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Purely Dominica

Purely Dominica


By year end thousand of Caribbean nationals will be kicked out of Barbados by the government. While making the announcement in Barbados’ parliament, Prime Minister David Thompson declared that the levels of illegal immigrant in Barbados were unacceptably high, and is increasingly difficult to control, posing potential negative challenges to the island socio-economy.

While I agree, that no country can tolerate an unrestricted flow of person into its territory, but on the other hand, I believe the policy of expelling Caribbean nationals violates the CARICOM treaty and united spirit it stands for.

Don’t forget that it wasn’t too long ago the heads of Government, including former Barbados Prime Minister Owen Auther attending the 18th Inter-Sessional conference in Jamaica in 2007, agreed of fully implement the Caribbean Single Market and Economy by 2015 and allow full free movement by 2009.

Now five months into 2009, the dreams of free movement throughout the Caribbean have proved to be a only pipe dreams.

When are these heads of government going to understand that disaster-prone, small and vulnerable islands like ours are not blessed with natural resources that can allow us to stand alone. If we can’t find a way soon to put our differences aside, where we can swim together, we will surely drown separately in this global crisis.

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35south

Last weekend I was fortunate enough to be in the charming company of celebrated Caribbean Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott, at our first ever Literary Festival held on the beautifully manicured grounds of the University of the West Indies.

Quite an opinionated and beguiling fellow, I must say. Among his words of wisdom was an interesting comparison of slavery and tourism. From Mr. Walcott’s point of view, ‘at least, during slavery you didn’t have to smile’. Walcott certainly has a basis for such an innovative comparison. And I am aware that his sentiments are shared by many.

Thousands of persons in the tourism industry, all over the Caribbean are inclined to work in this sector mainly by the attraction of high value foreign currency, and the fact that relatively little training is required, but not necessarily because it offers occupations in which they are passionately interested. Apart from this scenario, our regional governments seem ever so intent on convincing us that success in tourism is our only significant prospect for economic prosperity.

So the people go about their jobs with plastic smiles, often making ridiculously large efforts to grin, laugh and be friendly to the tourist. Children, from a very tender age are taught to wave and smile at the larger-than-life tourists while they drive by on the bus like celebrities taking pictures of the simple island people.

The funny thing is many of us forget that the average tourist is able to realize when someone is overly eager to please him, with sugary words of greeting. Let’s face it- if the Caribbean’s service sector was overloaded with so many brilliant actors and actresses in disguise, we would have our own colony in Hollywood by now.

I am not against tourism, but I certainly agree with those who feel that in too many islands it has not yielded returns which are comparable to the large investments and sacrifices made to accommodate visitors. Just think about it. Too frequently, you can’t get a bus to home, school or work when there’s a cruise ship in port- the bus drivers all morph into taxi men. The road network is often totally jammed as a result of the cruise ship as well and both students and workers must leave their houses more that 15-30 minutes earlier than on a regular dat. Sometimes the water system to certain communities is disrupted to supply the needs of the ship in port.

As long as tourism remains the main focus for economic development by our Caribbean leaders, these are situations to which we all must adjust, whether we like them or not. But one of the downfalls of tourism is that it really does make some of us feel like we just can’t do much better for ourselves as a people, for economic survival. The average vendor- toothless or not- must smile all through his day- or else the tourist will feel uncomfortable and he won’t get paid.

I never thought about it, but here are probably a lot of vendors out there who don’t want to have a smile stuck on their face all day long. But they have too. It’s this sort of compulsive ‘singing for our supper’ role that Walcott was referring to. Once again, he is opening our eyes…

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Dominica will begin their road to the 2010 Cup World in South Africa with their opening qualifying match against Barbados. Ranked at 124th in the world by FIFA, Barbados greatest soccer success was reaching the semifinal round of qualifying for the 2002 Japan/Korea World Cup, where it Stunted Costa Rica but ended up finishing last. Looking at the qualifying draws, it’s one many Dominican would off hoped for. With United States waiting in the second round, it’s definitely an up hill battle for our Dominican players.

dom_cwdraw.jpg
USA To Open Against Dominica Or Barbados [SoccerAmerica.com]

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