Is Government to blame for everything?

Nowadays. there is hardly any discussion about social issues in which we don’t pile the blame on government. If our private dirt road is full of potholes, it is government’s fault. If our shallow cesspool pours its filthy, smelly overflow onto the public road, government is to blame. If our employer does not register us with the Social Security- SZV - we instinctively and instantly point our fingers at government.

If a bus driver that can hardly speak English engages in an altercation with a tourist, Heaven help that no-good government of the day that not only allowed these foreigners on our hallowed soil, but also gave them a taxi license to boot, never mind the fact that the license is being leased at an exorbitant rate from a (retired) politician.

Oh, and of course, who do you think is responsible for the constant fights at our schools and on the school buses and the increasingly gross misbehavior of our youth? Who is to blame for the increase in violent crime? Government, of course!

My friend and former business partner at The Guardian, Richard Gibson, a doyen of the legal profession, once told me that if a lion were to be giving birth in Middle Region, people would blame him for such an unnatural occurrence. He was not even in government then!!

A well-known former banker in Curacao had told Regina Labega in the early or mid-90s that what he admired most about St. Martin was that the people did not depend on government for everything. Rather than bring about the fall of a government because a sports association did not receive government sponsorship to travel abroad for a competition, clubs in St. Martin would fundraise on their own- hold car wash events, barbecue, sell T-shirts and even organize bingos.

Those were the days when government was the last door we knocked on rather than the first (and often, the only) port of call for assistance. Mark you, I’m not saying that there weren’t those among us who would practically hunt down politicians in order to get onderstand (government financial assistance) while keeping our better-paying side hustle which we seldom declared to the tax man.

There was that, too. But the overriding principle and collective mentality was first one of self-help. We were a fiercely proud and independent people who did not wait on government to do anything for us. We embodied the spirit of Jollification which centered on community action.

So, what went wrong? How did we in less than one generation lose those high values that others admired about us?

Some people blame it on the hurricanes. Starting especially with Hurricane Luis in September 1995, we experienced a devastation that not only impoverished us materially, but also took a severe toll on our core values, including our pride.

There are those who argue that the cankerworm of dependency with the attendant erosion of self-esteem had begun to devour the fabric of our society long before Luis was born. Hurricane Luis, they contend, only exposed the rot that was already there.

Another group of people would swear on a “Trumpian” bible that it all began with the “invasion” by all these “illegals,” referring particularly to our brothers and sisters from the Caribbean. and never to the Europeans and Americans whose population appears to have increased significantly since the hurricanes began targeting us in successive seasons.

Somehow, those who have turned our waters, especially Simpson Bay Lagoon into their permanent tax free residence do not fall into this category of “alien invaders,” either.

And how could I forget that there are several people who believe that we are paying for more than 40 years of bad and corrupt (particularly Democratic Party) governance, even though many of them were not even born then or received study financing loans from the same government that they never paid back!

However, no matter how we try to explain it away, the fact still remains that we have changed as a people and not necessarily for the better. Scenes like we have seen in the aftermath of the horrors of Hurricane Irma, with people stretching out their arms to Dutch marines for a bottle of water in the blazing sun, not only tell a tale of desperation but more significantly of a psychological deterioration of our self image. When a people are forced to stoop so low as to think that their very survival depends on others who have historically dehumanized them, it is no longer a question of loss of dignity but a text book example of the Stockholm Syndrome.

Of course, the default position for many of us is to blame government, even though there are those who also fault the people themselves. The people get the government they deserve, they claim. Maybe and maybe not. The people are often deceived by those who seek their votes. But why is it that it is only those who did not vote for the government in power that always invoke this saying?

I say all of this not to absolve government of any culpability but to show how over the years we seem to have surrendered our power to a group of 22 people (15 members of parliament and 7 members of the Council of Ministers) who, by all indications, have made sure that their bread would be well buttered at the end of every month, whether or not they do the work.

Can we retrace our steps? Can we get back to that place and time when we did not give government so much power over our lives? Or is it too late to reclaim agency over our lives? Is the horse too far out of the barn already? Or, are we actually satisfied with the current situation?

These are questions I pose not because I have the answers but because I believe we must address them collectively.

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