Terrorists sighted in Cayman

This is not a joke! While watching the local news this evening, I saw what could only be described as suspicious behavior with intent to cause terror. I then immediately realized that I have recently seen other members of what must be some kind of “sleeper cell” of terrorists on local television. What is most disconcerting is that they live and walk among us. We see them everyday and never thought they may be guilty of acts of terror against us.

You will recognize them as our elected officials; those who we chose to represent us and work for us. If you are a civil servant you most surely must be feeling a sense of terror or at least, a feeling of extreme helplessness. You make your living working for Government but you are told you do not have the freedoms of speech that the rest of us enjoy for fear of repercussions or worse, loss of employment. So you keep your feelings to yourself and plod on. This must be like a prison without bars for you. Even if you were told that you could freely speak your feelings about constitutional matters, or dare I say matters of politics, you would probably not risk speaking up for the real fear that lives inside of you. This is an example of terrorism. It is rule by fear. Those whom you have elected are using fear to control you and to ensure their stranglehold on power. The irony of this situation is that, as a group, four or five thousand civil servants wield considerable power but haven’t yet learned how to use it.

Recent events in the Middle East are evidence of the “power of the people” and how that power manifests itself when a breaking point is finally reached. It is usually high unemployment and lack of ability to provide for ones self or family that ignites the uprisings. Cayman is headed in this direction. Some may think I’m going over the top by referring to our elected officials as terrorists.

As I write this, the president of the Civil Service is awaiting a reply from the Deputy Governor on the matter of whether Civil Servants should be allowed to sign petitions that give them the right to be heard on constitutional matters. You must remember that policy and law are two different things. You are bound by laws; policies are put in place by leaders but their policies can never, never, never, violate your legal rights. In this way, with the law on your side you have the judicial system to protect your rights. Look at the can of worms we opened with the “Freedom of Information Act (FOI)”. Politicians hate it because of its power to expose problems that they would rather hide. We now have pretty good human rights and constitutional rights but that does not seem to be the case if you are a civil servant.

The right to speak freely and unimpeded with the brain and voice given to you by God is your most basic right. People like Hugo Chavez. Fidel Castro and McKeeva Bush don‘t like it when people speak their minds or exercise their basic rights because it puts the same fear in to them like they are putting into you. There can be no government policy that prevents you from signing a petition that gives you the constitutional right to vote on matters that affect you, your family and country. Government will argue that civil servants should not bite the hand that feeds them. You must explain that you are not biting the hand but merely telling it what you want to be fed.

This “Viewpoint website” hosted by Cayman News Service gives me and many others thechance to vent and sometimes offer good ideas or solutions to our problems.  As you can see from most comments, no matter what the topic is it always comes down to politics and the division of this country into two well defined parties. The party system must go. It has only served to turn us against each other.  We need to have “one man, one vote” but above all we need to participate in our future together as a country and not at the exclusion of civil servants. At the end of the day they are still our neighbors, friends and should have the same basic God-given rights to work and express themselves without fear of any kind.

Fear is the strongest emotion that drives us. Fear is frequently used by politicians who want to dominate or control us. Today, more Libyans died in their fight to break free from fear and oppression. Some of our mothers told us that we are judged by the company we keep. This is what is wrong with the party system. Good elected men are heaped together with the bad ones and will eventually go down with the sinking ship unless they get the courage to stand up and say, “Enough is enough”. Such a move would almost guarantee their re-election and new-found popularity. It would show character and a sense of honesty. We can only hope that there are men like this in our current government. But I repeat, FEAR is the strongest of all emotions and fear will guide them more than any other thing in their decision making.

Our future lies in our hands, not in the hands of those we elect. Forget this oneprinciple and we are doomed as a country.  As a terrorist once said about police, “I have to be right only one time, you have to be right all the time”. We have to watch our politicians all the time. They have proven to be inept at decent governance and are all about party politics and hot air. There is a huge difference between politics and governance. Their words speak louder than their actions.

Companies like Walmart or IBM or CNN as recent events demonstrate, all have policies that prohibit their employees from speaking publicly against the company or employer. Several big names in broadcasting have been fired recently on the spot for saying negative things publicly that defamed their employers or companies. Cayman Government is not a company that sells goods and services. Its purpose is to serve us the people. There should not be policies in place prohibiting free speech and expression by civil service or anyone else for that matter. Any such policies are made with bad intentions by those wishing to govern by fear. I so firmly believe that there is nothing more important than the rights of civil servants to be able to speak their minds and vote and sign petitions like the rest of us that I will no longer be writing letters here like this until such rights are given. All the comments and ideas for solutions are worthless without this basic freedom in place and exercised.