His latest letter to the editor (Reprimands and free advice for Franklyn RICHARDS) in the Daily Herald of Monday, March 2, 2009, is a great testimony to that observation,
Something apparently has really ‘ticked him off', which is regrettable.
Imagine, some-one having the audacity to construct a building so high, that it is effecting HIS view in paradise !
Wattating ?
Never mind that no-one has been more the victim to the nasty side effects of the overdevelopment on the island, than its own native-indigenous St. Martin People.
But, that it now effects our ‘great free advisor' and other well-behaved bourgeoisie residents like HIM.
Do not forget that his contribution to the island has been truly ‘immense'.
One such added value is him sharing his ‘expertise' as bachata dancer of sorts with any one willing to learn this Caribbean art-form from him.
Another ‘patriotic' contribution of our great ‘free-advisor' has been to make it his personal endeavor and mission to ridicule in my efforts to stand up and defend the rights of my own native-indigenous St. Martiners.
For him that was great ‘fun', because it offered him some dubious kind of ‘popularity' only he fathomed.
Never mind that not only our ‘view', but in fact our very existence as a native people has been affected by senseless overdevelopment, mass immigration based on greed and lust for adventure by the likes as his coming from ‘the cold'.
In recent times however, our ‘free-advisor-in-chief- of-some-sorts' is becoming an unpaid social activist of a different plumage, a pathetic conversion.
According to people meeting me on the streets, it seems that the ‘advisor' is now reading from the ‘same book and page', from which I have been doing so for years, much to his displeasure and ridicule.
Reason for this obvious and blatant conversion, you ask ?
What about this ‘calculated speculation' ?
His ‘chickens too are coming home to roost'
The beautiful sight he now enjoys over the Lagoon, offering scenic, romantic and post-card sunsets, not within his reach in the ‘polder' where he used to milk cows in the dark, misty, rainy, weather is now being threatened, ending his experience in ‘paradise'.
Nothing wrong with that concern and conversion, other than it carries all the appearances of a classic example of an opportunistic response.
Finally, the ‘free-advisor', now feels what the local natives have been feeling for decades when the likes like him enjoyed a privileged comfort-zone at our expense and loathed and ridiculed our concerns, while pouring and heaping blessings on the same ‘Red' Government.
Nevertheless, to the ‘unpaid advisor' and ‘all-round wannabe', I say, better late than never.
Welcome to the club of citizens concerned and upset about the rampant, self-destructive overdevelopment.
You can count on our support, although you never empathized with our concerns of being ‘wiped out' in the name of ‘development', which at that time was in your favor, because you too wanted ‘in' on the ‘pie'.
However, Mr. ‘Free-advisor', there is at least one condition for our support to you and yours !
Publicly acknowledge and support, if you can, our moral and historical rights to be first in our own native St. Martin land.
Failure to do so in one of your future ‘free advices', will lead only to one conclusion.
As long as your ‘comfort-zone' is not threatened, you could not care less about the threats to our very existence of native-indigenous St. Martiners.
As a consequent, you therefore would be more than willing to cut any deal with the same Government you are now criticizing, should they give you your way, which should never be ruled out, because of which ‘constituents' you represent.
In that possible event, it will again turn out to be' business as usual for you
and the likes of you.
Subsequently, nothing would have changed for the native-indigenous People of this island, just another act of betrayal.
Time will tell.
Have a nice week, my dear friend and ‘free advisor of sorts'.
Leopold JAMES