Of this and that…

Closure of the Registry

I very often wonder about my county and its attitude to services. We complain quite often about the inadequacy of service to tourists, but not as often about what is meted out to the public. The thinking is that we live here and should know what to expect. I have written before about the situation where if repairs are being done to a road that necessitates the closure of that part of the road, the notice indicating that the road is closed is regularly put at that point and not at the entrance to the road.{{more}}

The result is that you have to try to find a way of turning around, involving at times tremendous difficulty, especially with other traffic following the same route.

My latest beef is about the closure of the Registry for two days – Monday and Tuesday. I am sure that there would have been a good reason why it was closed, but were there notices on the radio? If so, I didn’t hear them nor did the many other people who came from as far as Sandy Bay and Union Island only to have found a sign saying “Registry Closed Until further Notice.” Until further notice! Ridiculous! Two persons I spoke to were coming for the second day to find the same notice, with no indication as to when it will become operative again. There are normally persons trying to get birth certificates, particularly for the Embassy, some of them coming in from North America. There are also death certificates and a host of legal documents. What does until further notice mean to these people? How do you plan around something that says until further notice? Come on, we have to do something better than this

Kingsley’s Letter to Maia Eustace

I have become disgusted with the path that the call for a conversation on race has taken. I dismiss upfront those that simply use her letter to score cheap political points, often because of differences with or hatred of her father. Kingsley’s letter I found despicable. He said that he found her letter ‘frightening’, then asked the following questions: Why did she choose to be a lawyer? Did she consider the late lawyer Agnes Cato to be black? Did she think practising law out of Cato’s chambers would bring her more business? He then tries to pontificate about and question her black consciousness.

This is typical Kingsley. First, as he does with so many other things, he did not take the trouble to understand what her letter was all about. If you listen to Kingsley on radio, you can detect a pattern. He listens to what other people say and then he repeats whatever catches his fancy. If, however, on the following day something else captures him then he is quite capable of repeating it, sometimes by way of a question, even if it directly contradicts what he said previously.

If he had an issue or issues with what Maia said then respond to them. But he must first understand what she says, which becomes a problem for Kingsley. Imagine questioning her black consciousness! Anyone who knows Maia knows that she is a conscious, confident and intelligent black woman. Kingsley on the other hand appears to have an identity problem and gives you the impression that he is speaking to draw attention to himself rather than because of any deep belief.

It is interesting that on the same page of the SEARCHLIGHT on which his letter appears was one on “Race and Class in SVG” by a Mrs L.B Williams who has attempted to pull out issues that can be part of a conversation on race and has succeeded in lifting it out of the gutter into which Kingsley attempted to carry the conversation. She states, “Normally I do not think that race or skin colour matters.” You might not necessarily agree with her but she has pointed to areas that can be part of that conversation. She states further: “We cannot rest this race talk now because we have much education-talk to do and even a race-revolution-talk. Let us do this to assist in understanding, appreciating our race; to desist from certain actions because of race.” She is of the view, too, and correctly so that “things are not just plain black or white.”

Unlike Kingsley, Mrs Williams understands what the letter calls for and deals with the message, not the messenger. I will urge him to read her letter.

Dr Adrian Fraser is a social commentator and historian.