By Yves Ephraim
Imagine you are a woman and you are five foot four inches tall.
You just got home this late afternoon after work.
As you make your way up the steps to your front door, you open the door and, like normal, go inside.
However this time, before you even had a chance to close your front door behind you, you suddenly realize that there is a big man inside waiting for you.
You are immediately startled by the discovery and instinctively let out a loud scream for help while attempting to retreat outdoors, but in a flash, the man slams your door shut; grabs you from behind, pulling you into himself and locking an arm tightly around your waist.
Almost at the same time, the man puts his second hand over your mouth, muffling your screams.
No one hears your screams. Your closest neighbours are not at home as yet.
Being withstrained closely from behind in a tight grip, you quickly estimate that your attacker is more than six feet tall and built like a wrestler.
You are powerless to get away.
Your attacker did not hide his identity and seemed familiar to you.
You recognize the man as a neighbour who lives 10 houses down your street.
Before today, you both hardly spoke to each other.
It the midst of your struggle to free yourself, your attacker finally speaks to you, telling you that it is his intent to molest you and if you dare put up a struggle or tell anyone, then he promised to make your life a living hell, or even kill you.
Imagine being overpowered, on the verge of being molested, but instead of protesting and saying NO! to your attacker, you calmly acquiesce and say to your attacker: “I know I cannot stop you so please make sure you wear a condom.”
Does that sound like a reasonable reaction in such a situation?
I do not think that any self-respecting woman would willingly allow herself to be violated without putting up a fight.
That scenario I just depicted, unfortunately describes the response of our Caricom leaders to the US insistence that our countries accept refugees/deportees.
What strikes me about the response of our leaders is that none of them has flatly refused publicly to accept deportees.
Our leaders are willing to allow their country’s sovereignty to be violated without putting up a semblance of resistance. They have simply accepted their fate as inevitable!
I heard a commentator swoon over the prime minister of Grenada because, he raised the bar with high standards regarding the quality of deportees Grenada will accept. Grenada was placing so-called high standards on who was to pay for the deportees transportation and accommodations, etc.
For that commentator, the Grenadian prime minister was at the head of the class.
I found the whole commentary very laughable.
That commentator was basking in the delusion that any stipulation our countries make will be honoured by the US. Clearly he is one of those who buys into the notion of a binding, “non-binding MOU”.
In his naivety, he failed to recognized that if you are bullied in the first place to take deportees against your will, what makes you think that these so-called “standards” or stipulations will be taken seriously by the US.
This is tantamount to our leaders saying: “I will accept your bullying so long as you give me deportees that I prefer.”
Sounds ridiculous? It is!
What I find amazing is that our weak leaders have spun the narrative to give the impression that they have control.
Some have even hinted that they want deportees that could contribute to the development of their country.
Really?
Are we living in the Matrix?
No matter how many standards and stipulations our leaders make as conditions for accepting deportees, they ultimately do not have any say as to who winds up in our countries. Plain and simple!
Our leaders as always will default to the US standards, just like they do with other “international standards”.
It is clear that we are in no position to refuse to accept any deportee that is sent.
Once the US ships out whomever they feel to our countries, I dare any of our self-deprecating leaders to send them back, if they find out that they do not fit their play-play standards!
It is pathetic that none of our leaders can simple say no!
Sold into slavery again!
Advertise with the mоѕt vіѕіtеd nеwѕ ѕіtе іn Antigua!
We offer fully customizable and flexible digital marketing packages.
Contact us at [email protected]
