Submitted by Royalrumble
Dear Madame Secretary of State, welcome to Barbados. Please convey to your distinguished President our best wishes for continued good health, wisdom and success in his endeavours to improve the lot of the American people. It was sad to read on this blog and in the Nation Newspaper of Thursday, June 13, 2010 an open letter written to you by the Political Advisor to the Prime Minister of my country.
In Barbados, we have a saying that “the higher the monkey climbs the more he shows his tail”. What this essentially means is that the more persons persist in their ways the clearer their true character becomes. When you consider that the author of that letter is being paid approximately Bds $160,000 annually to produce that kind of political dribble then you begin to see the true character of our Government.
Madame Secretary of State we sincerely hope that your visit will engender the kind of reforms so desperately needed in our institutions of governance. Your visit could not have been more timely as we struggle to deal with the collapse of Clico Barbados. Barbadians would love to follow your country’s example and send a clear message to those who abuse the trust and confidence that ordinary people place in institutions in which they conduct business but we have neither the laws nor calibre of Government to permit such. The imprisonment of Bernard Madoff and Alan Stanford stands as a perfect example of your country’s commitment to fairness and justice for all. We wish we could do the same at Clico.
For some time now the author of the letter has been trying to accomplish the impossible task of trying to convince his fellow countrymen of some similarities, though not seen with the naked eye, between your distinguished President and our bewildered Prime Minister. It would be blasphemous to even attempt to think such.
President Obama is a Noble Peace Prize winner who has served as the first black Editor of the Harvard Law Review, a prestigious magazine of Harvard University. He has written many brilliant works of which “The Audacity of Hope” is a best seller and a must read. It is fascinating to read his many quotations and notes from which one can glean the true character of the man.
David Thompson has never, to my certain knowledge, written a single sentence anywhere that can provide some insight as to who he is or what he stands for or that can improve the lives of the people he purports to represent. Unlike President Obama Mr. Thompson inherited a Government with 6% unemployment, over $2.5 billion in foreign reserves, the highest level of investor confidence ever enjoyed in this country, a cost of living that was manageable and a country where the hopes and dreams of our young people were accomplishable. Today all that has shattered.
We marvel at your President’s dedication to fulfilling his election promises and his recognition of “the urgency of now” in correcting the social and economic challenges his country faces. He knew of the unhealthy state of the American economy before he came to office and immediately upon his election he set about the task of correcting them.
All our Government has persistently done since coming to office is moan and groan about the hand it has been dealt.
The billions your President has spent in stimulus packages to get the economy moving again have already begun to bore fruit. His huge capital works programme, the reorganization of the small business sector, the provision of funding for the banking system, the housing programme, the insurance industry and his much talked about health care bill are all working in harmony to rebuild and refashion the American economy. Your President has been very proactive in tackling the economic problems in his country.
In Barbados, our Prime Minister has adopted the “wait and see” attitude and this is costing the country dearly. Our international reputation continues to fall, our credit rating has plummeted to an embarrassing level, investor confidence is waning, public servants and Barbadians generally are gradually losing hope and confidence in their country’s ability to realize their dreams and aspirations. Unemployment continues to rise and reveals some very frightening statistics.
For the first time in the history of my beautiful country more men are unemployed than women and this poses a very serious threat to our social stability since idle men are more prone to anti-social behavior than women. Persons who now make up the workforce are working for far less than they did under the last Government due largely to the high cost of living – a consequence of the excessive taxes being extracted from the dwindling workforce.
In the USA, President Obama is building more human capital by investing more money into Health, Education and other social services. He has been strident in his criticism of the immigration law in Arizona, which seeks to prosecute and deport illegal immigrants. The President as already called for a federal overhaul of all immigration laws and stated that the Arizona law threatens to “undermined basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans, as well as the trust between police and our community that is so crucial to keeping us safe”. I have know doubt that that the President, in keeping with his election promise to rebuild a nation torn apart by years of war rhetoric by the Bush administration would do everything in his power to overturn Arizona’s counter productive immigration law.
In Barbados our Government has severely cut support to our vital social sectors and has adopted one of the most vulgar and inhumane immigration policy in the region. In spite of the fact that we have lead responsibility for the Caribbean Single Market Economy (CSME) we have enacted an immigration policy that shuts out our regional brothers and sisters. Our Government has exclaimed to all and sundry in the region that “ever so welcome wait for a call”.
Madam Secretary you will be shocked to learn that we have a Guyanese lady who has been living in Barbados for the last eleven years with her five children, one of which is Barbadian by birth. This lady has reportedly been told by the Immigration Department that she and her children will have to leave the country or be deported, in spite of the fact that she qualifies for citizenship. Since coming to office, Madam Secretary, your Government has regularized the status of thousands of foreign nationals in your country, some whom I am certain are Barbadians with less years in your country than this Guyanese lady has in Barbados. I seriously think that your President should rethink his administration’s association with Barbados and its uncouth and inhumane immigration practices since in my humble opinion they fly in the face of human rights and natural justice.
Madam Secretary, I think I have said enough to convince you that the people of Barbados see absolutely no similarities between President Obama and our Prime Minister David Thompson. Indeed if there is a world leader that has any similarities to our Prime Minister it is the former Prime Minister of Great Britain, Gordon Browne. They have both presided in the squandering of their country’s greatest assets and opportunities.
These are truly interesting times in the Caribbean but let nothing I have said above convey the untruth that we in Barbados are a lost people. Amidst all this doom and gloom there is great hope. On the political horizon there is a Prime Minister in the waiting. She has a fine intellect, she is visionary and compassionate, she is a regionalist and represents a party with a strong political legacy. She is Mia Amor Mottley. I am certain by your next visit to our beautiful shore she will be leading this great nation of ours.
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