tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-46097395138189801792024-02-18T22:46:08.696-08:00adrianaugierblogAAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12992161166751560958noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4609739513818980179.post-46098600868376883672012-11-20T15:00:00.001-08:002012-11-20T22:25:52.488-08:00WHY COME BACK: The Irrelevance of Geography<br />
<h2>
<span lang="EN-GB"><b> WHY COME BACK: The Irrelevance of Geography</b></span></h2>
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<span lang="EN-GB">After half a life of caring for everyone but herself, an exhausted
wife may well contemplate running away from home. A mid-life businessman – mortgage paid, kids finished
school, some money saved – might think of relocating to a future rich with guiltless
possibilities. But for hundreds of young
St. Lucians studying abroad, where to live is a question of an entirely
different colour.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">If there’s a family business, a plot of debt-free land, or some
promised post still waiting, a few will eagerly return. But many young undergrads – in Canada,
England, America, Cuba or Trinidad – foresee at best, a doubtful future and feel
a dwindling sense of national obligation.
</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">After three or more years in a world of higher incomes and stronger
growth, they view their new degree as a tradable asset offering immediate
returns. In a vibrant, if foreign labour
market, it is the first step to even higher earnings. Retreating now would feel like the end of
learning, unplugged from the mainstream of professional advancement.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">By comparison, home is a stagnant backwater. Even for the wealthy and well-connected, it
is a tangle of pot-luck politics and vengeful personalities. For students from
modest circumstances, prospects are even more daunting. Return implies building
a future from scratch in an economy with no discernible direction. Better to stay abroad: learn, work, save,
grow. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Over there, new paths and old pitfalls are fairly clear: there is a perceptible
order to society. If one follows the
rules, there will be certain rewards and assurances, whether you are Joe Plumber
or Marcella, a gifted software designer with village roots in Mon Repos. Success is the expected norm, not the coveted
exception.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Granted, it is tough going with fewer family and friends. But at least daily life is not frustrated by arbitrary
ignorance. Out there, the enemy is
known, and it is not some ministry official messing with your life just because
he can. Whatever happens, you do not labour
under the illusion that you deserve a break in your own country.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Meanwhile back home, others also want out. They crave escape, living for the day when
they too will be sent for. The family
home, with its aging parents and a slew of heirs, offers few possibilities. It is not their capital to mortgage.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Then there is that student loan: larger than a house, slower than a
car. It will devour half the average EC salary. So, the best risk-taking years are spent paying
off a mountain of old debt. Soon there
will be a vehicle loan and the inevitable mortgage. By then, it is too late to transition from
bill payer to investor. All that state
of the art expertise, lost to kin and country. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">So the decision to leave or stay is hardly rocket science - not with
economic growth dwindling, investment approaching zero, and employment under
siege at home. The future becomes that
place where the graduate can reasonably expect to prosper on individual merit,
in a system that cares little about who he is, or where he started, or how he
voted in the last election. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Of course, there is still love of country: that need to be rooted to
a few square miles of planet earth. All very nice, but that won’t pay the bills. Besides,
these grads know how elusive higher education can be. They remember what their
parents lived through. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Even for retirees, who also need good health care, personal security
and a sense of order, back-home is no longer the ideal place to retire. The tug
of patrimony has given way to practical considerations about their quality of
life. Without a range of wholesome activities to occupy their days, the
undertow of emotion which once dragged them back from England and North America
is dissipating. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">The emotional tug does not work on their offspring either; those second
and third generations, full of first-world knowledge and technology. All they feel - if they visit - is acute disappointment
that so little has changed since their parents migrated to a better life. To them, basic systems of governance remain inexplicably
archaic and obtuse: their metropole has moved along while ours has slipped
back. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">To foresee the future, one need only ask the average St. Lucian -
secondary schooled, thirty something, mother of three – if she has any idea
where the country is headed under this or any other administration. Ask her about the tourism product; what it
will look like in five years. Ask her
about new jobs in e-commerce. Ask her
about environmental change or green energies.
Ask her where she thinks her school-leaving son will likely find a
job. Then ask her if she wants a ticket
to Obamaland. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Hell, ask the average minister about renewables, emerging technologies,
new economic space, alternative agriculture, global trends in education, digital
media, social entrepreneurship... or how to energize a shrinking private
sector. It’s not stupidity; it’s just that our systems have not evolved and now
require radical re-engineering. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Simply put: our economic base is not adequately prepared for the
future. Most Caribbean economies are languishing because the economic
fundamentals are sagging and the old ways are painfully obsolete. At this stage cosmetic surgery simply will
not do. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">What the region needs is more like a triple bypass operation to
remove the detritus of decades of complacency.
Unless this happens soon, not even our own moribund citizenry will take
this country seriously. And that lack of
faith – now manifesting as a haemorrhage of brain power – will be the fatal
stoke.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Already, there are signs of a muted frenzy bubbling to the surface
of everyday existence: that dark energy which turns people on each other at the
first scent of blood. It makes a bus
full of travellers curse a policeman for sanctioning their reckless driver. It makes a young man stab his best friend over
some electronic trinket. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">It makes you think you’re not a victim of a crime taking place next
door. It makes a politician kill a
project offering a hundred jobs, because the idea came from someone on the
other side. It makes the ministry
official messing with your life, chronically unavailable to answer phone
calls. It makes governments impotent,
unable to satisfy even the basic aspirations of ordinary citizens.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">So if
young graduates don’t turn for home, don’t be surprised. They too feel the need to jump free of the
failing system. Unable to point to a
single thing that works convincingly well, they make the only rational choice
available. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">The
same logic drives away investors, foreign and domestic. As economic circumstances level out across the
global marketplace, the factory floor is moving even further from its virtual
boardroom. To be effective, first-world executives need
little more than a smart phone and a bank card. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Consequently,
quality of life issues - not geography - will increasingly decide where progressive
businesses locate. They too need security, education, health care, infrastructure,
quality services and good governance. Where
St. Lucia ranks in that scheme of things will also determine whether or not our
own army of tech-savvy, knowledge-laden new-age entrepreneurs ever return to
our shores. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">The
bottom lines are not much different: what
works for our people also works for likeminded others. In the meantime, the
islands are great to visit, but fewer and fewer people actually need to live here.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Changing
that outlook means a shift of focus, in public policy and actual
follow-through. A more progressive
approach to financing higher education is critical. Removing disincentives to
domestic investment will certainly help. But the huge challenge is creating
viable opportunity: new economic space rather than low-wage employment for its
own obvious sake.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Both
the country and its people need to become magnets for home-grown talent as well
as foreign capital. To do that, St.
Lucia needs something that no amount of foreign aid can ever buy: more open and enlightened government. That is the one thing the people must
manufacture for themselves.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">As
the recent US elections demonstrate, many rank and file voters are prepared to
forego immediate benefits to secure a more viable future. Any party which is bankrupt of ideas, energy
and new ways of resolving economic challenges, will be summarily dismissed, even
if the alternative is not much better. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">If
local elections prove anything, it is that citizens will no longer tolerate inefficient,
corrupt and self-serving government. The
rationing of economic benefits by secret ballot needs to end. The alternative, which serves even myopic
politicians, is a functional, well regulated market system built on competitiveness
and merit. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">It is
also an excellent platform for re-election; one that would excite an
unimpressed electorate and draw deserved attention from that new generation of
global citizens we so desperately need in our midst. Hopefully younger and wiser, they just might
have the energy to drag this place, kicking and screaming, from the fringes of
anarchy into the civility of a new century.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">If
our current crop of leaders have any sense at all, they would chart that
course, rev up the economic engine, and get the hell out of the way. </span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 9pt;">__________<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;">Adrian Augier</span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;"> is a development economist
and St. Lucia's 2010 </span><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Entrepreneur
of the Year. </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;">He is
an award winning poet and producer and a</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;">
Caribbean Laureate of Arts and Letters. In October 2012, he received an honorary
doctorate from the University of the West Indies in recognition of his
contribution to regional development and culture. </span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 10pt;">For
more information on this writer and his work visit <b>adrianaugier.blogspot.com</b></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
AAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12992161166751560958noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4609739513818980179.post-18277496353984839822011-11-19T22:25:00.001-08:002011-11-19T22:25:56.383-08:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4SckzSpnMqLg6X0cq4owOoJzT-080bjDYhqkBL7pGp5ydgRE56g8KtSrzXyL_4Sq38V0BNvHM_yUjDsBhiqnj3wRnZQRFrODqva6vNqdzhOmXlL5cNLOhdMGo2YxPEOSF0CX5OPSPAdC4/s1600/NAVEL+STRING+Cover+Photo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4SckzSpnMqLg6X0cq4owOoJzT-080bjDYhqkBL7pGp5ydgRE56g8KtSrzXyL_4Sq38V0BNvHM_yUjDsBhiqnj3wRnZQRFrODqva6vNqdzhOmXlL5cNLOhdMGo2YxPEOSF0CX5OPSPAdC4/s320/NAVEL+STRING+Cover+Photo.jpg" width="317" /></a></div>AAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12992161166751560958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4609739513818980179.post-22685691508840940492011-11-19T22:12:00.000-08:002011-11-19T22:12:16.563-08:00VOTE RIGHT OR DIE: The Responsibility of Choice<div id="yiv276021307yui_3_2_0_20_132162387591340" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b id="yiv276021307yui_3_2_0_20_1321623875913174">Areas of Interest:</b></div><div id="yiv276021307yui_3_2_0_20_132162387591340" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Creative Industry, Development Policy, Public Private Partnership. </div><div id="yiv276021307yui_3_2_0_20_132162387591340" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</div><div id="yiv276021307yui_3_2_0_20_132162387591340" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b id="yiv276021307yui_3_2_0_20_1321623875913194">Contact info:</b></div><div id="yiv276021307yui_3_2_0_20_132162387591340" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span id="yiv276021307yui_3_2_0_20_1321623875913134">Adrian Augier</span></div><div id="yiv276021307yui_3_2_0_20_132162387591340" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Landmark Group, St. Lucia</div><div id="yiv276021307yui_3_2_0_20_132162387591340" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Mobile: <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1321769278_2">758 285 2666</span> or <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1321769278_3">758 713 8001</span></div><div id="yiv276021307yui_3_2_0_20_132162387591340" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Office:758 452 8416</div><div id="yiv276021307yui_3_2_0_20_132162387591340" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</div><div id="yiv276021307yui_3_2_0_20_132162387591340" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><div align="center" class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 20pt;"><br />
</span></b></div><div align="center" class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 20pt;">VOTE RIGHT OR DIE</span></b><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 18pt;"></span></b><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 20pt;"></span></b></div><div align="center" class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14pt;">The Responsibility of Choice</span></b><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 20pt;"></span></b></div><div align="center" class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB">So here I am, about 100 miles Southeast of St. Lucia in an entirely different world. That world houses the Barbados Entrepreneurship Foundation. I have been invited to speak on public policy and entrepreneurial development. </span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB">This event is not bankrolled by government or any foreign funding agency, but by independent corporate entities and individuals committed to strategic advancement. The prospect of people-driven change attracts an admirable cross-section of professionals prepared to devote real time and energy.</span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB">The program runs on schedule. Presentations are concise and focused. No apologies, no excuses. The event is managed by a local foundation dependent on voluntary contributions, one paid employee, and a small army of highly motivated volunteers. They operate at a pace and standard which matches their global outlook. </span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB">They have benchmarks and defined deliverables. They are demonstrating transparency and holding themselves accountable for achieving specific milestones. There is no idle fluff here. Just a cohort of people so firmly coalesced around their goal that international friends in business, science, technology and academia are inspired to join them in their audacious venture: making Barbados the number one business hub in the world. No, not the region. The WORLD.</span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB">And I am envious - in the most positive sense of the word - because this is all win-win, and because it is an epiphany to enter an environment where serious people are looking beyond an arbitrary limitation, changing the status quo, and claiming their future triumph. </span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB">Their deadline is 2020, the start of the next new decade. It is a mere eight years away. Yet they embrace the imperative of change knowing that better can and must indeed be done. I am proud to be among them, to be heard and have my thoughts considered. I congratulate them on being brave enough to identify what needs to change. They do not need my affirmation.</span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB">Privately, I make comparisons with <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1321769278_4">my island</span> and teeter on the edge of despair. I hope deeply that this exercise speaks volumes for the strength and determination of ALL <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1321769278_5">Caribbean</span> people. I pray that this brave initiative succeeds. I want it to infect this whole soca society of ours. I want it to demonstrate that we too can overturn complacency and become that island which was the promise of the new world: the land of people and of light.</span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB">We can spend a lifetime discussing where that promise went. And it would be a colourful discourse indeed, dripping angst and nostalgia. But right now we don’t need sentimentality. Reason dictates that we plough ahead to the fruitful planting of solutions. We need men and women of commitment and vision who are prepared for the rigours of hard work, discipline and perseverance. </span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB">Barbados is not so different. They feel the same partisan tribalism that divides us. They feel compromised by short-sighted political stupidity. They know the price of silence and toleration when citizens fail to speak out. They know that this corrupting tribalism has eroded the middle ground, the neutral platform for the productive exchange of ideas and the pooling of positive energies.</span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB">But to their credit, they are choosing to do something: to create a non-partisan coalition of civil society which restores the middle ground, reunites classes and communities in the cause of a country determined to prosper.</span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB">It is potentially a model for the region. I beg them to fight on, not just for themselves but for all of us. If Barbados - the pillar of <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1321769278_6">Westminster</span> democracy – perceives the need to turn governance on its head, just imagine what radical house-cleaning we need to do right here at home.</span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB">Clearly, we need to re-set the agenda which our politicians have abandoned. We need to engage them on issues that reposition our economy: investment, education, technology, green energy, efficiency, productivity and wealth creation. That is why we the people at all levels of society, need to enter into partnership with each other and reclaim our democracy from those who have hijacked it. </span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB">Since the very nature of politics is corrosive, the only viable check on the abuse of power is eternal vigilance. Our governance systems – particularly parliament and the cabal that is cabinet - must be held tightly in check by all the moorings of a functioning democracy.</span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB">That includes the private sector who drive employment, investment, growth and technological advancement. It includes the labour sector - particularly public sector unions - who cradle the productive human resources of this country and must contribute convincingly to the making of a meritocracy.</span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB">It includes the media who are supposed to stand uncompromised and independent and shout loudly whenever societal freedoms are threatened. It includes professional organisations like the Bar Association who are among the most independently privileged members of our society and who should instinctively rise up to defend the rights of the poor and the disenfranchised. It also includes the churches who should hold the moral high ground and be the conscience of a country claiming to be Christian.</span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB">So it seems that this morass we complain about is really of our making. And we have been making it assiduously for a long time, gradually relinquishing our democratic rights and abandoning our principles to successive administrations. It seems we really do get the governments we deserve. </span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB">So as we walk to the polls <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1321769278_7">on November 28</span>, we need to remind each other that we are electing mere men and women. They are mortal, fallible and corruptible. They are not saints or gods and will not selflessly look to our collective welfare if we ourselves do not.</span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB">We must remember that our leaders expect US to be alert and vigilant and outspoken, if only to keep them on the right and narrow path. If we fail in this, then we lose their already scant respect. We will be treated like spineless imbeciles.</span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB">So we cannot play this voting thing like a five minute quickie after which we all roll over and go back to sleep. We cannot merely vote, and then retreat into that silent night of cowardice and complacency. That is not where we wish to dwell. Our children, if they learn enough to understand what we have failed to do, will not forgive our apathy.</span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB">Fortunately, the world is not offering us much of a choice. The urgent economic imperatives confronting St. Lucia, Barbados and <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1321769278_8">the Caribbean</span> are pretty much the same ones facing <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1321769278_9">Iceland</span>, <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1321769278_10">Greece</span>, <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1321769278_11">Spain</span>, <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1321769278_12">Italy</span> and America. This is a loud insistent call to get our economic houses in order and stop the wastage of scarce irreplaceable resources. It is a warning from an intolerant global system that we will pay dearly for our economic negligence. </span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB">Most importantly it is an ultimatum that we need to run our country properly or live forever with ignorance, poverty, disease, injustice and inevitable violence. Rest assured if we do not reform, our economic, political, social and intellectual assets will be mercilessly exploited by those who are already richer and greedier than ourselves. We will be returned to slavery and subservience.</span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB">We must therefore, reform government no matter its colour. This is about OUR survival. The adversarial structure of our parliament is archaic. No country can be managed by a house of seventeen divided against itself on virtually every issue. Add to that, a public sector consuming more than it produces, a private sector shrinking to oblivion, frustrated creativity and a sinking middle class. Without serious reform, what lies ahead is chaos.</span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB">In 1981/82, this country rose up and demanded better. In what history might well call a bloodless coup, we overturned the parody which passed for government, appointed new caretakers by consensus, and systematically returned St. Lucia to democratic sanity. That action set a standard for politicians to follow. It was our proudest moment. And the world took note.</span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB">It may well be that such a time is here again. So, let us not vote in haste and repent in darkness later. Whether moved by star, torch, conscience or collective enlightenment, let us take our democracy back. Starting <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1321769278_13">November 29<sup>th</sup> 2011</span>, let us speak clearly and responsibly to our newly elected government and demand to have our most important concerns addressed. </span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB">Let us establish zero tolerance for attitudes and actions unworthy of our nation and stand prepared to go public, write, tweet, do whatever it takes to defeat the tribalism that divides us. Let us put St. Lucia first, so that our children may yet inherit that land of light and people of which we so proudly sing.</span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><b><span lang="EN-GB">Adrian Augier</span></b></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="yiv276021307Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">is an award winning Poet and Producer. </span></span><span class="yiv276021307Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">He is the Caribbean Laureate for Arts and Letters 2010</span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="yiv276021307Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> He is a Development Economist and St. Lucia's Entrepreneur of the Year 2010. </span></span></div><div class="yiv276021307MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span class="yiv276021307Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">For more information visit: <a href="http://adrianaugier.blogspot.com/" style="color: #234786; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px;" target="_blank"><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1321769278_14">adrianaugier.blogspot.com</span></a></span></span></div></div>AAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12992161166751560958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4609739513818980179.post-27494215829011595032010-10-10T18:11:00.000-07:002011-08-18T18:10:05.148-07:00Welcome to Adrian's Blog.<br />
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This is all very new for me and I am working out the kinks as I go along, but the general idea is to SHARE... Thoughts... Ideas... Information... Art... Images... and I suppose if you put all that together, its about sharing a life really... the art of living in this rather unique place called St. Lucia... and since that life takes place all over the region... it's also about that uniquely enriching experience too: Life in the VILLAGE CARIBBEAN.<br />
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The idea is to post stuff here that people will find useful and interesting. <br />
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Comments are always welcome. But think before you write because writing is a serious thing and should not be lightly taken for granted.<br />
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Thanx and Cheers<br />
AAAAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12992161166751560958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4609739513818980179.post-40060160547265159502010-10-10T18:09:00.000-07:002010-10-10T18:09:35.820-07:00Presentation to Green Investment Conference<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b><u><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">What Needs to Change</span></u></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">presentation to the Green Investment Conference - Roseau, Dominica - October 05, 2010</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">ADRIAN AUGIER </span></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Caribbean Laureate for Arts and Letters, 2010</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><u><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><br />
</span></span></u></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><u><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><br />
</span></span></u></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">(</span></i></b><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Excerpt from <i>Urban Drift)</i></span></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><u><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><br />
</span></span></u></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Not so long ago</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">this landscape read</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">like a thousand years of unscarred hill.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">The ancient road, the old stone church,</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">the quiet, still unchanged</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">despite the barking dog</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">in the dusty noon.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">... There was a sanctuary in that slow pace.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">A sanity, if you will.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">There was calm, without the frenzy </span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">of living large, elsewhere;</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">a dependable quiet which reminded of origins, </span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">of ancestors, of a place called home</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">to which we could return</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">in body and in memory</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">as to a murmuring spring</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">or the blue quiet of a cove</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">for refreshment, for renewal.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">The opening excerpt addresses the demise of traditional communities in a post-agricultural Caribbean. This has become something of a thematic anchor in my writing, because I feel that we have not prepared for the rapid social and economic change overtaking us. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">I confess however, that I am part poet, part economist. Admittedly, a dangerous combination of heart and head, but I find it productive to draw on both voices. The duality reflects my own thesis that the Caribbean is dichotomous, often schizophrenic, and that we need to acknowledge this quirk in our personality. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Consider our contradictions: We are mixed and multiracial; insular but global; poor but pretty; one and many. History has made us unique. Geography has made us exotic. Size has made us manageable and vulnerable. A paucity of options has made us creative and taught us survival as well as subversion. We are capable of resistance as much as assimilation.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">So, the poet tells the economist that there is a metaphor in this duality; an equilibrium to be graphed showing the relationship between the fervour we feel and the logic we have learned. By logic, I include the unwritten good sense acquired over generations, and that intuitive understanding of interdependence between the individual and the environment: </span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">(</span></i></b><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Excerpt from<i> It’s A Hard Thing)</i></span></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">It’s hard thing.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">To live without passion</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">in a place that is a part of you,</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">to stay all level-headed and apart</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">when you feel the wind</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">like it’s your own hot breath</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">When you know a place so well</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">that you can tell from the smell inside the house</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and the dark drumming on the zinc roof</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">that august rain falling heavy like a rake</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and ripping ‘way your very skin</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">from the surface of the earth.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">It’s a hard thing.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">When in dry season</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">you see all the soil crack-up</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">like a big brown heart that split apart</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and all the happiness that come</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">from loving green leaf</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and bubbling spring </span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">done gone and evaporate into air.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">It’s a hard thing.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">To stay all cool and comfortable</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">in a place that is your home</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">since before you born</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">because three generations before you</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">struggle, struggle, struggle</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">till they buy a house and land, together,</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and get to own the place that their great-grandfather</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">used to rent but could never buy</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">in his one life before he die.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">It’s a hard thing.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Not to cry when this place is part of you</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">as much as the hand that hold the pen</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">that write down this thing;</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">that same pen that your godfather give you</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">when you pass for college,</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">that pen with the deep dark ink that flow</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">like a bloodline from it.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">And you know there must be</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">a heavy dose of nostalgia inside you there</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">with this craving for a longtime day</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">when we used to understand</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">that history is not what people tell us</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">but part of who we are:</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">deep-thinking people</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">determined to tell our story</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">under moonlit mango tree or street lamp </span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">or in painting or our poetry</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">or that sweeter music that used to bubble up</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">from deep inside a place that we were not </span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">like now, afraid to go.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">And that we owe </span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">a debt, a loyalty to this landscape that sustains us,</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">this earth that made you, this earth that</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">make you ask ancestors</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">if it was alright to fell a tree</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">that was older than you</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">because somebody navel string</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">might be buried under there…</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">It’s a hard thing.</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">When we gather, under mango tree or street light or in cool conference rooms, we do so potentially for causes larger than ourselves; larger than that sense of individual importance. And when we give ourselves to such causes, we start to recapture the communal spirit of the ancestral Caribbean. That spirit is a real and powerful thing. It spans oceans and centuries and generations, and is possibly the one shared thing that has sustained us over the last five centuries. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">That spirit knows survival, but much more than that, it is a thing with memory; with understanding. It knows that prosperity is not achieved by one generation at the expense of the next. It knows that wealth is not measured in cash, but in equity, ownership, education, wellbeing and a certain quality of life which like a tide, raises all boats at the expense of none. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">The late Rex Nettleford wrote a book entitled <b><i>“Inward Reach, Outward Stretch”</i></b> which addresses our ability to call up from within that energy we need to achieve our goals. Nettleford understood that goals give us purpose and being an enlightened people, we know that all will not be achieved in our one lifetime. Nevertheless, we find the conviction to sacrifice and persevere and contribute to a legacy which is the prime inheritance of our children.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Today, that conviction is withering. Our concepts of community are devalued. In our new post-colonial, post-independence post-traditional, postcard Caribbean, notions of collective consciousness, collective responsibility and communal ownership are all passing from us: </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Under concrete, steel, laminate and linoleum</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">have we buried all these things.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Under the luxuries of better living.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Under the spin-offs of development.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Under amnesia.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Under all that forgetting who we are</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">And what it means to be, us.</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">But, it is not too late to remind ourselves that there is a higher probability of collective progress as a community of islands than economic survival as individual entities. Moreover, the fortification of Caribbean society is more important now than ever before. The economics of globalisation requires us to unite; not just as a philosophical notion but as an economic and political imperative. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Sir Arthur Lewis, arguing the case for Federation, maintained that the principle benefit of regionalism would be freedom from the tyranny of petit politicians. He foresaw that democracy divided, would be hijacked by little men, poisoned by parochial politics. The present coincidence of poor governance, low growth, and massive social dislocation seems to confirm his theory. We see that despite its considerable potential, the Caribbean is in crisis and the only way out is to face reality, cut the self-delusion, and start working together to address the massive turnaround required to regenerate prosperity our shared community.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">What needs to Change:</span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"> First, we need to have a plan; our plan. We need to stop adopting external agendas and foreign notions of what we should do and where we should be going. If we had our own plan we could dictate to donors and the multilateral agencies what they can do for us. Our plan must envision a new prosperity, appropriately defined for our circumstances. Poverty is no longer an option. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">What needs to change:</span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"> We need coalitions of hard working and deep thinking people who revolt against the complacency of consumerism, and who are seized of the fact that we cannot be blind accessories to the great human machine that consumes energy and resources in ways that devalue life, undermine community and destroy ecosystems. Our economic philosophy of “more now, less later” is denuding the very landscapes upon which we depend. That degradation is substantial and in some ways irrevocable. Its consequences stretch before us, way into the future, across generations, forever. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Because we are small and have limited options, concepts like trans-generational sustainability require us to be more conscious, more vigilant than ever. Where this Caribbean stands tomorrow will be determined our ability to stop the madness of mortgaging the future of Caribbean Society. If our young people seem unmotivated and ambivalent, it could well be because they perceive the future as already sold out, pre-determined, impervious to their own youthful desire for change. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">The founding fathers who fought so hard to oppose the status quo ante, must be restless in their graves. Consider how far we moved in one or two generations; how by our own efforts in a world that cared little for our cause, we achieved what we are now in danger of forgetting: our own rite of passage on the road to enlightened self-determination. </span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">And lacking certain options</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">People eased off the yoke</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Of ignorance and dependency</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">By leveraging their labour and some land.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">They dared not hope.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Not for inheritance or education.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Yet they rose out that regimented soil</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">With its settled stratum</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">And intimately held ourselves together</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">With the kind of dignity that poverty</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and missing options will impose.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">In our little island theatre</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">We became the leads:</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Characters in the dramas of our own lives.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">We managed to love</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">And proved that size</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Holds no dominion over determination.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">So, what possible excuse can we make for this apathy? What reasoning justifies our failure to address the bigger picture? While we have travelled far from the malaise and malevolence to which we were abandoned in the name of political independence, it seems that we have forgotten our history; a history that has given the world philosophers, Artists, Heroes, Athletes, Pioneers of all description. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">The problem is that we lack a cause; a common enemy. Fidel and Marx before him, understood that all rebellion needs a common enemy, a shared perception of injustice, an understanding of mutual circumstance. We must rebel now against ignorance, crime, late justice, and bad government. These are the enemies of today.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">If we are to return to any state of enlightenment, we need to determine why this generation of Caribbean people has become fixated on things frivolous, mediocre, profane, and inconsequential. See if you recognize this person: </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">(Excerpt from <i>Think it Over)</i></span></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">So you think the struggle is over.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Yes, you with your fake brand-name jeans</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">halfway down the black crack</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">of your consciousness.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">You think the struggle is so over</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">that decent coloured folk</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">can afford to imitate dem po-ass dogs</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">dem ghetto boiz and nappy-headed hoes</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and just tek-up their jail-bird jibe</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">their going-nowhere projects vibe</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">like we don’t have our own fight</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">to get off on, to wager with The Man</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">to get our sof’ass butt in gear</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and fight for what is right…!?!</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Yesss-you.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Who else think the struggle so fuckin’ over</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">that someone somewhere</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">offered you job, heaven, and a favour</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and you believe him...</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">So you don’t have to do like the rest of us</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">in this dark-skin world</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">work harder, wait longer, struggle more</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">for every inch of ground</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and most of all work smarter</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">because the real battle coming round, again</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and this time it’s for your brain.</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">For a new green thinking to take root we must be revive the imperative of viewing our collective circumstances as a regional community of island communities. This consciousness is central to the context of the country’s economic, social and political progress. Being islands, we do not have the luxury of space in which to hide, bury mistakes or for that matter to run away. The options are stay, die or leave. And leaving usually means abandonment of your very soul to the global appetite of the euro-american consumer machine. That is not development. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">For many of us, this Caribbean is the only meaningful milieu in which we wish to live, grow, dream and raise our children. Family and community are the base from which our spirit, our energy, our inspiration, our motivation rise. It is the source of our whole spectrum of opportunities from which to spring board into the broader pool of possibilities which the wider world offers. We cannot define development without recognition of that fact. It is part of who we are and what gives meaning to our lives.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">The wonderful thing about all this is that we are well placed to sample wisely from the menu of options that the old world offers. We need not repeat their mistakes. We do not need to adopt the mindlessness. We do not need to embrace a model which has a huge appetite but no soul. We can design our own hybrid avoiding the failings of the laisser-faire model which certainly has the means but not the message. It has the structure but not the sense of sustainability which builds societies as opposed to economies. What’s more, the information age which has engulfed us also gives us access to all the objective data we need and so to a new fundamental freedom of choice.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">What Needs to Change:</span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"> The ascendancy of the individual as sole beneficiary of development is a flawed concept. It is at war with our own historical context and current experience. All our really important milestones have been achieved by collaboration and contribution and cooperation. Indeed, to be quite accurate you need to add to that list resistance and when necessary, revolution. So, it is all the more inconceivable that we should be complacent about our future. To counter that complacency, we must rediscover the knowledge of ourselves as warriors and heroes and pioneers. The minute that is gone we begin to truly fall apart. The poetry explains:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">(Excerpt from <i>Think It Over)</i></span></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">...you feel the struggle over… !?!</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Because we independent almost thirty years</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">don’t mind the politics so small and dirty, yes</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">we have we own dollar bill</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">but your dollar going in someone’s else’s till</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">amigo, limey, bacra, bachay, yankee… whatever</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">but ckeck it baby-doll</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">your buck ain’t coming back</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">to your studio apartment</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">a.k.a. that one room shack</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">But, watch you</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">you don’t grow what you eat</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">you don’t sew what you wanna wear</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">in fact you don’t care</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">if the party dress</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">just put on once and throw away</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">so long you looking fly and hot</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and fit to do what you gotta do</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">to keep yo’ man by you.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Girlfriend just don’t care to know</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">where we at or where we need to go</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">but she consider</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">that in these guava-season post-fig days</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">when she putting out she better put aside</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">some of that cell phone and chicken money</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">to educate the pickney in her pickney belly</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and you so effin’ right my girl</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">your reasoning tight like being white</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">you say the struggle over and is true</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">cuz when you give up, give in, give out</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">that’s when the struggle really done with you.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">As communities, as nations, and as a region, our agendas must not be allowed to shrink. Our daily concerns in descending order of importance now seem to be food, sex, fete, alcohol, cellular phones and just enough cash to pay for things without the stress of thinking too much or too deeply. We must now wonder if we have bought the bullshit in the brochure: the rum-and-coca-cola sunset, the contemptuous comedy of the banana republic. That definitely has to change.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">What needs to change:</span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"> We need to expand the very limited agenda transmitted to us by uninspired lyrics, misinformed radio, unschooled television and illiterate print. In those worlds basic survival is a rather uncomplicated and banal affair. The poetry paints a painful picture:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">(Excerpt from <i>Think It Over)</i></span></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">No job and not a ring in sight</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">despite the putting out each Friday night</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">an’ you eh hearing still?</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">you gonna spend nineteen dollars and fitty cent</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">on another coke and KFC</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">when you done see</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">that hyper-tense and sweet pee</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">already killing half a we</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">And you think the struggle is over…. !?!</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">with your weave and press-on good to go</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and you know that you could still get it</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">cause your mobile have five dollars credit</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">for those most important words:</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Hi Baby, call me back…?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Or maybe you think that’s overstating the case: surely, we are not there yet? But if you ask the young people around you, aged 15 to 25 - and that is the litmus test – they will tell you that we are most certainly THERE. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">So in terms of picking an appropriate sample form the vast menu available to us let us put it this way: we need to turn the children on as much by Miles as by Movado, a little Mozart alongside Marley, a little Wordsworth with your Walcott... a little more dance and less grind, a little more thought and purpose and vision! If we fail them in this then their appreciation of our past and their future is indeed bleak. The alternative reads as follows: </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">(Excerpt from <i>ESPERANCE : Vox 2)</i></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">They will take your girl-child</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">your innocent</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">all your love incarnate</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and like a bag of coals</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">cast her at the feet of djabs.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Disconsolate</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">for the lost way</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">the clouded memory</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">for old habits passed from rote</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">the simplest rituals:</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">shared meals, prayers, hymns, sunrise,</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">the coming in and going out of doors</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">intimate thoughts</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and public greetings,</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">She will be lost</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">mostly to her self</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and will not wish</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">even to see dawn’s blush</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">or the flutter of the dove’s shadow</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">come to earth</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">or the posturing lizard</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">sunning upon its rock</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">or the next blossoming of forest orchids</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">or the homing sea bird at day’s end</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Or you</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">whose love sang her into life</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">whose breath comingled and</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">conceived her.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">You, whose every wish</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">lies bagged and corded</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">cast at the feet of djabs</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Sackcloth of black bones</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">barely shifting</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">black dust sifting through</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">fit for the making of night</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">which will become your chore.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">You will churn it</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">from the mills of resignation</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">like a slow fuse to gunpowder</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">a simmering angry dusk</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">settling in the soul</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Dousing</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Deadening</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Darkening down.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Meanwhile, the sky thickens</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">with cataracts of ego, greed and lust.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">We falter on the brink of memory</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">no map of routes already travelled</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">or roads to come</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">our anecdotes forgotten in mute skulls</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">our stories hung in thinning air.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">To many thinking Caribbean citizens we are a region adrift; on a sea of short term expediency, without much thought about our future as a nation in the world of nations; without an understanding or a vision of ourselves so that our rubric of norms and values, largely unwritten and unread, our chance of an enlightened Caribbean Society passes from us a little more each day.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">What needs to Change:</span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"> In defining a new charter for Caribbean Society, we need to relegate partisan politics to its rightful place: at the bottom of the pile of priorities. The travesty which now passes for government has to be redesigned. This amalgam of convenience and deceit visited upon us largely by rogues and charlatans, is archaic, decrepit and bankrupt. It needs to be detonated. In its place, should be constructed a strategic vision for the region and its subset of islands, and a work plan that is larger than the individual and the immediate; a plan that foresees as its central objective the delivery of an optimal quality of life for the many rather than the few.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">What Needs to Change: Our comfort with our own complacency.</span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"> Too many of us are too comfortable: with our government jobs, our car loans and mortgages, our all-inclusive homes that shield us form the madness beyond the garden fence. Or, with our children safely boarded at schools in London or Miami, do we think we will retire far from the madding, murdering, malingering crowd, lock the burglar bars and go to sleep. If only immunity were that simple:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">(Excerpt from <i>Esperance: Vox 2)</i></span></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">All recollection flattens down</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">becoming strangely two-dimensional</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">under the weight of indulgences</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">we have put on</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and the dark semblances we crave.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Self-image digital, processed, and</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">portioned into wafer-thin allotments</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">will be served white-gloved</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">to our enslaved children.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Now where are your generations</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Lord, what will we become?</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Yes, they will take your girl-child</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">your innocent, all your love incarnate</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and your first son will be among them</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">laying live offerings</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">at the feet of djabs.</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">What needs to Change: </span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Too many of our leaders are prepared to hand our islands – together with our gift-wrapped souls - to people whose regard for us is less than flattering and whose agenda has not changed in 500 years. We need to put foreign investment in its place: a necessary input to be tolerated for a while and stringently regulated in the public interest until we have no further use for it. In the meantime, our people as the primary beneficiaries of our development model, must be empowered to participate in and profit from the process, and must eventually grow into a position to buy out their foreign partners. Let me refer you to the work of economist Amartya Sen which explores the relationship between freedom and development, showing how freedom is both a basic constituent of development in itself, and an enabling key to other aspects. Let me also refer you to writings by Derek Walcott in which he criticises the illusion of incentive-fed, tourism–led development as a “...kind of prostitution”. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">What needs to Change:</span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"> We need to reverse this tendency to wager our sense of dignity. That is, our identity and all that which makes us special, worthy - and ultimately more wealthy - than money can measure. We need to validate those things that we are blindly wagering in the bewildering poker game of the immediate, the individualistic, the short-lived, the unsustainable. There is a thin and dangerous line between marketing that which we are, as opposed to that which we make. If we do not make that distinction, we may fall like Alice in Wonderland into the picture postcard illusion of idyllic islands where nothing substantial starts or is sustained. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">There are still many people who can make a difference. People with passion, commitment, capacity and reserves of untapped determination. If so, then we must fight on, for the struggle is not nearly over. For the fight to end in victory we will have to change our aversion to the academic and the intellectual. Our main resource in the development game is our treasury of minds. It is exactly that rigour of academic analysis applied to intellectual notions of equity, justice, identity and relevance which will elevate our society above the dog-eat-dog, zero-sum game in which we are currently trapped. Expanding skill sets, redefining benefits, assessing options, re-engineering models, adopting best practice, and energizing communities takes logic as much as idealism and we must not allow anyone to diminish the value of that. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">What needs to change: </span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">We must stop looking to the politicians. Our inspiration cometh not form those hills. We must take back our democracies by setting a new, broader agenda which transcends the 5 year political parenthesis. Besides, leadership is not the sole responsibility of Government. Real citizens need to stand up. We must look to ourselves: within our families, businesses, community organisations, professional associations and our media. These are the hallmark institutions of a functioning democracy. Independent, objective, non-partisan entities which have the strength of their collective convictions will find the bedrock of their own legitimacy. That legitimacy comes with the right to promote and preserve principles and laws that are for all society and for all time, and which rise above the shrinking agendas of passing men and petty politics. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">What needs to change: </span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">The leading lights of our region, the leaders of institutions like UWI, CDB, CARICOM, ECCB, CAIC, OECS, CCL and others need to come out from under the barrel, or out of the closet, or wherever it is they go to enjoy their tax-free status and admit that they do not have the answers. It is obvious that they do not understand the problems. It might help if they listen to the beat from the street and stop dancing to the donor’s drum.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">What needs to change:</span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"> The quantum of resources, yes. But then money has never been our biggest problem. We learned to live without that long ago, before we started defining development in terms of dollars. That needs to change. So too, the wastage, the non-strategic and arbitrary expenditure driven by short-term expedience.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">What Needs to change: </span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">The monolith of government needs to be reengineered for growth. Its main priority should be the design and implementation of long-range development policy: sound, sensible, pragmatic, people-centred policy. A good plan - properly managed - will always attract resources, because people, even donors, like to be associated with success. There is money out there looking for worthy ventures; more so now, than ever. On my change list, good management ranks much higher than money: we are wasting so much now on the wrong things that we could work wonders by redirecting some of what we already have into a well managed strategy to get what we really need. Gold in the hands of fools is only fools’ gold.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">As has become my way in this impatient summer of my days, I prefer to be candid than polite. That is because there is so much to be done in so little time. I hope that this has disturbed you, deeply for this is not your grandfather’s Caribbean when wheels turned at their given pace and God was happy in his heaven. This is a single competitive global market in which we must be informed, agile, and strategic. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">There is still room for confidence. The Caribbean can blaze a trail and stand as an example to the world. We need to be brave and bold to stay beautiful. But, if we intend to live here and have our children live here, then we must be collectively concerned. We need to change what needs to change.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">(Excerpt from<i> Navel String)</i></span></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">When we were young</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and poor and wise</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and held each other</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">in each other’s eyes</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and forced for want of means</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">to share alike</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">each others’ joys and miseries</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">we marked each birth</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">by planting navel strings.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">And lacking alternative device,</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">erected trees</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">great branching memories</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">to bless the spot</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">where to more abundant life</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">we bound ourselves</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">mere shrivelling flesh</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">proffered to eternal earth</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">rock to sinew,</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">root to bone,</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and so forever</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">to this unbroken place.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">You too</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">might have had your monument</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">grown out from,</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">around and into you,</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">rooted tendrils locked</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">into your vault of flesh,</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">painful and deep,</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">like the love you keep</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">for a spiteful child</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">of your own making.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">So now imagine</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">its green foreskin</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">ripped back</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">its leafy hand</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">hacked down</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">its earth-brown muscle</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">slashed to stone-white bone.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Imagine that it makes you retch:</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">that stench of ignorance,</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">that bile of deceit</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">so that you die a little</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">from the clog of litter</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">in the artery</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">of an innocent stream.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Now imagine</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">the full reward</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">of a hundred labours,</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">your countless generations</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">like cassava</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">parting the tender furrow</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">of your field of dreams</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">imagine music</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">in the flowering of the banana,</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">applause from the towering palmiste</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">kisses from the red lipped balizier,</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">imagine a noble samaans</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">granting its green blessing</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">to the earth.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Imagine such a harvest</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">of benevolence</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">on your children.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">But,</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">if you just turn your face,</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Tilt your chin</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and sniff just so,</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">even from your high green mountain</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">you will smell history</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">repeating on a western wind</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">sense the leaching</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">from those same hills</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">cradling your first child’s navel string.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">That is the scent</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">of earth evicting us:</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">a whole root system recoiling</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">in despair.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">You can sense</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">the tensing noose</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">of our undoing</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">right there</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">in your groin.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">And in your dreams</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">where angels should abide</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">yawning concrete graves</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">await your tenancy, and</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">winged shadows of forgetfulness</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">move heavy ‘cross the contours of tight skin</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">There on the black nipple of your child’s distress</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">where lacking alternative device</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">she has let them touch her.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">There on your mother’s ruby lip</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">a blister from the corner</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">of your father’s drunken fist</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">There in your own protruding gut,</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">in your son’s foreign body language,</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">on his putrid breath.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">There is the living death,</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">the alien seed deep in our mortgaged soil</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">where faith has died</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">without its branching tree.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">© Adrian Augier, 2010.</span></b></div><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"> All rights reserved.</span></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><b><u><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">What Needs to Change</span></u></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">presentation to the Green Investment Conference - Roseau, Dominica - October 05, 2010</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">ADRIAN AUGIER </span></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Caribbean Laureate for Arts and Letters, 2010</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><b><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">(</span></i></b><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Excerpt from <i>Urban Drift)</i></span></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Not so long ago</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">this landscape read</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">like a thousand years of unscarred hill.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">The ancient road, the old stone church,</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">the quiet, still unchanged</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">despite the barking dog</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">in the dusty noon.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">... There was a sanctuary in that slow pace.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">A sanity, if you will.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">There was calm, without the frenzy </span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">of living large, elsewhere;</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">a dependable quiet which reminded of origins, </span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">of ancestors, of a place called home</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">to which we could return</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">in body and in memory</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">as to a murmuring spring</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">or the blue quiet of a cove</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">for refreshment, for renewal.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">The opening excerpt addresses the demise of traditional communities in a post-agricultural Caribbean.<span> </span>This has become something of a thematic anchor in my writing, because I feel that we have not prepared for the rapid social and economic change overtaking us. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">I confess however, that I am part poet, part economist. <span> </span>Admittedly, a dangerous combination of heart and head, but I find it productive to draw on both voices.<span> </span>The duality reflects my own thesis that the Caribbean is dichotomous, often schizophrenic, and that we need to acknowledge this quirk in our personality. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Consider our contradictions: We are mixed and multiracial; insular but global; poor but pretty; one and many.<span> </span>History has made us unique. <span> </span>Geography has made us exotic. <span> </span>Size has made us manageable and vulnerable.<span> </span>A paucity of options has made us creative and taught us survival as well as subversion.<span> </span>We are capable of resistance as much as assimilation.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">So, the poet tells the economist that there is a metaphor in this duality; an equilibrium to be graphed showing the relationship between the fervour we feel and the logic we have learned.<span> </span>By logic, I include the unwritten good sense acquired over generations, and that intuitive understanding of interdependence between the individual and the environment: </span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><b><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">(</span></i></b><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Excerpt from<i> <span> </span>It’s A Hard Thing)</i></span></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">It’s hard thing.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">To live without passion</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">in a place that is a part of you,</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">to stay all level-headed and apart</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">when you feel the wind</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">like it’s your own hot breath</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">When you know a place so well</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">that you can tell from the smell inside the house</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and the dark drumming on the zinc roof</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">that august rain falling heavy like a rake</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and ripping ‘way your very skin</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">from the surface of the earth.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">It’s a hard thing.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">When in dry season</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">you see all the soil crack-up</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">like a big brown heart that split apart</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and all the happiness that come</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">from loving green leaf</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and bubbling spring </span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">done gone and evaporate into air.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">It’s a hard thing.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">To stay all cool and comfortable</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">in a place that is your home</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">since before you born</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">because three generations before you</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">struggle, struggle, struggle</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">till they buy a house and land, together,</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and get to own the place that their great-grandfather</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">used to rent but could never buy</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">in his one life before he die.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">It’s a hard thing.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Not to cry when this place is part of you</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">as much as the hand that hold the pen</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">that write down this thing;</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">that same pen that your godfather give you</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">when you pass for college,</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">that pen with the deep dark ink that flow</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">like a bloodline from it.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">And you know there must be</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">a heavy dose of nostalgia inside you there</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">with this craving for a longtime day</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">when we used to understand</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">that history is not what people tell us</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">but part of who we are:</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">deep-thinking people</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">determined to tell our story</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">under moonlit mango tree or street lamp </span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">or in<span> </span>painting or our poetry</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">or that sweeter music that used to bubble up</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">from deep inside a place that we were not </span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">like now, afraid to go.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">And that we owe </span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">a debt, a loyalty to this landscape that sustains us,</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">this earth that made you, this earth that</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">make you ask ancestors</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">if it was alright to fell a tree</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">that was older than you</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">because somebody navel string</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">might be buried under there…</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">It’s a hard thing.</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">When we gather, under mango tree or street light or in cool conference rooms, we do so potentially for causes larger than ourselves; larger than that sense of individual importance.<span> </span>And when we give ourselves to such causes, we start to recapture the communal spirit of the ancestral Caribbean.<span> </span>That spirit is a real and powerful thing.<span> </span>It spans oceans and centuries and generations, and is possibly the one shared thing that has sustained us over the last five centuries.<span> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">That spirit knows survival, but much more than that, it is a thing with memory; with understanding. It knows that prosperity is not achieved by one generation at the expense of the next.<span> </span>It knows that wealth is not measured in cash, but in equity, ownership, education, wellbeing and a certain quality of life which like a tide, raises all boats at the expense of none.<span> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">The late Rex Nettleford wrote a book entitled <b><i>“Inward Reach, Outward Stretch”</i></b> which addresses our ability to call up from within that energy we need to achieve our goals.<span> </span>Nettleford understood that goals give us purpose and being an enlightened people, we know that all will not be achieved in our one lifetime.<span> </span>Nevertheless, we find the conviction to sacrifice and persevere and contribute to a legacy which is the prime inheritance of our children.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Today, that conviction is withering.<span> </span>Our concepts of community are devalued.<span> </span>In our new post-colonial, post-independence post-traditional, postcard Caribbean, notions of collective consciousness, collective responsibility and communal ownership are all passing from us: </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Under concrete, steel, laminate and linoleum</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">have we buried all these things.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Under the luxuries of better living.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Under the spin-offs of development.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Under amnesia.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Under all that forgetting who we are</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">And what it means to be, us.</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">But, it is not too late to remind ourselves that there is a higher probability of collective progress as a community of islands than economic survival as individual entities.<span> </span>Moreover, the fortification of Caribbean society is more important now than ever before.<span> </span>The economics of globalisation requires us to unite; not just as a philosophical notion but as an economic and political imperative. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -0.5in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Sir Arthur Lewis, arguing the case for Federation, maintained that the principle benefit of regionalism would be freedom from the tyranny of petit politicians. <span> </span>He foresaw that democracy divided, would be hijacked by little men, poisoned by parochial politics. <span> </span>The present coincidence of poor governance, low growth, and massive social dislocation seems to confirm his theory.<span> </span><span> </span>We see that despite its considerable potential, the Caribbean is in crisis and the only way out is to face reality, cut the self-delusion, and start working together to address the massive turnaround required to regenerate prosperity our shared community.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">What needs to Change:</span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"> First, we need to have a plan; our plan. We need to stop adopting external agendas and foreign notions of what we should do and where we should be going.<span> </span>If we had our own plan we could dictate to donors and the multilateral agencies what they can do for us.<span> </span>Our plan must envision a new prosperity, appropriately defined for our circumstances.<span> </span>Poverty is no longer an option.<span> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">What needs to change:</span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"> We need coalitions of hard working and deep thinking people who revolt against the complacency of consumerism, and who are seized of the fact that we cannot be blind accessories to the great human machine that consumes energy and resources in ways that devalue life, undermine community and destroy ecosystems. <span> </span>Our economic philosophy of “more now, less later” is denuding the very landscapes upon which we depend.<span> </span>That degradation is substantial and in some ways irrevocable.<span> </span>Its consequences stretch before us, way into the future, across generations, forever.<span> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Because we are small and have limited options, concepts like trans-generational sustainability require us to be more conscious, more vigilant than ever.<span> </span>Where this Caribbean stands tomorrow will be determined our ability to stop the madness of mortgaging the future of Caribbean Society.<span> </span><span> </span>If our young people seem unmotivated and ambivalent, it could well be because they perceive the future as already sold out, pre-determined, impervious to their own youthful desire for change.<span> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">The founding fathers who fought so hard to oppose the status quo ante, must be restless in their graves.<span> </span>Consider how far we moved in one or two generations; how by our own efforts in a world that cared little for our cause, we achieved what we are now in danger of forgetting:<span> </span>our own rite of passage on the road to enlightened self-determination. </span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">And lacking certain options</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">People eased off the yoke</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Of ignorance and dependency</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">By leveraging their labour and some land.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">They dared not hope.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Not for inheritance or education.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Yet they rose out that regimented soil</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">With its settled stratum</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">And intimately held ourselves together</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">With the kind of dignity that poverty</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and missing options will impose.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">In our little island theatre</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">We became the leads:</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Characters in the dramas of our own lives.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">We managed to love</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">And proved that size</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Holds no dominion over determination.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">So, what possible excuse can we make for this apathy? <span> </span>What reasoning justifies our failure to address the bigger picture?<span> </span>While we have travelled far from the malaise and malevolence to which we were abandoned in the name of political independence, it seems that we have forgotten our history; a history that has given the world philosophers, Artists, Heroes, Athletes, Pioneers of all description.<span> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">The problem is that we lack a cause; a common enemy.<span> </span>Fidel and Marx before him, understood that all rebellion needs a common enemy, a shared perception of injustice, an understanding of mutual circumstance.<span> </span>We must rebel now against ignorance, crime, late justice, and bad government.<span> </span>These are the enemies of today.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">If we are to return to any state of enlightenment, we need to determine why this generation of Caribbean people has become fixated on things frivolous, mediocre, profane, and inconsequential.<span> </span>See if you recognize this person: </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">(Excerpt from <i>Think it Over)</i></span></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">So you think the struggle is over.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Yes, you with your fake brand-name jeans</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">halfway down the black crack</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">of your consciousness.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">You think the struggle is so over</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">that decent coloured folk</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">can afford to imitate dem po-ass dogs</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">dem ghetto boiz and nappy-headed hoes</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and just tek-up their jail-bird jibe</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">their going-nowhere projects vibe</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">like we don’t have our own fight</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">to get off on, to wager with The Man</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">to get our sof’ass butt in gear</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and fight for what is right…!?!</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Yesss-you.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Who else think the struggle so fuckin’ over</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">that someone somewhere</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">offered you job, heaven, and a favour</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and you believe him...</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">So you don’t have to do like the rest of us</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">in this dark-skin world</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">work harder, wait longer, struggle more</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">for every inch of ground</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and most of all work smarter</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">because the real battle coming round, again</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and this time it’s for your brain.</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">For a new green thinking to take root we must be revive the imperative of viewing our collective circumstances as a regional community of island communities.<span> </span>This consciousness is central to the context of the country’s economic, social and political progress.<span> </span>Being islands, we do not have the luxury of space in which to hide, bury mistakes or for that matter to run away.<span> </span>The options are stay, die or leave.<span> </span>And leaving usually means abandonment of your very soul to the global appetite of the euro-american consumer machine.<span> </span>That is not development.<span> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">For many of us, this Caribbean is the only meaningful milieu in which we wish to live, grow, dream and raise our children.<span> </span>Family and community are the base from which our spirit, our energy, our inspiration, our motivation rise.<span> </span>It is the source of our whole spectrum of opportunities from which to spring board into the broader pool of possibilities which the wider world offers.<span> </span>We cannot define development without recognition of that fact.<span> </span>It is part of who we are and what gives meaning to our lives.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -0.5in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">The wonderful thing about all this is that we are well placed to sample wisely from the menu of options that the old world offers.<span> </span>We need not repeat their mistakes. We do not need to adopt the mindlessness.<span> </span><span> </span>We do not need to embrace a model which has a huge appetite but no soul.<span> </span>We can design our own hybrid avoiding the failings of the laisser-faire model which certainly has the means but not the message.<span> </span>It has the structure but not the sense of sustainability which builds societies as opposed to economies.<span> </span>What’s more, the information age which has engulfed us also gives us access to all the objective data we need and so to a new fundamental freedom of choice.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">What Needs to Change:</span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"> <span> </span>The ascendancy of the individual as sole beneficiary of development is a flawed concept. <span> </span>It is at war with our own historical context and current experience.<span> </span>All our really important milestones have been achieved by collaboration and contribution and cooperation.<span> </span><span> </span>Indeed, to be quite accurate you need to add to that list resistance and when necessary, revolution. <span> </span>So, it is all the more inconceivable that we should be complacent about our future.<span> </span>To counter that complacency, we must rediscover the knowledge of ourselves as warriors and heroes and pioneers.<span> </span>The minute that is gone we begin to truly fall apart.<span> </span>The poetry explains:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">(Excerpt from <i>Think It Over)</i></span></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">...you feel the struggle over… !?!</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Because we independent almost thirty years</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">don’t mind the politics so small and dirty, yes</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">we have we own dollar bill</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">but your dollar going in someone’s else’s till</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">amigo, limey, bacra, bachay, yankee… whatever</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">but ckeck it baby-doll</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">your buck ain’t coming back</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">to your studio apartment</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">a.k.a. that one room shack</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">But, watch you</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">you don’t grow what you eat</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">you don’t sew what you wanna wear</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">in fact you don’t care</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">if the party dress</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">just put on once and throw away</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">so long you looking fly and hot</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and fit to do what you gotta do</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">to keep yo’ man by you.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Girlfriend just don’t care to know</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">where we at or where we need to go</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">but she consider</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">that in these guava-season post-fig days</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">when she putting out she better put aside</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">some of that cell phone and chicken money</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">to educate the pickney in her pickney belly</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and you so effin’ right my girl</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">your reasoning tight like being white</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">you say the struggle over and is true</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">cuz when you give up, give in, give out</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">that’s when the struggle really done with you.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">As communities, as nations, and as a region, our agendas must not be allowed to shrink.<span> </span>Our daily concerns in descending order of importance now seem to be food, sex, fete, alcohol, cellular phones and just enough cash to pay for things without the stress of thinking too much or too deeply.<span> </span>We must now wonder if we have bought the bullshit in the brochure: <span> </span>the rum-and-coca-cola sunset, the contemptuous comedy of the banana republic.<span> </span>That definitely has to change.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">What needs to change:</span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"> <span> </span>We need to expand the very limited agenda transmitted to us by uninspired lyrics, misinformed radio, unschooled television and illiterate print.<span> </span>In those worlds basic survival is a rather uncomplicated and banal affair.<span> </span><span> </span>The poetry paints a painful picture:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">(Excerpt from <i>Think It Over)</i></span></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">No job and not a ring in sight</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">despite the putting out each Friday night</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">an’ you eh hearing still?</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">you gonna spend nineteen dollars and fitty cent</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">on another coke and KFC</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">when you done see</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">that hyper-tense and sweet pee</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">already killing half a we</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">And you<span> </span> think the struggle is over…. !?!</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">with your weave and press-on good to go</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and you know that you could still get it</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">cause your mobile have five dollars credit</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">for those most important words:</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Hi Baby, call me back…?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Or maybe you think that’s overstating the case: surely, we are not there yet?<span> </span>But if you ask the young people around you, aged 15 to 25 - and that is the litmus test – they will tell you that we are most certainly THERE.<span> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">So in terms of picking an appropriate sample form the vast menu available to us let us put it this way: we need to turn the children on as much by Miles as by Movado, a little Mozart alongside Marley, a little Wordsworth with your Walcott... a little more dance and less grind, a little more thought and purpose and vision!<span> </span>If we fail them in this then their appreciation of our past and their future is indeed bleak.<span> </span>The alternative reads as follows: </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">(Excerpt from <i>ESPERANCE : Vox 2)</i></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">They will take your girl-child</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">your innocent</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">all your love incarnate</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and like a bag of coals</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">cast her at the feet of djabs.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Disconsolate</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">for the lost way</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">the clouded memory</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">for old habits passed from rote</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">the simplest rituals:</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">shared meals, prayers, hymns, sunrise,</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">the coming in and going out of doors</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">intimate thoughts</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and public greetings,</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">She will be lost</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">mostly to her self</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and will not wish</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">even to see dawn’s blush</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">or the flutter of the dove’s shadow</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">come to earth</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">or the posturing lizard</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">sunning upon its rock</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">or the next blossoming of forest orchids</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">or the homing sea bird at day’s end</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Or you</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">whose love sang her into life</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">whose breath comingled and</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">conceived her.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">You, whose every wish</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">lies bagged and corded</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">cast at the feet of djabs</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Sackcloth of black bones</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">barely shifting</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">black dust sifting through</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">fit for the making of night</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">which will become your chore.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">You will churn it</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">from the mills of resignation</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">like a slow fuse to gunpowder</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">a simmering angry dusk</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">settling in the soul</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Dousing</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Deadening</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Darkening down.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Meanwhile, the sky thickens</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">with cataracts of ego, greed and lust.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">We falter on the brink of memory</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">no map of routes already travelled</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">or roads to come</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">our anecdotes forgotten in mute skulls</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">our stories hung in thinning air.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">To many thinking Caribbean citizens we are a region adrift; on a sea of short term expediency, without much thought about our future as a nation in the world of nations; without an understanding or a vision of ourselves so that our rubric of norms and values, largely unwritten and unread, our chance of an enlightened Caribbean Society passes from us a little more each day.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">What needs to Change:</span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"><span> </span>In defining a new charter for Caribbean Society, we need to relegate partisan politics to its rightful place: at the bottom of the pile of priorities.<span> </span>The travesty which now passes for government has to be redesigned. This amalgam of convenience and deceit visited upon us largely by rogues and charlatans, is archaic, decrepit and bankrupt.<span> </span>It needs to be detonated.<span> </span>In its place, should be constructed a strategic vision for the region and its subset of islands, and a work plan that is larger than the individual and the immediate; a plan that foresees as its central objective the delivery of an optimal quality of life for the many rather than the few.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">What Needs to Change: Our comfort with our own complacency.</span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"><span> </span>Too many of us are too comfortable: with our government jobs, our car loans and mortgages, our all-inclusive homes that shield us form the madness beyond the garden fence.<span> </span><span> </span>Or, with our children safely boarded at schools in London or Miami, do we think we will retire far from the madding, murdering, malingering crowd, lock the burglar bars and go to sleep.<span> </span>If only immunity were that simple:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">(Excerpt from <i>Esperance: Vox 2)</i></span></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">All recollection flattens down</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">becoming strangely two-dimensional</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">under the weight of indulgences</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">we have put on</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and the dark semblances we crave.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Self-image digital, processed, and</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">portioned into wafer-thin allotments</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">will be served white-gloved</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">to our enslaved children.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Now where are your generations</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Lord, what will we become?</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Yes, they will take your girl-child</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">your innocent, all your love incarnate</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and your first son will be among them</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">laying live offerings</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">at the feet of djabs.</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">What needs to Change: </span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Too many of our leaders are prepared to hand our islands – together with our gift-wrapped souls - to people whose regard for us is less than flattering and whose agenda has not changed in 500 years.<span> </span>We need to put foreign investment in its place: a necessary input to be tolerated for a while and stringently regulated in the public interest until we have no further use for it.<span> </span>In the meantime, our people as the primary beneficiaries of our development model, must be empowered to participate in and profit from the process, and must eventually grow into a position to buy out their foreign partners.<span> </span>Let me refer you to the work of economist Amartya Sen which explores the relationship between freedom and development, showing how freedom is both a basic constituent of development in itself, and an enabling key to other aspects.<span> </span>Let me also refer you to writings by Derek Walcott in which he criticises the illusion of incentive-fed, tourism–led development as a “...kind of prostitution”.<span> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">What needs to Change:</span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"> <span> </span>We need to reverse this tendency to wager our sense of dignity.<span> </span>That is, our identity and all that which makes us special, worthy - and ultimately more wealthy - than money can measure. We need to validate those things that we are blindly wagering in the bewildering poker game of the immediate, the individualistic, the short-lived, the unsustainable. <span> </span>There is a thin and dangerous line between marketing that which we are, as opposed to that which we make.<span> </span>If we do not make that distinction, we may fall like Alice in Wonderland into the picture postcard illusion of idyllic islands where nothing substantial starts or is sustained. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">There are still many people who can make a difference.<span> </span>People with passion, commitment, capacity and reserves of untapped determination.<span> </span><span> </span>If so, then we must fight on, for the struggle is not nearly over. <span> </span>For the fight to end in victory we will have to change our aversion to the academic and the intellectual.<span> </span>Our main resource in the development game is our treasury of minds.<span> </span>It is exactly that rigour of academic analysis applied to intellectual notions of equity, justice, identity and relevance which will elevate our society above the dog-eat-dog, zero-sum game in which we are currently trapped.<span> </span><span> </span>Expanding skill sets, redefining benefits, assessing options, re-engineering models, adopting best practice, and energizing communities takes logic as much as idealism and we must not allow anyone to diminish the value of that. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">What needs to change: <span> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">We must stop looking to the politicians.<span> </span>Our inspiration cometh not form those hills. We must take back our democracies by setting a new, broader agenda which transcends the 5 year political parenthesis.<span> </span>Besides, leadership is not the sole responsibility of Government. <span> </span>Real citizens need to stand up. <span> </span>We must look to ourselves: within our families, businesses, community organisations, professional associations and our media.<span> </span>These are the hallmark institutions of a functioning democracy.<span> </span>Independent, objective, non-partisan entities which have the strength of their collective convictions will find the bedrock of their own legitimacy.<span> </span>That legitimacy comes with the right to promote and preserve principles and laws that are for all society and for all time, and which rise above the shrinking agendas of passing men and petty politics.<span> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">What needs to change:<span> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">The leading lights of our region, the leaders of institutions like UWI, CDB, CARICOM, ECCB, CAIC, OECS, CCL and others need to come out from under the barrel, or out of the closet, or wherever it is they go to enjoy their tax-free status and admit that they do not have the answers.<span> </span>It is obvious that they do not understand the problems.<span> </span>It might help if they listen to the beat from the street and stop dancing to the donor’s drum.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"><span> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">What needs to change:</span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"> The quantum of resources, yes.<span> </span>But then money has never been our biggest problem.<span> </span>We learned to live without that long ago, before we started defining development in terms of dollars. That needs to change.<span> </span>So too, the wastage, the non-strategic and arbitrary expenditure driven by short-term expedience.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">What Needs to change:<span> </span></span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">The monolith of government needs to be reengineered for growth.<span> </span>Its main priority should be the design and implementation of long-range development policy: sound, sensible, pragmatic, people-centred policy. A good plan - properly managed - will always attract resources, because people, even donors, like to be associated with success.<span> </span>There is money out there looking for worthy ventures; more so now, than ever.<span> </span>On my change list, good management ranks much higher than money: we are wasting so much now on the wrong things that we could work wonders by redirecting some of what we already have into a well managed strategy to get what we really need.<span> </span>Gold in the hands of fools is only fools’ gold.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">As has become my way in this impatient summer of my days, I prefer to be candid than polite. That is because there is so much to be done in so little time.<span> </span>I hope that this has disturbed you, deeply for this is not your grandfather’s Caribbean when wheels turned at their given pace and God was happy in his heaven. <span> </span>This is a single competitive global market in which we must be informed, agile, and strategic. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">There is still room for confidence.<span> </span>The Caribbean can blaze a trail and stand as an example to the world.<span> </span>We need to be brave and bold to stay beautiful.<span> </span>But, if we intend to live here and have our children live here, then we must be collectively concerned.<span> </span>We need to change what needs to change.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">(Excerpt from<i> Navel String)</i></span></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">When we were young</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and poor and wise</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and held each other</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">in each other’s eyes</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and forced for want of means</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">to share alike</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">each others’ joys and miseries</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">we marked each birth</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">by planting navel strings.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">And lacking alternative device,</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">erected trees</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">great branching memories</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">to bless the spot</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">where to more abundant life</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">we bound ourselves</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">mere shrivelling flesh</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">proffered to eternal earth</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">rock to sinew,</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">root to bone,</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and so forever</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">to this unbroken place.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">You too</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">might have had your monument</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">grown out from,</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">around and into you,</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">rooted tendrils locked</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">into your vault of flesh,</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">painful and deep,</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">like the love you keep</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">for a spiteful child</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">of your own making.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">So now imagine</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">its green foreskin</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">ripped back</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">its leafy hand</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">hacked down</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">its earth-brown muscle</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">slashed to stone-white bone.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Imagine that it makes you retch:</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">that stench of ignorance,</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">that bile of deceit</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">so that you die a little</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">from the clog of litter</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">in the artery</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">of an innocent stream.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Now imagine</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">the full reward</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">of a hundred labours,</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">your countless generations</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">like cassava</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">parting the tender furrow</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">of your field of dreams</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">imagine music</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">in the flowering of the banana,</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">applause from the towering palmiste</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">kisses from the red lipped balizier,</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">imagine a noble samaans</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">granting its green blessing</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">to the earth.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Imagine such a harvest</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">of benevolence</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">on your children.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">But,</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">if you just turn your face,</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Tilt your chin</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and sniff just so,</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">even from your high green mountain</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">you will smell history</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">repeating on a western wind</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">sense the leaching</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">from those same hills</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">cradling your first child’s navel string.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">That is the scent</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">of earth evicting us:</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">a whole root system recoiling</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">in despair.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">You can sense</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">the tensing noose</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">of our undoing</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">right there</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">in your groin.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">And in your dreams</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">where angels should abide</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">yawning concrete graves</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">await your tenancy, and</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">winged shadows of forgetfulness</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">move heavy ‘cross the contours of tight skin</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">There on the black nipple of your child’s distress</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">where lacking alternative device</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">she has let them touch her.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">There on your mother’s ruby lip</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">a blister from the corner</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">of your father’s drunken fist</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">There in your own protruding gut,</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">in your son’s foreign body language,</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">on his putrid breath.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">There is the living death,</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">the alien seed deep in our mortgaged soil</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">where faith has died</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">without its branching tree.</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
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</div><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">© Adrian Augier, 2010.</span></b></div><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"><span> </span>All rights reserved.</span></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
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</div>AAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12992161166751560958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4609739513818980179.post-28156474102777732322010-10-10T10:35:00.000-07:002010-10-10T10:35:25.891-07:00Recent Speech<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><b><u><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">To Those Who Would Lead, For Those Who Would Follow</span></u></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Adrian Augier</span></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;">Caribbean Laureate for Arts & Letters 2010</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;">Laureate Evening - Government House, St. Lucia - October 08, 2010</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></b></div><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">There are many deserving persons who might stand here in my place. And, I would like to think that a few of them are right here with us this evening. I would also like to think that many more St. Lucians will have this honour, proving what we already know: that we are as capable of excellence as any other nation. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Many of us know this; in an unspoken, subconscious, sort of way. We know that we are capable of moments of greatness, exceptional achievement and high honour. We see it happen spontaneously every now and then. We offer appropriate congratulations. We nod knowingly, basking if possible, in the reflected glory: I was there you know, I was there.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">But this is not about us. It is not even about me. It is about those who might follow; those who will see this and say without malice: Yes, that is where I want to go; I too can achieve. So, the question is, are we prepared to just be here, or are we ready to make a difference? </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">And, wouldn’t it be great if this was our thing, our honour, a reflection of our country’s determination to produce the region’s most distinguished artists. We could, you know. We really could. We could be the island-mecca for the creative arts. This could be our contribution to Caribbean civilization.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Moreover, we could be the Caribbean-mecca of creative industries, and that could be our contribution to ourselves and<b><u></u></b> to the Caribbean economy: Imagine this nation as the anchor island for design, film, music, publishing, fashion, architecture, animation and all the technology associated with those knowledge-based industries of now and the future.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">For those of us who live and work in the arts, an unspoken subconscious sort of knowing, a green flash every now and then, will never be enough. Not when we see legions of potentially amazing young St. Lucians who have what it takes to blossom into world class talents. Or at least to blossom into the best people, the best St. Lucians, the best Caribbean citizens they can be.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">And let’s not make money the excuse. Money is always handy, but it is hardly our greatest handicap. The cruelest cut of all is the waste and the indifference when our young people are so adrift and unfulfilled and so in need of inspiration. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Underfunding and understaffing will always force us to make difficult choices. But if we just did what we should. If we just had some minimum investment below which we were not prepared to wallow. We know that dreams and prosperity are not achieved by one generation at the expense of the next. We also know that wealth is not measured in cash, but in equity, respect, education, well-being and a certain quality of life, which like a tide, raises all boats at the expense of none. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">So, if at least we matched some modest effort to our modest means, we could live with that. We would understand. We would take that and run to the mountaintop and we would make you proud.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">My wish for us as a nation is that more of us would value and invest in the creative spirit of our people. Believe me, it is the most sacred faculty with which we are endowed. To create, god-like from nought, is to tap the awesome power of the divine within each of us. It unleashes our essential humanity and empowers us to achieve things dreamt and undreamt. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Half our investment and employment problems would disappear if we just invest in people and empowerment. Think of all the problems that we would no longer expect governments and politicians to solve.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">No doubt, some of us with elections looming will worry about raising a nation of intelligent, articulate, self-motivated people. And you should worry, because our people want what most people want: a safe, stable, just environment in which to work live and raise children without compromising their dreams. We want good government. We don’t much care what colour it is. Allow us our dreams and our dignity and our sense of purpose and you can run the country forever. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Empowerment <b><u>is</u></b> the great dividend of the arts. It is awesome to see a teenager suddenly turned on by the sheer spectrum of possibilities before her; to see that light go on in a child’s eyes and know that he will never do drugs or carry a gun. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">It is exactly the same power turned on itself that you now see manifested in violence. And it will never go away. You can throw cops at it, guns at it, more laws at it, it will never, ever go away. Not the way you think. Because, the answer is not to build bigger jails but to build better people. The answer not money but management of the little that we have. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">What you can do with that power, is redirect it. Ignite it with a positive flame and watch it burn more bright than you imagined. Educate and enlighten it and feed that energy to as many people as you can. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">People who know themselves and their history, who understand <b><u>where</u></b> they are now and <b><u>where</u></b> they need to get to, people who can <b><u>see by the example of others</u></b> how to get THERE... are <b><u>going</u></b> to get THERE. All we need to do is open the door, turn on the light, and get out of the way. It’s such a small thing to ask. Such a small thing to answer.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">I close with a piece that started life as an article written for publication by the Ansa McAl Foundation which has so honoured me, and in so doing, honoured all St. Lucia. The prose has since become poetry, and it is offered with my profound gratitude.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">It’s hard thing.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">To live without passion</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">in a place that is a part of you,</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">to stay all level-headed and distant</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">when you can feel the wind</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">like it’s your own hot breath</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">When you know a place so well</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">that you can tell from the smell inside the house</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and the dark drumming on the zinc roof</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">that august rain falling heavy like a rake</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and ripping ‘way your very skin</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">from the surface of the earth.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">It’s a hard thing.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">When in dry season</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">you see all the soil crack-up</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">like a big brown heart that split apart</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and all the happiness that come</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">from loving green leaf</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and bubbling spring </span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">done gone and evaporate into air.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">It’s a hard thing.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">To stay all cool and comfortable</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">in a place that is your home</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">since before you born</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">because three generations before you</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">struggle, struggle, struggle</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">till they buy a house and land, together,</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">and get to own the place that their great-grandfather</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">used to rent but could never buy</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">in his one life before he die.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">It’s a hard thing.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Not to cry when this place is part of you</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">as much as the hand that hold the pen</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">to write down this thing;</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">that same pen that your godfather give you</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">when you pass for college,</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">that pen with the deep dark ink that flow</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">like a bloodline from it.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">And you know there must be</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">a dose of melancholy inside you there,</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">with this craving for a longtime day</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">when we used to understand</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">that history is not what people tell us</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">but part of who we are:</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">deep-thinking people</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">determined to tell our story</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">under moonlit mango tree or street lamp </span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">or in painting or our poetry</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">or that sweeter music that used to bubble up</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">from deep inside a place </span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">where we were not, like now, </span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">afraid to go.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">And that we owe </span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">a debt, a loyalty </span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">to this landscape that sustain us,</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">this earth that make you, this earth that</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">make you ask ancestors</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">if it was alright to fell a tree</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">that was older than you</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">because somebody navel string</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">might be buried under there…</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">It’s a hard thing.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: right;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;">© Adrian Augier 2010.</span></div><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: right;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Candara","sans-serif"; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;">All rights reserved. </span></div>AAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12992161166751560958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4609739513818980179.post-46887643748922971402010-08-14T12:30:00.001-07:002010-08-14T15:41:17.570-07:00WELCOMEWelcome to Adrian's Blog.<br />
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This is all very new for me and I am working out the kinks as I go along, but the general idea is to SHARE: Thoughts... Ideas... Information... Art... Images... stuff that people will hopefully find useful and interesting enough to think about, comment and pass on.<br />
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And I suppose if you put all that together, its about sharing a life really... the Art of Life in this rather unusual place called St. Lucia... and since that life also happens in other parts of our region... it's is part of that uniquely enriching experience of life in the VILLAGE CARIBBEAN.<br />
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Comments are always welcome. Feel, Think, Pause then Write because writing is a serious thing and should not be taken lightly.<br />
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Thanx and Cheers<br />
AAAAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12992161166751560958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4609739513818980179.post-17048903303741125182010-08-14T12:07:00.000-07:002010-08-14T12:14:04.138-07:00RECENT ARTICLE<b>The Required Article</b><br />
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It’s hard to write without passion about a place that is a part of you. How the hell you supposed to stay all level headed and objective and apart when you could feel the wind like it’s your own breath. How you suppose to stay indifferent when you know a place so well that you can tell from the smell inside the house and the drumming on the zinc roof in the dark of night, that the heavy august rain falling like a rake and ripping away your very skin from the surface of the earth… How, when in dry season, you see all the soil crack-up like a big brown heart that split apart and all the happiness that come from loving green leaf and bubbling spring done gone and evaporate into thin air. <br />
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How you going to write so cool and comfortable, about a place that is your home since before you born because three generations before you struggle till they buy a house and land together, and get to own the place that their great-grandfather used to rent and which he could not buy in his one lifetime but left a paper in a square biscuit tin high up on a shelf where neither fire nor flood would steal it… and with death just beyond the door he call all his children that was still living, and tell them try an’ stay together and work smarter than he was allowed to do, and go to church, and put ‘side little money every month till it make enough, because Mr Mann who he was renting from all his working life had always say the place was his if he could pay, and now he gone but his children could inherit the promise of owning property.<br />
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How you going to write all that in a voice that sound like you are some stranger without crying and laughing and hoping and doubting…? How, when this place is part of you… as much as the hand that hold the fountain pen your godfather gave you when you pass for college, or the ink that flow like a bloodline from it. How you going to do that… even though you know that is what they want. That is what they expect from you… a safe little article like in the LIAT magazine that sweet-sweet and simple, so that anybody in this soca postcard society of ours could read it quick and feel good and get back to the mindless 824 or 925 or whatever the hell they doing to pay the car loan and cell phone and to afford the nightly drinking and easy whining and random but safe sex after the weekend fete.<br />
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And passing 50, you know there must be a heavy dose of nostalgia inside you there, this craving for a simpler day long gone, when we were complex enough to understand that history is a part of who we are, and that we owe a debt of loyalty and gratitude to the very landscape that sustains us… A time when you would ask the ancestors if it was alright to fell a tree that was older than you because somebody navel string might be buried under there… a time when we understood that this Caribbean that used to be ours before the hotels and casinos buy us out in a fit of globalization and a flood of drugs money, was all we had… and that it was the centre of our universe… a universe that foreign interests from all over been trying to pry out from under us for five bloody centuries… and now we just giving it up like cheap whores in a dirty bar on Friday night… for a song and sniff of coke.<br />
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Lord, how to write about all that and a time of cleaner living that came with unpretentious thrift and respect for the uncertainty of tomorrow and the need to preserve our children so that they would continue to emerge from the kind of servitude that stole our smiles and our pride and our hope and the kind of faith that we used to place in God and now barter to politicians who have no agenda but their own perpetuation. See how they betray the one most cherished hope of this brown-skin-red-skin slanty-eye blue-black dougla-hair high-brown mix up family of ours: longing to be one people. <br />
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Somebody have to write down this thing, because like we forgetting days when we were deep-thinking people determined to tell our story… under moonlit mango tree or street lamp, or later when ‘lectricity and luxuries like pen and printing came to us, determined to set that story down on paper so that our children would learn to read and cherish it like painting and poetry and that sweeter music that came bubbling up from deep inside a place we were not afraid to go.<br />
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Yes, there is a nostalgia there, like a lump of dry bread in your throat. But naturally, we forget the dry bread story now… most of us… even if it still have poor people thriving on less than that, right there in our yard. But it is a real pain too, lying there besides a type of shame and guilt that makes a body ask his firstborn child if she really want to come back home when she finish studying in America. You know how hard that is, for a father who see what this world does give and decide to live all his life right here in this village of islands, and then to contemplate that his children and grandchildren would not come back and build home and homeland…? You know how hard it is to hear from your own child that when it was our time we never build nothing to leave behind, nothing worth coming back to… Like we forget the biscuit tin on the high shelf that buy our first taste of hope and freedom.<br />
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That is what we selling now… our right to live here and be counted… no, not just as chambermaid and busboy and not like them doctor, economist and lawyer neither, who have one house here and another in Miami, just in case. No, I mean like real citizens who know scraping and sacrifice, and gain a kind of generational wisdom and undertake a kind of spiritual investment that stretches way beyond here and now and self. That is what we selling now, to pay the bills, because we done pawn off our grandfather’s house and land and whatnot.<br />
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So Dear Mr Mann, these many centuries later, and these four generations gone, I cannot write no nice-nice little article for your glossy magazine… I sorry, but I feel you understand.<br />
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Sincerely,<br />
V. Adrian Augier.AAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12992161166751560958noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4609739513818980179.post-51066836519836372972010-08-14T12:06:00.000-07:002010-08-14T14:09:36.770-07:00RECENT PREVIEWCOLORED GIRLS COMING!<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ya gotta be some kinda glutton for punishment to leave a cushy teaching assignment at City University of New York in the height of a sizzling summer season and come to St. Lucia to produce some play that most people here ain’t never heard of and many others couldn’t be bothered to come see and find out. But hey, there’s crazier ways to spend August in the islands. Can’t think of anything better just off the top of my head, but, there you have it, what can I say. Regardless the logic, here comes Mr. Hotstuff Director, with his cool locks and bittersweet memories of being Director of Culture (St. Lucia, 1980-83) and, of all things he’s looking to do a play!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Currently a lecturer in Theatre, and latterly an actor-director-producer with the post-Walcott Arts Guild, Alvin Hippolyte has taken it into his mind to produce himself a classic choreopoem/play written by the Black American, Ntozake Shange. (Like he don’t know the horrors Feeater ketching dong here!!???) Any way, God is good and black people strong, so he will likely survive the horrors of no facilities, little sponsorship and reluctant support from the “Authorities”. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Be that as it might, rehearsals are underway at the Grotto where Alvin-H is blissfully submerged in the process of preparation. (We hear the space has that effect on people) Now, something about the play: It has been around since 1974 and has thrilled audiences from the West Coast all the way to Broadway. As the New York Times said way back then “…it contains every feeling and experience a woman has ever had”. Toni Bambara of Ms. Magazine put it equally well… This play “celebrates the capacity to master pain and betrayals with wit, sister-sharing and reckless daring”. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Well, we would have to agree. There’s some serious stuff in there including a whole heap-a-pain being expunged in sista-to-sista therapy, with all the wit, sarcasm and female sensuality that women of color can generate. But then again, what would you expect from a script designed for 7 urban girls from multifarious backgrounds converged in a single space…? And to besides, the thang is written by a young female playwright of the 70’s who was bold and inventive enough to give her provocative masterpiece a 12-word title: “For Coloured Girls who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf”. What kinda name is that anyways!?!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Say what you will, three and a half decades and several major awards later, most people familiar with the seminal work just call it “For Colored Girls…” and they have called it many times in a multitude of reviews and endorsements… “Overwhelming… rich… bitter… funny… ironic… savage”. With a rep like that Alvin-H has got a challenge on his hands. But then again, easy theatre is hardly worth the doing and seldom worth the trip. So let’s go see how he makes this caged bird sing… and soar …and sink …and shout …all at the same time.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">If the casting is any indication, it’s all in there waiting to come out. The closetful of cathartic characters will be played by quite a crew: Claudia Edward (of diva persuasion) is looking to get all deconstructed and detached from her usual perfectly put-together self. Then again, she has toured Europe with Walcott in the personage of Helen of Troy, no less! So why not try this on for size, eh Sista? Keisha St. Helene previously appeared in “Mary Could Dance”, the painfully funny story of three whores, an abusive pimp and an altruistic boyfriend. This could be the next logical step on the road to nirvana! </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Also starring is Tassia Channel Clement an energetic but untamed talent who must now settle and find steady feet in her rather demanding role. She is better known (and it shows) as a performance poet (2nd place, Word Alive 2004) and also played in the forgettable 2004 Jubilee Production of Banjo Man. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
The aforementioned three are joined by four relative novices who are nevertheless just as passionate about theatre. Shernel Justin is a Theatre Arts teacher with enough dance and drama experience to win Best Overall Performer in the 2007 Secondary School Drama Festival. Melissa Francois is “enjoying the exploration of gender and relationship particularly the negotiables of truth, suspicion and insecurity”. Galair Michele Charlery has appeared in school productions of Ti Jean and A Christmas Carol and the 2009 Stone Production, Silent Scars. Jamie Chitolie is new to the stage and is learning to let go. Hold on to your ovaries, Baby… this could be the freefall!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">This roller coaster play is full of unexpected turns of emotion - from anger to humour and back again. Sardonic, witty, and biting till you bleed, it is a must-see for anyone looking for something better than coma-inducing TV. Forget Desperate Housewives, this is the real thing. Bold, brash and poignantly honest in sentiment and language (over 18 please), the play reminds us how far the gender has had to crawl just to tell it’s own story to a world preoccupied with post-emancipation bullshit, black machismo and racism.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
The production opens for 2 nights only at the National Cultural Centre on Friday August 20 and Saturday 21, 2010. Showtime is 8pm both nights and tickets are available at the usual ticket outlets and of course, the door. (You could as well go an’ see it ‘cause you always complaining how it don’t have noffing to do here.) </div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">AA 12.08.2010</div>AAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12992161166751560958noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4609739513818980179.post-72607584686054847172010-08-14T11:32:00.000-07:002010-08-14T12:02:50.486-07:00RECENT POETRY<b>Under Heaven</b><br />
<i>for Robert</i><br />
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Though each of a thousand wagging leaves<br />
vainly proclaims its own green tongue<br />
when moved they make<br />
one chorus under heaven<br />
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Mouben, Maho, Mahogani, Mango:<br />
they all flower in their season and give praise<br />
but at the wind’s insistence<br />
a single flawless canvas raise<br />
<br />
No doubt<br />
these are god’s hills. <br />
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Though rivers crave their serpentine ways <br />
stirring currents round unanchored will<br />
sweet, salt or brackish brine<br />
They are his waters, still.<br />
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Tumbling torrent, whispering spring <br />
riotous wave, the ruddy stream<br />
scouring the rooted levy:<br />
there are his wonders seen.<br />
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If these were our days<br />
after the hosanna of each sunrise<br />
the earth would be deflated <br />
bereft with words unwise<br />
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Would suffer faith in shattered seasons<br />
sacrament and sacrifice both crumbling<br />
scattered without farewell<br />
small hope of joy returning<br />
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But look upon the sea’s diurnal labour<br />
her ritual selflessly repeating <br />
now departure, now return,<br />
tendering and retreating<br />
<br />
From the feet of high brown cliffs.<br />
There every pebble makes a humble offering<br />
of hope, until the surge<br />
drawing breath for its own proffering<br />
<br />
Defying the black gaze of frigates, <br />
mimicking the mountain’s chorus,<br />
churns the stony multitude to chanting <br />
an incantation which no heart ignores. <br />
<br />
Then under the white wings of egrets <br />
each amnesiac wave erases a transgression<br />
hides some sinning<br />
absolves an indiscretion<br />
<br />
And at the water’s edge<br />
faith returns from its prodigal digression<br />
pebbles pray with shells rejoicing<br />
all drenched in exaltation. <br />
<br />
So too, beyond the sentient reef <br />
at the chancel to the cloistered bay <br />
the ocean kneels to hoist its bleachéd banners,<br />
to herald all the blessings of the day<br />
<br />
to heave its chastened crest<br />
to resurrect on a tide of forgiven wrongs <br />
even the dead bark that once was <br />
a babel of green tongues.<br />
<br />
Days, waters, mountains, leaves…<br />
If it were not for men, I might believe.<br />
<br />
AAAAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12992161166751560958noreply@blogger.com0