Destruction Of The Poor Is Poverty
By Makeda Mikael
Antigua people are by far some of the most elegant poor you will find in the Caribbean. In the most terrible times our people refuse to beg, even the crackheads in the days of Golden Peanut on High Street preferred to trade a kick in the rear for a small change, rather than beg.
Taking money in exchange for a kick, how low can ‘they’ get would be the cry, but going a little beyond the act is the unwillingness of the poor and rejected to take anything for free. Gone are those days.
The wave of petty crimes carried out with guns, knives and machetes in our country in these days is a cultural breach, brought on by extreme poverty of the poorest in our society; nobody cares because those who are elected to care are also destroyed, because, ‘the destruction of the soul is vanity’ and their souls are dead.
We don’t know and are afraid to know, just who are the persons committing these crimes, breaking into schools, churches, daycare centers, homes of women living alone, women walking alone, and even schoolchildren cannot grow up in peace unmolested.
The mystery of the church and the altar have all been desecrated and rendered powerless! And as the Nigerian author Chinua Achebe wrote, ‘things fall apart!’
When things fall apart, it begins with the destruction of the poor who are the first to lose their inconsequential jobs, the first to lose credit, and the first to feel hunger.
The trading of anything and everything is visible all over the dirty smelly city of St. John’s and the outskirts, even the bus drivers and uniformed persons are prepared to exchange their services for some pedophile sexual activity with our children.
Much of this is brought on by poverty as culture cracks, and the destruction of the soul begins.
All vanity, all is vanity in the destruction of the soul! In our daily call to worship of the elusive dollar, the need to survive demands we and our families eat.
The poor also need to eat! Everyone knows how the rich eat, they live on the hills, drive their expensive cars, they have maids and other inconsequential helpers, all subject to exile on the breadline for the smallest infraction.
The rich and powerful in Antigua have destroyed their souls by the vanity of their existence, and their program of destruction, while ignoring the needs of the poor.
Poverty encourages crime, and successful crime establishes gangs, and even though Antiguan semi-gang members have elevated themselves through politics, there is a ruthless, angry youth developing from the scum of poverty, heartless, clearly destructive, both male with crime and young women with promiscuity. I
f these young people are not saved, the total destruction of their souls will definitely cause abject poverty and destruction like Haiti.
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How do you save them when they don’t want to be saved? They want the world without working for it. People want to eat, without farming. People want cars and fancy clothes without having a job. Men want 10 children without being a father. The society is dead already. And the few good ones are tarred with the brush that has been dipped by the so many bad ones. I have a small business, I work very hard 7 days a week. I keep trying to employ someone to work with me, doing the things I do every day. The last man I paid $150 a day for unskilled work. I often bought him lunch as he never walks with any. Again, I was met with disdain, entitlement, rudeness, and laziness. So another one bites the dust. Next time, this Antiguan will be hiring a Spanish man, because they actually do want to work. Antigua is doomed. The rich are taking advantage now because Antiguans have given them the excuse to. They don’t want to work!
Could not have said this better myself!! Absolutely spot on. Lazy lazy people who don’t want to work, feel self entitled and yet want to blame everyone one else (including foreigners) for their self inflicted demise.
You admit that rich rules! Who are the rich? Do they look like us? If not, the power of color is a north south dilemma of the rich & poor! The rich come here to make money with cheap Labour and/or to vacation in their houses all year while their workers make them richer, or bite the dust!
A different level of Labour-for-life from slavery and colonialism, but Labour minus returns is all our youth must look forward to?
Show us a couple of wealthy Antiguans (not politicians) with generation wealth who have been allowed to reach anywhere! Charles Edwards you bought Dr. Sutherland property, where is your development encouraged by your Government? John I. Martin, a Blackman owned the most land after the whites were selling and leaving, where are his headquarters (thank God for his youngest son) or his name on a building? Benjies where are you?
Mr. Ryan, do God bless you, keep on keeping up!
Why should our youth work themselves to the bone, spend their life working, for what? Just to make the rich richer and when they are old like their grandma they cannot even get a SS cheque on time to buy food?
Unless you are talking about hotel owners, the ri h don’t come here to get richer. If they are foreign they come here to blow some money on a second home. Antigua is no business hub, people not coming here to make money. And hotel owners been sold the best land for dirt cheap, and allowed to treat their staff like paid garbage. Is Antiguans sell Antiguans these days remember that. They didn’t even force these rich ppl to keep paying in covid. They got nothing, a bag of Vienna sausage and rice and told good luck poor person. But when Antiguans try do a small business starting with nothing and pay double what the government or rich hoteliers pay they deserve for someone to work hard. It’s not slave labor. $150 a day is a good wage for someone who is not a skilled person. And lunch and benefits and a little help when they explain things are hard and get some extra cash. But then laziness and wotlessness set in. Too many ppl tell me don’t spoil dem! Dem get ungrateful and greedy. And so it goes every time. I am not alone. Nuff people here won’t employ Antiguans for their bad work ethic and bad attitude. Not all of them bad but plenty! And people need to start talking about it to people. I have work hard all my life and built myself up from nothing. To be able to employ one person on a good wage and up to now can’t find one. Every year same story.so I go back to working alone. Our parents and grandparents worked hard. They made lives for themselves. The government sold us all down the river but is not them who suffer.it’s normal people
@ Antiguans Have Failed Themselves – absolutely brilliant and lucid comment.
One needs only look at cities in the u.s. such as San Francisco, Chicago, New Orleans and etc to see the end stage of social decay the author of this story speaks of.
It’s far too late for the u.s. cities that I mention and I believe too late for the u.s. in general, but I believe that it isn’t too late for Antigua. Americans are gutless and afraid to speak out against this behavior for fear of being called names. I believe that Antigua could stop the rot if the vast majority of Antiguan citizens would call this behavior out when it presents itself, don’t fear being called names, stand firm in your Nation’s Christian values and guide these individuals kindly.
And if kind guidance doesn’t work, try a kick in the pants.
Just don’t give up.
Ms. Mikael – the first step in stopping societal rot is to acknowledge that the problem exists, thank you for having the courage to do so. Here in the ‘states we mutter quietly amongst ourselves of our dying culture and society then have our elected betters throw another trillion u.s. at the problem.
10 trillion dollars have been spent on the “war on poverty” and poverty, crime and depravity of all sorts are the worst there than they have ever been.
Thank you again ma’am for having the courage to stand up and call the problem as it is. I wish we could import about a hundred million of you into the once-great u.s.
@I Don’t Know My Name – you said “Why should our youth work themselves to the bone, spend their life working, for what?
Because thats how it works the world over, it was good enough for me, my wife and all our friends to work our asses off for someone else, apparently you’re too good for that.
if you don’t like it then start your own business.
Talk about spoiled and entitled…
No multi generational wealth in Antigua? Our dear Antiguan friend comes from multi generational wealth not associated with politics.
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@ Scott
Whereas I tend to agree with you I am really sorry for the youth in the toxic work atmosphere which is so far from their foreign educated expectations coming home. Just wishing for a government trying to improve the toxic way that supervisors and managers treat with the young persons. They want to be happy on the job with encouragement and upward mobility. And if that is not possible, they prefer to work less – I talk to them and I am quite sad for them because the return home so enthusiastic and wanting to make a difference!
“people might not get all they work for in this world, but they must certainly work for all they get.”
A truly wonderful quote by the late great Frederick Douglass, and a quote that I have always adhered to and applied to my working life to-date; and I’ve never looked back!
If you haven’t read his masterful discourse, the ‘Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass’, then try and do so whenever possible … A MUST READ FOR ONE AND ALL!
@I Don’t Know My Name – working is a means to an end, nothing more. I still have frequent nightmares about a job I had in the 90s, another company I sold over a million dollars of equipment one year for the guy I worked for and never got a cent of commission and only one raise in the five years I worked for him. My wife made a mistake at her job and we had to pay one of her clients over $10,000 u.s.
I wish it could be different as well, but it isn’t, the youngest generation gets to suck it up like we have and our parents and grandparents have…that’s life, suck it up buttercup and face inescapable reality.
Makeda, I hear you…
You seem to be #Bearing_Your_Soul; and, this is a great thing, since, it helps to put certain things about our culture in perspective for me.
…habits, they become #Norms
…norms, become a #Way-Of-Life
…and, a way of life defines a People!
Jumbee_Picknee
St. Kitts calling Makeda to return home and help Dr. Drew
ONE THOUGHT or TWO
Our Antiguans and Barbudans, be the BEACONS of HOPE!!!
“God and Nature first made us what we are, and then. out of our own created genius we make ourselves what we want to be. Follow always that great law. Let the sky and God be our limit and Eternity our measurement.”
“A people without knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.”
Our education system MUST PRIORITIZE STEM and business curriculum powered by our OECS and Caricom creative Arts (consciousness) in EVERY PUBLIC SCHOOL and INSTITUTION year-round – in school, after school activities, summer. STEM is the acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics.
Our economic growth and social development REQUIRE that transformation, STEM and business curriculum…..Pre-K to tertiary…..from the colonial education for elite management and unskilled labor. In the near future, unskilled labor will be obsolete. Most jobs with routine, repetitive work will be replaced by automation and robots.
We must get rid of our STEM INFERIORITY COMPLEX!!! STEM is achievable and rewarding for everyone, man and woman. We must want to know STEM and business principles so that we can apply the knowledge as a career choice to start and build business enterprises and get things done to produce something of value.
BTW to piggyback on Ras Smood, Jumbee_Picknee:
“The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.”
Save our Humanity, Save our Youths, Save our Environment, Save our Soil!!!
Respect.
Hail…Ratwell…hear+ye!
I hear you
As far as STEM goes, it they’re gonna “piggy back,” on my #thought_process’s, a couple of things…
(i)…teach the youths from birth to death, the arts and sciences are the one same, therefore, teach the Arts, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math all in one breath. There’s no need to separate them, since, they balance each other!
(ii)…see from your heart initially and not from your eyes, so as not to prejudice, pre-judge the moment. This will assist in grasping the truth of the reality. A blind person is one who’ll explain this concept best.
@Ras – I agree with you completely but unless we prepare these bright, young achievers to be screwed over in the real world workplace we’ve failed them…it’s gonna happen, they need the first aid package available when it does for the first couple times.
@Antiguans have failed themselves – Well said
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