearty welcome. It is good to have you come back whenever you can and we are happy to be able to provide some entertainment to occupy you while you are here.
The fact that you keeping coming back home for Christmas, music festival, Culturama and Independence is evidence of the strong bond which holds you to the land of your birth, St. Kitts-Nevis. Your decisions to return regularly makes us who remain here feel good. It gives us the message that St. Kitts-Nevis is not so bad after all and that you find a welcome which does not make you feel any less at home than in the country of your adoption. This makes us feel that we are doing things right.
It also makes us feel good to listen to your compliments and to hear you say that the place has improved in your absence.
This is not to say that we think that you have found everything rosy and sweet. There are thorns which have sprung up among the roses of progress.
Like the more advanced communities where you live, affluence has had to travel with its more obnoxious companion, crime, and, as we exult in the material strides which we have made, we hang our heads in shame for the incidences of murder, burglary and other unbecoming features which have grown up in our own society while you were away.
We know that you understand our dilemma. It is not like the days when everyone was steeped in poverty, had very little, but found enough to share. Since you left our social values have changed somewhat. We have created a class structure: one class tries to grab as much as possible while the other class looks at them with envy. It is called the profit motive and drives our society into modern day capitalism.
In spite of these changes, however, we know that you will have a jolly good time and enjoy the last night of the music festival.
Before you return, we hope that you will ride on one of the many ferries, visit the sister island on Sunday and return to your adopted countries refreshed and full of pleasant memories.
