An Old Letter To The Editor I Wrote [dated 13.8.02]... (stumbled across it on the net)

Are we really independent?

THE EDITOR, Sir:

AFTER 40 years we have not really released our vestiges of the Crown in England. We still have a representative for the Queen as an influential part of the state. We still have British ceremonials in Parliament, we still have appeals to the British courts. We are a part of their Commonwealth, we still have the remnants of their laws. Are we really independent of England?
How are we independent when we are slaves to the foreign media, especially the "mighty" Uncle Sam, when we are dependent on imports from the USA, we depend on their food, their clothes, even their entertainment, we even depend on their dollar.

How are we independent when we subscribe to the neo-liberalist policies of globalisation that insist on lessening the powers and sovereignty of the state, and the continuous breakdown of international barriers. How are we independent when foreigners own our electrical supplies, our airports, our mining plants. What are we independent of?

"Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave, eats a bread it does not harvest, and drinks a wine that flows not from its own winepress.

"Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero, and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful.

"Pity the nation that raises not its voice save when it walks in a funeral, boasts not except among its ruins, and will rebel not save when its neck is laid between the sword and the block.

"Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox, whose philosopher is a juggler, and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking.

"Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpetings, and farewells him with hootings, only to welcome another with trumpetings again.

"Pity the nation divided into fragments, each fragment deeming itself a nation." -- Kahlil Gibran

I am, etc.,

YANNICK NESTA PESSOA
cyber_yan@yahoo.com
Via Go-Jamaica

Original link: http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20020813/letters/letters1.html