Honorable Mr. Frantz GUMBS,
President of the Collectivity Saint Martin,
Your kind, but very urgent attention is requested pertaining to attached document.
It is a letter to the editor written by Mrs. Aline CHOISY, entitled A ' LEGENDARY ISLAND STATUETTE TO
REPRESENT WHICH PEOPLE, WHICH ISLAND' ?
In this letter, Mrs. CHOISY responds to a commercial initiative by two St. Martin residents, in which a so-called 'statuette' representing two so-called 'legends' is intended to be mass-produced and sold as a 'market-tool' for our island.
Mr. President, we would like to respectfully emphasize to you that, Mrs. CHOISY's statement speaks for every conscious and proud native-indigenous St. Martiner/St. Martin organization.
In addition, the letter of Mrs. CHOISY strongly represents an increasing general sentiment of frustration among St. Martiners, that can not have also escaped your attention as well.
A simple point in case.
Just taking a walk anywhere on the island, including down-town Marigot, makes most St. Martiners, and visitors alike, wonder in what country or slum they are now living in or visiting.
There are the expanding numbers of primitive 'vending-stalls' all over the place, creating a resemblance to well-known slum-areas in the region and beyond, something we never saw before on our island.
Clearly, a sign of 'imported poverty' ,undoing the added value our island experienced in the past.
Another example of 'imported or exotic culture and mentality is the very thriving 'gipsy bus-industry', outcompeting the local, legal, tax-paying bus-drivers and contributing to the face of 'lawlessness' that is now characterizing the 'Friendly-island'.
These socio-cultural trends are not only changing the very 'face' of our country, but increasingly make St. Martiners extremely conscious of threats to their very existence as a people in their own land.
To put it plain Mr. President, genocide by substitution is taken place in 'high gear' on this island, smack in our faces, plain for all to see and experience.
In ending Mr. President, we strongly advice your collectivity not to take this growing sentiment of the grass-roots St. Martin people for granted, nor to underestimate it, because it is very, very real and very, very volatile.
You are therefore kindly, but very urgently requested to finally address this very serious situation on the island, before it is too late.
We remain committed to work along with your Collectivity and others to seek creative and structural solutions.
With respect,
Leopold JAMES