As we enter the New Year

2014 was expected to be a challenging year with our economy still rolling in the doldrums. Our economy appears to no longer have any commanding heights. There are really no pillars of development, since these seemed to have collapsed in a storm for which we were not prepared. The downfall in agriculture is now visible to the naked eye and not concealed by economic statistics that often befuddle us. Tourism has not taken off. Even though the benefits from cruise ship tourism only accrue to a few, the reduced cruise ship visits for this year must be of concern. What else is left? Construction is no longer vibrant.{{more}} We seem not to be very focused on building our services industry and are not capitalising on the global communications opportunities. In fact, the economic cusp we had been told to expect has disappeared from our vision, as if by some magician’s trick and remains visible only to the magicians themselves.

Education is supposed to be the key to push us along, but unemployment among graduates of the high schools and the Community College has reached an alarming stage. Students graduate more equipped to apply for jobs than to create jobs, having been prepared for a job market that doesn’t exist. Parents have been investing a lot of money in their children’s education in an effort to provide them with an opportunity that they might not have had. These parents, of course, rightfully see education, as the passport to a better life for their children, hoping too that this would also bring benefits to the family that had made the sacrifice.

I have heard of Community College graduates being forced to take positions that make a mockery of their post secondary education. A few of them have been very creative and have been functioning on their own. Woe that others can be in a position to do the same! But an investment in education is also critical to the welfare and development of the nation. We need, therefore, to harness our human resources, but have not been doing so.

While we speak a lot about education, we have not paid attention to what our graduates would do. Is there a development plan that they are to fitin to? Those with university education often find themselves filling positions where they are unable to use whatever skills and expertise they might have acquired. In situations like these, the nation has to be mobilised behind a common agenda. The divisions which we have been talking about for years are manifesting themselves very formidably, even as we try to rebuild from the storm that ravished parts of our country on Christmas Eve night. The storm did not discriminate. It presented an opportunity to get the major political parties and people working together in an effort to rebuild the nation and ensure that all persons affected received assistance. But we have failed to grasp it. Our country will continue to suffer, once this short- sighted and asinine policy and approach continue.

Please don’t blame the politicians! I have said time and again that politicians get away with what they think they will get away with. So, we encourage all of this by our silence on most matters and our attempts to rationalise and find excuses for many of the shortcomings in our country. This year is likely to be one where political considerations take front place, as we gear up for another general election. Then we start all over again. I am really sick of this, especially when we are living in a country that needs to harness its human resources and have our people working together to develop the community for all the people who inhabit it.

Are we satisfied with the way things are going? I have just seen a piece where the Barbadian Finance Minister is calling for the nation to come together to try and turn the economy around. This is certainly needed, but one cannot wait until the situation reaches a critical stage and its people are forced to swallow the bitter remedies prescribed. Barbados is talking about cutting jobs in the public service, but those who will lose their jobs are unlikely to have been the ones responsible for the crisis situation in the first place. Are we in SVG going to have a replay of this, closing the gates when the horse has bolted?

Are we still hiding our heads in the sand? The only way to deal with a problem is to recognise that there is one. Today, more than ever, we need to wake up from our slumber and not be like Rip Van Winkle who slept for 20 years and woke up proclaiming his loyalty to George III, not realising that the American Revolution had long taken place and that the US was no longer part of the British Empire. When some of us wake up, we are hardly likely to find the SVG we had known and loved. When our grand- children ask us what has gotten us into the position we are in, will we be able to answer? How could we explain why some of our streets and villages are named after certain countries and that vagrants are now in charge of our nation? Don’t vagrants go after discarded things, they ask? Why are all the churches closed, except for the Mormons? Why are none of the stores in Kingstown owned by persons who were born and bred here? Why are we now speaking a different language? Why are people walking aimlessly around like Jumbies? Why do most of the criminals have degrees? Woe that we have the answers!

Dr Adrian Fraser is a social commentator and historian.