And Still I Rise

I must say how proud I am of my Vincentian people. The response to the Grenada crisis has been tremendous as evidenced by the 3 hr radiothon on Sunday and the foodstuff, clothing and building materials that have been flooding NEMO daily. The topic of every conversation is Grenada and ways we can help. Take a bow Vincentians.

One thing that I find a little worrying though is the emphasis on how blessed we are as if by implication Grenada is cursed. True, in many ways we are blessed in that we seem to avoid the major natural disasters that afflict our sister islands.But I don't think its any indication that somehow we are better people and therefore protected. If we were to examine our selves closely we would see that the island is fast becoming lawless and violent crimes are increasing. Added to that the instances of incest and child molestation are becoming more and more frequent. So lets not get carried away thinking we are somehow morally better people. And I will go further and say the scenarios I outlined can easily be representative of most if not all of these islands.

So while we breathe a huge sigh of relief at having been spared Ivan's wrath its time for stocktaking. Had we been hit directly would the damage be as severe or would we even have taken the necessary precautions? Sure we stock up on food and candles but many of us do not board up windows etc. I hope we would have at least learnt from Grenada's experience that we should react quickly to storm warnings because at the end of the day its better to be prepared than underprepared.