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THE EDITOR: In the 2012 film Django Unchained, written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, Samuel L Jackson played Stephen Warren, a ruthless head-of-household slave who treated the other slaves worse than his master. Anyone watching that movie would disassociate themselves from accepting that they are anyway close to such a character. With some introspection or dispassionate evaluation, we may realise that despite our education, independence and political liberation we are perhaps more mentally enslaved than we were a few generations ago.
A few days ago I visited the Breakfast Shed on the waterfront. Many of the booths were empty, available for rent and the area was dismal. A liberated people would have paid maintenance personnel to keep the place clean and attractive. A food outlet on the waterfront with great local dishes. The people cooking would not have had to pay a minimal rent as their presence would have contributed to tourism and a positive image of the city. Instead, I was told they are asked to pay $200 a day.
A liberated people would have recognised that whether one is of East Indian or African ancestry we were both brought to the Caribbean to serve the wishes and demands of the colonial masters. If we were a genuinely free people we would have noticed that after independence we were tasked with building a nation as there was not much demand for our contribution to massa. A liberated people would have united and used every bit of our talent, education, wealth and resources to build a nation free, proud, prosperous and safe. A home for our families.
Instead, we fight bitterly among ourselves, opposing each other senselessly. We destroyed the once lucrative food production estates we inherited and use our little resources to buy food from our past colonisers. We have mismanaged to the point of destruction the oil industry, the sugar industry, the coconut plantations, the banana plantations, the coffee and cocoa estates, and our pitch lake.
As I write this our roadways are dilapidated. We are unable to do simple things like efficiently distributing water to our citizens, repairing our roads after plumbing excavation, and efficiently running the public service. In a small island with no place to run beyond 70 miles either way and few roads, criminals rob and kill almost daily with impunity. Yet we boast that we are government or opposition and the people voted for us, so we are important.
We are not free, not liberated and will continue along the road of despair unless we learn to unite, to feed ourselves, to have safe communities, to care for our poor and aged. The rest of the world doesn’t care whether we succeed or perish. With our flashing blue lights, fancy clothes and useless titles we are just glorified slaves, Stephen Warrens punishing our citizens as we serve others. We either unite or perish.

STEVE ALVAREZ

via e-mail
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