Brexit and Caribbean, opinions please!
While the first snow is falling on the Swiss mountain tops this week, a lot of Caribbean is on my mind this week. Ofcourse hurricane #dorian is one of the main reasons because of this, especially now connection has been made with the survivors and the dispair is seen in their eyes and heard in their voices. Videos of people being pulled out of attics while waterlevels are until the second floor, god that must leave a mark.
But other issues are coming up on the background in the Caribbean, things here often on the mainland we aren't considering, but which are extremely important to small local economies. The potential drama which come when Brexit reaches Britisch territory Caribbean island like Anguilla, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Montserrat, and the Turks and Caicos Islands. What will happen to these small islands when Brexit hits here?
Picture taken by me at Holland House Beach Hotel Sint Martin, one of my favorite spots on the island with an Samsung S3 in 2014. Should I put it available on shutterstock for the masses?
I ran into this documentary today about Anguilla and the Brexit, something they all there are hoping which will not through. Anguilla is one of the neighbouring islands of Sint Martin which is French and Dutch territory. Anguilla is British and this could mean that when the Brexit is there, that travelling, businness, shipping just might get a whole lot more complicated. One of the reasons is because Anguilla is so dependent of the airport and harbour of Sint Martin and with this potentially changing, how many tourists will still take the leap of going to Anguilla...an island which economy is almost fully dependent on tourism
The reality is NOBODY really knows what exactly would happen. Its very frustrating and difficult time for Caribbean people. Just last night I was having a chat with the guys on the block and basically the consensus was "every man to himself". We are dealing with many issues one of which is the 'climate crisis' from hurricanes to seaweed to draughts to immigration uncertainty. What some of these islands are doing are putting legislature in place to deal with a hard Brexit so trade can continue but the reality our financial system is so dependent on that of the USA and Europe.
Personally I think we made a huge mistake when all the islands de-industrialized and all went into direction of Tourism. Most of the islands have no production, all dependent on imports. So you can see the problems with Brexit, it isn't just these islands you mention, the entire English speaking Caribbean can take a big hit. England is an economic windows for islanders, a lot of remittance exist and a lot of the infrastructure and building come through those means. Should the worse case scenario happen, the building boom you see with all the pretty homes could dry up and a lot of dependent islands could left with empty treasury because confidence is lost in the economy and no one is spending.
WHen you consider all those things and the fact that you have a devastating climate crisis taking place, you see how much leadership is needed and direction is needed to ride through this. To be honest I have no confidence in USA and the current administration, its a 'ME' thing with them and hell with everyone else. Europe right now is struggling with right wing politics so I am not to excited about that as folks like me aren't welcome with their hardline immigration policies. Even with UK, with the Queen as the head of my state I am beginning to wonder what the point with all of this, when there is no benefit for me.
Its just uncertainty added with uncertainty but I am still betting on the Caribbean as a whole to pull through, we are survivors, we survive slavery, we would survive this and Caribbean people are a lot more united now than before, no one would be left behind, and I think when it comes down to it, its one family, you have cousins from Anguilla that are cousins to folks in St Maarten, you would make a deal that works for everyone.
See and that is one of the answers that I was hoping for. You are looking at things from a different perspective then Europeans do, because you look at the Caribbean as a center (what they deserve) and not as some by product from other countries (what most external leaders do)
Its crazy that indeed everything is so close and yet so utterly unclear, but one thing is really true...the Caribbean island need to start relying on other sources apart from just vacay people.. Mitchell for president!
Lol on the President thing but we definitely need to look at other things than Tourism
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