All is not gloom but…

In our editorial in the midweek edition of SEARCHLIGHT on Tuesday of this week, we echoed the deep concern in our society about the continuing, and frightening occurrences of murder, mostly involving the use of illegal weapons. Those sentiments are not confined to our editorial staff; they represent widespread fear in our society about not just the frequency of such murders but above all, our apparent inability to take some sort of positive action and to allay fears.

Yet, in spite of all this, it is important that we neither panic nor lose focus. Side by side with these negatives, which we must continue to highlight, there are also positive developments in our society of which we must not lose sight. Just this week for instance, our country witnessed two developments which have a lot of positive implications for our economic and social development.

The week began with the hosting by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of the 18th edition of the Caribbean Week of Agriculture. While just the term Agriculture is used, the emphasis goes beyond the narrow focus of traditional agriculture covering related developments in agro-industry and sustainable agriculture. Of equal importance too is the focus on our marine possibilities. In his opening address, Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves reminded us that our marine territory covers a much larger expanse than that of our land. Out of this has grown the concept of the Blue Economy which is a valuable part of our developmental thrust.

Then on Wednesday there occurred another major development in our rapidly developing tourism thrust.

Yet another major air carrier has joined the growing number to commit themselves to servicing our Argyle International Airport. It is the rapidly growing Jet Blue, which made its inaugural flight to the AIA and has committed itself to direct, and affordable flights here. It demonstrates that our country is, indeed, spreading its tourism tentacles. Added to this is the return to this destination of Liat, which augurs well for improved intra-regional travel. These developments demonstrate that we are moving beyond the old prescription where we seemed to have settled to being the proverbial “hewers of wood and drawers of water”. We are now more and more exploring possibilities in both the Blue and Green Economies, including scientific approaches towards not only combating climate change but looking at “climate smart” agriculture and literally spreading our wings in tourism. Very significantly, in aviation, no longer are our ambitions simply to see our daughters become air hostesses. Today we are witnessing the new generations of sons and daughters expanding their reaches into technical and scientific fields, including as specialists in agricultural and marine development, as well as pilots and skilled technical personnel in aviation and the hospitality industry.

So, while all is not gloom and doom, we, however, must never lose sight of the fact that this all means that we have now far more to lose if our society continues to be plagued by murders, other blatant acts of violence and criminality, and security fears. That is why we cannot be complacent and allow small groups and individuals to threaten and destabilise the peace and security of our nation. That plague must be eradicated.