He­len Dray­ton

We are a young na­tion in syn­co­pa­tion, shift­ing from strong beats of progress to off­beats of po­lit­i­cal and racist mis­chief, then mov­ing again with mo­men­tum, chip­ping to pan, shak­ing waist to tas­sa, in this land of en­ter­prise, mau­vais langue and shid­iots talk­ing racist and po­lit­i­cal non­sense to ma­nip­u­late and di­vide. But when the tribes meet in pa­n­yards, bod­ies move in tan­dem to scin­til­lat­ing mu­sic; no­body cares about the race of the per­son next to them. And on J’Ou­vert morn, peo­ple of all eth­nic­i­ties, un­fet­tered, faces mud-cov­ered, play them­selves, roll and wine, mock­ing mind­ben­ders, and po­lit­i­cal pre­tenders who mess with their heads. That’s re­al cul­tur­al in­de­pen­dence.

In­de­pen­dence; back in 1962, meant self-gov­er­nance, free­dom from cen­turies of con­trol over our an­ces­tors who came from East, West, North and South. In­de­pen­dence meant that we could par­tic­i­pate in gov­er­nance, shape and up­hold our laws, take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for our lives, and pur­sue so­cial and eco­nom­ic goals that up­lift­ed every mem­ber of so­ci­ety. Of course, no coun­try can be en­tire­ly in­de­pen­dent. Ours is an in­ter­de­pen­dent world; we must seek to max­imise au­ton­o­my by fos­ter­ing mu­tu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tion­ships to ad­vance the na­tion’s well-be­ing.

Yet, 64 years lat­er, a for­eign of­fi­cial tells us where best to lo­cate an AI da­ta cen­tre—in Debe. Cen­tres that for­eign cit­i­zens have re­ject­ed be­cause of the ad­verse im­pact on wa­ter and elec­tric­i­ty, the en­vi­ron­ment and peo­ple’s health, know­ing that 1,000 jobs, tax rev­enues and spin-off busi­ness­es aren’t worth a healthy hu­man and phys­i­cal ecosys­tem.

Still, we have not ob­ject­ed to such cen­tres, as we must progress in the age of AI. But we al­so un­der­stand for­eign in­vestors’ fi­nan­cial in­ter­est. Why would in­vestors with no pri­or track record in steel and build­ing da­ta cen­tres in­vest here? Be­cause they can ben­e­fit from at­trac­tive tax and land con­ces­sions, low-cost util­i­ties and gas, and ex­cel­lent Point Lisas in­dus­tri­al in­fra­struc­ture with port fa­cil­i­ties.

So to­day, we hear the cor­rod­ed chains of im­pe­ri­al­ism rat­tling at the door. What does In­de­pen­dence mean in the con­text of in­creas­ing threats to sov­er­eign­ty through geopo­lit­i­cal dom­i­na­tion of crit­i­cal en­er­gy and min­er­al re­sources? How do we, as a small, vul­ner­a­ble na­tion, as­sert our­selves in such an en­vi­ron­ment with­out be­ing sanc­tioned? How do we en­sure we achieve fair val­ue from the mon­eti­sa­tion of en­er­gy as­sets if we are ex­clud­ed from ne­go­ti­a­tions on our own and shared hy­dro­car­bon re­serves, in­clud­ing the Drag­on gas field, Man­akin-Cocuina, and Lo­ran-Man­a­tee? What, there­fore, does In­de­pen­dence mean if our in­ter­ests are sub­or­di­nat­ed to for­eign goals? Ad­mit­ted­ly, eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment car­ries many risks, and there will al­ways be trade-offs.

Since In­de­pen­dence, one of the most sig­nif­i­cant achieve­ments has been in­ter­gen­er­a­tional so­cial mo­bil­i­ty. Cit­i­zens born around In­de­pen­dence had far few­er ed­u­ca­tion­al, pro­fes­sion­al, health­care, hous­ing and fi­nan­cial op­por­tu­ni­ties than those born to­day. From colony to sta­ble democ­ra­cy, liv­ing stan­dards have risen con­sid­er­ably. En­er­gy and en­er­gy-based in­dus­tries, man­u­fac­tur­ing and fi­nan­cial ser­vices be­came the ma­jor eco­nom­ic dri­vers. We have achieved near-uni­ver­sal pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary ed­u­ca­tion, in­creased the ter­tiary- lev­el pop­u­la­tion, cre­at­ed a pro­fes­sion­al class, im­proved health, in­creased home­own­er­ship, built mod­ern in­fra­struc­ture and gained rel­a­tive­ly high rank­ings in the UN Hu­man De­vel­op­ment In­dex of life ex­pectan­cy, ed­u­ca­tion and gross na­tion­al in­come per capi­ta.

Still, crime, the many chil­dren left be­hind in the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem, so­cial in­equal­i­ty, low pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, weak­ened in­sti­tu­tions and de­pen­dence on hy­dro­car­bons re­main chal­leng­ing prob­lems.

Nev­er­the­less, progress has been con­sid­er­able. Our an­cient pub­lic and po­lice ser­vices and ju­di­cial sys­tem are still in the shad­ow of colo­nial­ism. Worse still, the Gov­ern­ment’s crime-fight­ing strate­gies and protest re­stric­tions are in­con­sis­tent with the en­light­ened de­mo­c­ra­t­ic gov­er­nance prin­ci­ples ex­pect­ed af­ter six decades of au­ton­o­my. They are as re­gres­sive and tyran­ni­cal as in the colo­nial days when, from 1939-45, Tubal Uri­ah But­ler was de­tained.

Back then, the colo­nial gov­er­nors had re­peat­ed­ly de­tained peo­ple, deemed protests a threat to pub­lic or­der, used ex­tra­or­di­nary pow­ers of de­ten­tion with­out charge un­der sedi­tion laws and re­strict­ed as­sem­bly. Labour meet­ings, strikes, rad­i­cal speech­es and an­ti-colo­nial po­lit­i­cal mo­bil­i­sa­tion were seen as po­ten­tial threats to the colo­nial state. Sounds fa­mil­iar?

We, in­her­i­tors of this beau­ti­ful land, have carved ben­e­fi­cial eco­nom­ic and so­cial tracks; we have fos­tered en­ter­prise and achieved much pros­per­i­ty, de­spite the strained an­tecedents of trib­al­ism. In the shade of El Cer­ro del Aripo, we, the peo­ple of many rivers - the Ganges and the Nile, the Yangtze, the rivers of Eng­land, Eu­rope, the Amer­i­c­as, the Far East and the Mid­dle East- have paint­ed a mes­meris­ing mur­al dis­tinc­tive­ly ours. We are a meld of cul­tures, still ma­tur­ing in time, un­al­tered by strife and po­lit­i­cal fool­ish­ness. We wor­ship all Gods—no mor­tals. We are a small is­land peo­ple with big coun­try com­plex­i­ties who hear the spir­i­tu­al call of the steel­pan, the earthy sound of tas­sa and the mer­ri­ment of parang link­ing the tribes. Hap­py In­de­pen­dence.