Get de people on board LIAT

I am heartened by the contributions in de press by some of our young people, in particular de regular columns by Soboto See-saw and less regular pieces by Camillo Guns-off, why don’t I just say Boto and Milo. Last week in particular, Camillo’s piece on “Dark Knight for de Caribbean” was good writing. Ah wish his dad will forward that article to his colleagues in de region. Dem talks going on now bout merging Liat with Caribbean Star is bad-talk, ah sell-out, ah betrayal, ah co-knife-in deal.

Caribbean Star has been an N-ah-Me with one aim, control de skies. I have flown on Caribbean Star three times and on two ah those trips ah was treated with contempt; you think it nice you book from B’dos to SVG, you get delayed foh two hours, without any explanation, next dey fly you to St. Lucia, to be told you going on to T’n’T before coming back to SVG; and when you mek noise de Airlines security threaten to lock you up in St. Lucia.{{more}} It might appear that Standford is winning de war but it need not be so. All who ain’t know better will want merger, but it will be sub-merge-her, ah monopoly, merging is literally surrendering de battle to Standford; Camillo is correct will be “ah dark night”!

Foh too long now we been hearing that Liat Airlines belong to de Guv-ah-mints ah this region, while in fact it is our taxes, de people’s taxes dat keeping it in de air, in return Liat has kept us in touch with each other foh over fifty years. But it teks people wid Money to fight people wid Money and Camillo suggests we tek up de I-dare of inviting some ah de region’s rich business people to invest in Liat, he fell short ah bit by not adding that dey must be no pull-it-tek-all interference, leave Liat entirely to de private investors. Ah will go foh dat, but it also teks people, passengers to keep ah Airline flying. Has any body ever thought of inviting us “de people” de Liat workers, travelers, de traffickers, de small people to buy directly into Liat shares? Bring us in de deal, those with dey ten thousands and those with dey hundreds. Entice us to travel, give us in-cent-if we travel Liat, like bone-us on our shares and so on. All dis talk bout “People’s Power” seems good only when it’s Elections, de vote, but real “People’s Power” comes when dey give us ownership ah dey country.

Unfortunately ownership is like ah bad word to our leaders. Dey place no value on anything we own, be it our land, sea, his-story, national awards whatever; what ah mess Aunt-eager made say dey give Standford ah Knighthood, no wonder some people cant say Sir, dey does say “Saw”. Is like Lie-Za asking me if ah think she could get ah Dame Awe-ward. We continue to be like de-link-went children, anytime we need money, we beg or sell out our legacy way we Grandparents left us, to far-reign infestor foh next nothing, but with de same breath we making noise foh Reparation. And you better see wisdom in this sort ah Guv-on-ants and avoid people referring to you as Anti- Progressive!

SEE AND DON’T TOUCH

Ah came across ah document that states here in SVG foh 2005 some 341 teenagers between ages 10 and 19 years gave birth; ten ah dem were between ages 10 and 14 years. Is ah dozen and one ways to get pregnant, now-ah-days you don’t even have to have sex. But these 341 girls who were involved in sexual intercourse, were under age so is ah lot ah men dey walking bout scotch free that should be serving time in Jail foh many ah these pregnancies. Long ago we uses to warn our teenage daughters, (interestingly we never warn our boys) that God say Sex out ah marriage was ah sin, so stay-way from Sex to avoid getting pregnant; get ah Education first. We uses to scare dem dat dey too young to give life to ah new born Child. That was yesterday story when Sweet Sex was tied to life, today Sex is like ah raffle ticket foh sudden Death, AIDS!

We panicked because de Morality Method was not working, so we thought, and we turned to de experts foh ah solution and dey bring in de contraceptives; well is den de babies start coming, teenage moms went on de move. What happened is that de contraceptives became de Lie-sins foh de kids to have sex with or without ah protection! Things out ah hand, very soon we will have to build schools foh student mothers alone.

Today de message on Sex is deadly, since we no longer able to frighten dem with way God say or de pregnant scare! We got to constantly warn them dat ” it’s never too late Sex will wait”. The options are not in dey best interest is either AIDS or Pregnancy, either way the final outcome is de same, more and more Pain, least of which however, is Labour Pain! is more bout Emotional Pain (stress), Mental Pain (nervous breakdown), Psychological Pain (distraction), Social Pain (embarrassment not foh de girls, de parents) and last but not least Financial Pain (another mouth to feed)!

So this Week National Family Planning Unit is trying to reach our young people, begging them foh de umpteen time that when come to Sex, dey must see and don’t touch, wait till tomorrow, The Theme foh de week is ” No Pain if You Abstain”!

Ah ask Lie-Za way she got to say bout the Theme “No Pain if you Abstain” she tell me

She abstain foh so long that Bishop ask her to join de Convent and become ah None!

And with that ah gone again.

One Love Bassy!