Allow me to hereby respectfully respond to your letter to the editor in the TDYA-newspaper of Wednesday, march 11, 2009,entitled ; ‘Theo and his R.O.B.bers ( acrime strory).
By the way ‘Ger'.
Is it through providence or form of ‘higher power' that your article happen to appear right next to mine (‘Hero Brinkman is having a good laugh') in the same paper, of the same date on the same page ?
Nevertheless ‘Ger', indeed you are undergoing a mental metamorphosis of kind; from clown to radical activist.
Wattating....
After years of you trying to ridicule me, demonize me, which obvious not only did not work, because it backfired on you, you are singing a different song.
Now you are writing letters to the editor, in fact ‘copying' the same concerns I have been expressing for years.
Back then, before your beautiful, postcard view became ‘endangered', you made it your art-form to criticize and downgrade the sentiments of my native-indigenous St. Martin people..
Now that you and the likes of yours are ‘feeing the pinch' resulting from greed, nepotism, corruption, you are crying wolf.
Talking about opportunism.
Nevertheless, ‘Ger', I always felt for you, because you knew not better back then and as intellectual, I knew your day would come sooner or later.....
That is when the proverbial ‘chickens come home to roost....'.
Still, ‘Ger', I hold no grudge toward you and I forgive you your ignorance for unjustly blasting me standing up for the rights of the native people who were residents here long before you ‘discovered' paradise and the Simpson-Bay lagoon.
People who after the evil of the slavery-trade had ceased in its original form, enjoyed the most beautiful views of the island.
From hill-tops, coastal areas, grass-lands, beaches and all the island had to offer.
There were no areas made ‘off-limit' to natives back then and we shared all we had with every visitor.
That life for us ended when the concept of the ‘Friendly island' was created by the crooks and thieves in Government, sold out our entire patrimony under the guise of ‘development & growth', which made it possible also for people like you, who did not care about us to live in paradise.
Now, after living your dreams, your view is threatened with ‘extinction', by another ‘wave' of ‘new-comers', making feel what we felt when others like yourself came before.
Still, Gerard, I admire your outspokenness and not hiding your identity, making you a man, from which many of our own native ‘name with-drawn' and ‘name known to editors' and ‘callers'.
Because the cause is bigger than you and me ‘Ger', I have no problem sitting with people like yourself and others to find common, creative, win-win solutions.
I am just a call (54 43512), an email (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) away from you.
The choice is yours.
For sure, whatever such choice, it will be respected by me, but I will carry on regardless with standing up for the rights of my St. Martin people, without trampling upon any genuine rights of others.
Leopold JAMES
You know, prod native-indigenous St. martiner, without apologies, but with lots of understanding and compassion..
--
Leopold James
President SNBF & L'Esprit de Concordia
-------