Learning lesson from Norway
But perhaps even more impressive, are the people of Norway. People known for their tolerance, great welfare-system, where police officers do not wear side-arms and politicians go to work on their bicycles, or take the public transportation system, rubbing shoulders with known and unknown fellow passengers.
A more friendly and safe place, can hardly be imagined. And then it happened, on July 22, 2011. A most unthinkable event. Cadoom, bang, bang and many more bangs.
At the end of the day, almost 100 people were killed in cold blood, mostly young people, and a government building blown up in Oslo, its capital. People are in a daze, the King cried and people still can not believe it happened. Norway's own '9/11' on July 22.
Here now is the question any leader or Government should ask themselves, including the Country St. Maarten. Is there a lesson to be learned for us? If it could happen there in the Nordic ‘paradise’, could it also happen elsewhere - even on the 'Friendly Island'? Of course, such a though could easily be shrugged off; after all isn't that what our politicians are constantly doing?
The intention of this long introduction is to recommend our 'honorable' prime-minister for, on our behalf, officially condemning the attacks in Norway.
That shows that there is a compassion for injustice, one would tend to believe and it should fill us all with pride and hope for our own future, right here on the island.
However, just for the record. Isn’t this the same prime-minister of 'Country St. Maarten', whose Government in fact is doing the same to her people, as the derailed Norwegian gunman accused his Government of: ,,Bending backwards for illegal immigrants, but at the same time throwing their own natives under the 'colloquial bus'?”
Isn't this the same prime-minister who played political games, when she complained about ‘Outstanding matters in the Constitution’? Such as safeguarding the rights of the indigenous St. Maarteners that they won't be marginalized.
Isn't this the same prime-minister who is so eager to 'measure up' to other global leaders, but systematically turns a 'blind eye' to what happens to the natives of her own country?
It is like a fireman, traveling all over the globe, looking for fires to extinguish, while his own house is ablaze with fire. Does that make any sense? Well, not according to the gentleman in Norway, who acted out of revenge against the immigration policies of the Government of his country.
Clearly, Norway's prime-minister and Government were caught with 'their pants down'. Will that also happen to others? Our own prime-minister and Government better take these events on foreign soil as a lesson to learn from.
Wouldn't it be very ironic, if God forbid, the same Norwegian prime-minister might also have to, one day, express the same sympathy to the 'Country St. Maarten' - should the unthinkable also occur here? A very crazy idea? Oh yes, in Norway too that was crazy, that is up until Friday, July 22, 2011, it also was unthinkable - no more. Things in Norway will never be the same anymore.
Leopold James, president St. Maarten Nation Building Foundation (SNBF), Sint Maarten
