|
|
Volume No. 1 Issue No. 89 - Monday December 11, 2006 |
Learning not to speak badly of the country Thomson Fontaine
Dominica owes us nothing! We owe it everything! For too long as a people, we have waited albeit in vain to see what government can do for us, so when government fails to deliver, we moan, complain, and blame it for every ill that prevails in the country.
About a year ago, I attended a barbeque along with several other Dominicans in the Diaspora. This time as with most times that Dominicans meet, the conversation turned to politics. Before long, the majority of the passionate crowd was detailing everything that in their view was wrong with the country.
Not one voice was raised in protest against the bitingly negative tone of the conversation. Not one person intervened to remind the group of the great disservice they were doing their country. Instead the chorus of voices grew more critical by the hour.
The country was backward, slow, doomed for failure, and as for that government they were doing absolutely nothing!
Eventually, I stood there in mute silence, because my initial attempts to point out the folly of the arguments were dismissed without so much as a nodding reflection. Then, unable to continue listening to what was in effect the pummeling of a country and all it stood for by fellow Dominicans, I ran out the room in horror.
The most distressing part of all this is the fact that this was no isolated episode. Throughout the great expanse of the United States, Europe, Canada and every place else where Dominicans congregate, the conversation ultimately turns to the woes and problems of the country with nary a cogent discussion on how the slide can be reversed.
For all you know, Dominica has already been thrown unto the dump heap of history, banished to an eternal fate of mediocrity and failed statehood.
But really, are we all talking about the same country that I�ve grown to love and admire? Dominica that has produced some of the finest scientists, accountants, economists, doctors and other professionals anywhere in the world, as well as the gentlest and kind spirited people anywhere. A country with limited resources that have one of the finest health systems in the world with life expectancy among the highest on the globe?
History has shown time and time again that countries that have triumphed are countries where the people have taken it upon themselves to be the engine of change and have worked tirelessly against the most daunting odds. For that reason, I will never cast my lot with the naysayers, and continue to believe that we belong to a great Nation.
|
|
|