Guest Writer

Why not Pedro?

Much has been said about a cruise ship docking facility on Grand Cayman. We are probably the last place in the Caribbean to realise we need such a facility. What are we waiting for? Until all ships have bypassed us and like services to our people and visitors? We have gotten so complacent; we let them wait weeks and months for a simple approval.

Wake up! We are no longer living in a time when we can hold up progress by just not doing our work and allowing all kinds of obstacles to distract us. We are living in a very competitive world, education being a key component. Good manners, honesty and impeccable service – the countries that have these will succeed.

Our economy, like all countries in the world, is in trouble. We must be creative and again look for that crystal ball that helped Cayman in the past. The cruise ship dock looks like it will cost $200 million, presumably CI dollars. This is a lot of money for this country. I am not an engineer, but I believe we need to use good old common sense.

Why don’t we do this dock on the ironshore of Pedro St. James Castle? Government has a fair amount of ironshore land here and, if needs be, could purchase more reasonably. I understand the water next to the ironshore is at least 300 feet deep – no need to dredge.

Put as many finger piers as is needed and far enough apart that the cruise ships can come in between the piers and land their people. These piers could be covered and on a big enough land area with adequate restrooms and eating places to comfortably take care of the arrivals. Use videos to welcome our guests. At the end of each pier, have a Caymanian giving discount books, including special return airline and hotel fares, and a general information brochure on the Island.

A good public transit company should be formed, allowing only Caymanians and status holders to buy in, limiting the amount of shares for company or individual and allow present tour bus companies and taxis to purchase up to 70 percent. Visitors would be bussed over the Island to attractions such as duty free/gift shops, the Turtle Farm and the Botanic Park.

Have a designated area for booked water sports and those who are interested in doing water sports. Let these operators pick up their people and save time.

The deck at Pedro would be a better sheltered area and ships should be able to dock there almost every day of the year versus docking in George Town, where in the winter months it is plagued with northwesters. That is the busiest time of year and ships will have to pass us by.

I am sure we would save half of this $200 million, save the environment and save time. Cruise ship arrivals is a big industry; every person should have bread on the table.

Pedro Castle is here and close by. It is a huge dug out area across from the ironshore in Pedro. Government should assist the owners to use this as a lobster, shrimp and conch farm. This would be a great attraction. A fee could be charged and it would make money as well as generate food.

What has happened to the cruise ships’ offer to build a dock? This would be good business to have the people who will use the dock involved. They are the ones that will pay for the project.

If Pedro is used for the dock, government should add dock space for visiting yachts. Let’s save our God-given treasure, the North Sound, for future generations to enjoy.

Remember Cayman is a low lying island in the path of hurricanes and earthquakes. We should not be excavating our shores.

This is precious time we are dealing with.

Once these ships have moved out, it will take a while to get them to return or they may never do so. Let’s do the right thing for Cayman. Let’s start now. Delay is dangerous. We are losing business. Together we can make Cayman a better and more successful island. Let’s start.
 

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Unconscious Christians

Christians have many friends who do not believe in God, and they often wonder to themselves, “Will these friends go to heaven?” It is a very important question that needs a satisfying answer. Will many of our friends who are both agnostic and even atheist be in heaven? When we look to Scriptures and use our minds, we see that the answer is ‘Yes’.

These people will indeed be in heaven. This is because they are actually Christians, they are just unaware of it. They are ‘unconscious Christians’.

They are probably not aware of it because I do not think that even Christians are really aware of it. There is one criterion by which one loves Christ and that is loving your neighbour. Whether you have faith in Jesus or not, if you love your neighbour, you ipso facto love Christ. It is one and the same. Many atheists and agnostics love their fellow human beings and do not discriminate or treat anybody unfairly, regardless of where they come from. Such ‘unconscious Christians’ are people who do not intellectually accept Christ, but effectively, they do. They love Christ through their hearts, if not their minds. They love their neighbours, and thereby love God.

This is confirmed in Scriptures. When Jesus is asked by a scholar of the Law, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" he answered by saying, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22: 36 – 39). Asked to name one law, Jesus instead named two. He says of the first commandment (loving God), that the second (loving your neighbor) is like it. He equated one with the other, so that we know that by loving our neighbour we thereby love God. This is why Scriptures also says “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar.” (I John 4: 20).

Logically, the concept of an ‘unconscious Christian’ makes sense because we know that human beings are made in the “image and likeness” of God. The human being alone among all creatures on earth is a self-conscious person. We are replicas of God, who is the eternal self-conscious Person. So because every human being is a replica of God, it follows that if you love human beings, you love God. This all makes sense.

Now in Scriptures, Jesus spoke about ‘unconscious Christians’. On the last day, when he is standing as judge before the throng of humanity, he says to those who are to partake in heaven, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink.” We recognize the ‘unconscious Christians’ by their reply, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?” They are genuinely surprised. They did not recognize Christ in this life. But Jesus says to them, “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.” (Matthew 25: 31 – 40). These people did not recognize Christ but they loved him nonetheless. So here we see ‘unconscious Christians’ going to heaven.

Now this view of things makes sense to our consciences and our minds, because we know that God is not a ridiculous and absurd God who would punish to all eternity someone who never heard about him. God is all loving, all embracing, and there are many sinners who will be in heaven (Matthew 22: 32).

Another criterion by which one loves Christ is to love life (in all its forms). Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11: 25). All life that has ever existed on earth or in the entire universe was raised into being by Christ. All plants, trees, bugs, dogs, birds, and humans find their existence because of Christ. He is “the firstborn of all creation” and “by him all things were created” (Col 1: 15 – 16). Jesus is the person of God whose omnipresence sustains the whole of creation. “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Col 1:17). So, generally speaking, if one loves life, one loves Christ. And by this criterion, we see that many people who do not believe in God nevertheless love God. These people want to protect the earth, and keep it free from destruction, so they can hand it down faithfully to their descendents. For them all life is precious, and beautiful. They do not think this way because God has told them in Scriptures, but because he has told them in their hearts. They do not recognize God in Scriptures, but by definition, they are Christian. By loving their neighbours and loving life, they love all things Christ, though they know it not to be him.

There are two things that a Christian should take from all of this. The first is that loving God is not just assenting to Christ intellectually, i.e. having faith. You have to DO something. Remember the story of the Good Samaritan. You have to love, with a real and passionate love, like Christ, who thirsted for love (John 19: 28). For, St Paul verily warns us that if you have “a faith that can move mountains, but have not love” you are nothing. You are “a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.” (I Corinthians 13: 1 – 2). Ouch.

The second thing to realize from this is that only a Christian can love and believe in life with complete interior freedom. Christians have a truth that sets them free. An ‘unconscious Christian’ has to deal with this troubling issue: if the energy of the sun (and the entire universe for that matter) will one day dissipate, and all life die, what is really the point in loving my neighbour? Why not get what is good for me while I can? One who knows in the back of their minds that one day the earth will fail to be here can be tempted to be an anarchist, in the strictest and pejorative sense of the word. A Hitler. An anti-Christ. Life is absurd. A Christian, on the other hand, knows the effect of the cause. Loving each other will one day bring the earth to completion. Long before the sun fades away, humanity’s love for itself will intensify until it culminates in the love of God, and the New Jerusalem will descend from heaven, and God will “be all in all” (I Corinthians 15: 28).
 

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Thanks Roy for the Obituary

I read in amazement a recent comment on CNS in response to this website’s story on Roy Bodden’s latest book. Someone purporting to be a white Caymanian was expressing disappointment with the author’s reference to white or near white Caymanians being more economically advantaged than darker skinned Caymanians.

To illustrate why they felt this was not the case; the poster, in typical Caymanian style, took the most simplistic route to achieving their conclusion. To ‘paraphrase their thoughts’, because the poster is Caymanian white and probably sees a ‘so many’ darker skinned Caymanians driving a better car or living in a bigger house than them, they somehow conclude that most dark skinned Caymanians are in a more economically advantageous position.

I am on the fence with this one, folks. On one hand, I am happy Roy is touching on the sensitive issues of race, which most Caymanians pretend doesn’t exist, like most other problems in Cayman. But on the other hand, I am left hopelessly amazed at the ignorance our people continue to display about the realities around them.

Everyone knows we always had and will always have poorer ‘Bukra’ (white) people. But Roy wasn’t talking about these people — an important point which the poster sadly overlooked. He is talking about how generational wealth, power and position have been transferred in this country and how it has shaped our political, economic and social landscape today. The book is far from perfect but there are many painful truths and a few Pandora’s boxes that have been opened which we would be remiss to slam shut because of our continued denial of these truths.

Roy has put in writing the facts that many only talk about privately — how we are in the mess we find ourselves today owing to the deliberate efforts of many of the historically white families of privilege to keep our people ignorant and subservient. And to think that many of them did this with a good ‘Christian’ smile smeared across their faces. Another common trick many of them used to distract and disarm us was by appearing to be ‘just regular common folks like everyone else’.

Many of our forefathers were hoodwinked and bamboozled out of land, fair wages, education and opportunities by these same people, resulting in profound impacts that affected generations. The stories should be told of how the late T.E. (Teacher) McField’s efforts to empower young coloured Caymanians were repeatedly choked. Stories of how exam results for darker skinned Caymanians disappeared. The story of how Steve McField was forced to change professions after having his dental technician’s qualifications rejected and the list goes on and on.

It is no secret that many of these white families taught their children to marry expats or only other Cayman whites. (Just see the reaction and rifts created anytime one of them caught a dose of jungle fever.) They would rarely extend real business opportunities, partnerships, investments etc to coloured Caymanians, but would tap dance like monkeys for any white ‘foreigner’ whom they felt would view them as equals because of their ‘light skin’. It was them who originated and mastered the artof ‘fronting’, but they got really upset when a few coloured Caymanians figured out how to play that game and beat some of them at it.

So then, what can Roy’s book teach us? Something we already knew, which is hitting us in the face more and more each day. That is, sadly, Caymanians aren’t going anywhere fast. Many of the oligarch families are in a slow decline, isolated by generations of insular thinking and facing extinction of their family names and blood lines. Now they have to face real competition from people with real money and brains who may or may not have Caymanian Status. Many of our oligarch clans are leaving their fortunes to lazier and less intelligent heirs who didn’t learn the ropes through sweat and toil, but were brought up spoiled and entitled. Watch as these family fortunes go “POOF!” in a few years.

It is a well known fact that Caymanians have never viewed themselves as one people or a single nation. So the people who work together, which is basically every other expat group that reaches these shores, will succeed, prosper and live the Cayman dream while Caymanians choose to exclude themselves from the party.

Meanwhile, the white Caymanians of privilege will continue sucking up in vain to the ‘real white man’ (who will never view them as equals) while too many dark skinned Caymanians are squabbling with one another for the scraps under the table.

A few enlightened Caymanians who are skillful and smart enough to realize that depending on their own will get them no where, will prosper and do well in the cultural mosaic that this society is becoming. The rest will be like frogs in a pot being slowly boiled to death.

Roy — although you might not have intended to do so, I must thank you for writing an excellent Obituary about us. After all, that’s a Caymanian politician’s most important job!

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Education reform and its enemies

During the political era of Mr Truman Bodden and Mr Benson Ebanks the country’s student body was subjected to minor changes every eight years without any real education reform. What these gentlemen possessed was a clear vision for the country’s economic growth: they took advice from the experts, assessed and managed the threats and ensured stability.

The minister of education leading up to the 2000 elections was Mr Truman Bodden; the minister of education following the 2000 election was Mr Roy Bodden, then Mr Alden McLaughlin and now Hon Rolston Anglin.

Now, during the 80’s and early 90’s the children in this country attended school together with little or no segregation. I, along with many other Caymanian children, attended schools with children of migrants and today continue to be afforded the benefits of those relationships. Sadly, as the country’s wealth grew, so too did our desire for segregation.

My recollection of the first real attempt at education reform was during the last term of Mr Truman Bodden when he introduced Public and Private Partnerships in Education (PPPE), the development of a National PTA, the inclusion of parents in strategic planning and attempts to align the curriculum with corporate Cayman’s labour needs. Once Mr Roy Bodden became the minister responsible for education, he changed the name of PPPE to ITALIC, issued an education policy (read an excerpt), investigated why Caymanian teachers were migrating to other professions, withthe most notable area of improvement being that of increased availability of scholarships.

However, before the real reform could take effect, the UDP and this minister were removed from office in the 2005 election and Mr Alden McLaughlin, under the PPM administration, became the minister responsible for education. Mr McLaughlin set out on a very broad reform of our education system, including the redesign of the plants, teacher qualifications, adult learning villages using the plants in the evenings and nights, and converting the George Hicks High School (GHHS) campus to a technical and vocational school. The cost, the massive change, the inability to “sell” the benefits to the masses, the heavy criticism from the talk shows and opposition resulted in this massive education reform being one of the issues debated during the 2009 election and Mr McLaughlin was replaced by the now minister, Mr Anglin. The resounding comment from the general public was, “Children can learn under trees, we do not need these expensive schools.”

The citizens of this country have been crying out for a technical and vocational school for the last thirty to forty years. However, until recent years, everyone wanted their child in a white collar job within the financial industry. Today, we still refer to persons we “think” should be afforded vocational training to be the “non-academic” student. A mistake.

Many of us have not evolved from the “farming” culture of producing children to work on the farm, while I have witnessed a great change in culture as it relates to education, today, there are still too many of us seeking to secure our children a job after high school to help with paying utilities, assisting with mortgages and ensuring the travel and “keeping up with the Jones’s” lifestyle is maintained. As parents, we need to focus on preparing our children for college, developing technical skills, developing them to become independent adults – not preparing our children to become a source of funding our lifestyle.

We do not have sufficient parents discussing college options with their children, career paths beyond college, and setting aside a small percentage of our income to pay for their college cost. Every year there are scholarships offered by the private sector that do not receive applicants. Why? The most common response to that question has been unawareness. If that is true, my question then is, what have you, as a parent, been doing in preparation for your child’s college for the last 18 years?

As parents, it is our obligation to begin to discuss the education process, including college, with our children at the age of 1 year old (my initial thoughts were 10 years but I have been corrected by an expert in education). We must continue to have these discussions and incorporate their teachers in these discussions as they progress through their education. We must ensure that they do NOT feel obligated to repay us for their education but have a sense of loyalty to their country and the generation of Caymanians following them. This is our obligation as parents.

So, education reform has been occurring for the last twelve years and with each attempt the minister responsible has been punished.

Is the current minister now reluctant to advance our education system? Have our voting actions caused reformers to be fearful of reform?

I therefore conclude that the enemies of education reform are the voting public – the parents. If we refuse to sacrifice our wants to secure our children’s future, we have failed as parents.

We must honestly answer the following questions:
1. Do we desire greater opportunities for our children?
2.Are we contributing a small percentage of our income to our children’s future academic needs?
3. Do we want our children to stand as proud, qualified citizens with the self esteem to be independent thinkers and to create progress for our country?
4. Are we our children’s blessings?
5. Do we dress them properly for school?
6. Are we teaching them good morals and manners?
7. Are we proud of them?
8. Do we have a strong relationship with their teachers?
9. Do we value the role teachers’ play in their development?
10. Are we spending the time necessary to develop well rounded productive citizens?

If you have answered no to any of these questions, like me, you must now commit to the relevant changes to improve the future of our country by securing a better future for our children. No one is perfect; perfection is a journey that requires assistance from others and lots of time, so take your time and enjoy the ride with your children.

Immigration, education and employment are issues we, the citizens – ALL the citizens of this country – need to debate publicly. This forum allows us to do so, anonymously if necessary, so let us do just that. Debate these issues and seek consensus. Or not!

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