Following an English Army’s conquest of Jamaica in 1655, European and African refugees and drifters became the Cayman Islands’ indigenous/aboriginal inhabitants, as far as we know. There is no evidence that any native-American tribes ever lived here. It is those first settlers’ bloodline descendants who still rule Cayman today, and claim preferential rights to all manner of privileges. Migrants have always been tolerated, but full acceptance has come only after mating with someone of the bloodline.
As in other communities around the world whose governance is
founded on bloodline or tribal inheritance, Cayman’s local rulers have found it
difficult to give up their tribal privileges – even impossible. Like Saudi
Arabia and the Gulf Emirates, Cayman has been lucky to have found a steady
source of state revenue without imposing an income-tax on their subjects.
Every Arab tribal autocracy has its oil, Cayman’s has its
“offshore” international tax-haven. Those sources produce oodles of Public
Revenue, and every ruling tribe produces plenty of members ready to claim first
dibs on it by virtue of their bloodline. Historically, their political
representatives (who must be fellow-aboriginals, by law) have created an entire
system of governance that caters to that sentiment – regardless of consequences.
Cayman’s current representatives have their knickers in a
twist, trying to resolve the consequences. An uncomfortable number of the
tribe’s members are coming up short in the following respects:-
·
Unschooled beyond a minimal level
·
Unemployable because of an anti-work attitude
·
Untrained and undisciplined in the management of
their personal finances
·
Intolerant towards foreign ethnic groups
Those deficiencies have steadily worsened in recent years;
the drift to full dependency on government handouts has passed the point of no
return. There is no apparent solution on the horizon. It looks as though, in
time, our “native” citizenry will become overwhelmingly dependent on welfare.
Most Caymanian families will rely on the plethora of
government bureaucracies for food-vouchers; most Caymanian children will rely
on charities to feed them before, during and after school; most Caymanian old
folk will receive free Meals on Wheels, free healthcare, and pocket-money.
Already, a huge segment of our bloated Civil Service is occupied with forcing
private-sector businesses to hire and promote bloodline Caymanians ahead of
immigrants, regardless of experience or (often) education.
The four deficiencies listed above have achieved unstoppable
momentum. None of the four is ever publicly spoken of as a dependency by
ethnic Caymanians, or acknowledged as a predictable product of the culture of
entitlement. Expats know better than to argue, for fear of being punished by
the authorities. The problems could all be fixed if Caymanians allowed expats
to participate in the fixing – but expats are not to be trusted.
The schooling could be improved with the help of expat
teachers and employers – if they were trusted. The unemployables could be made
employable with the help of expats – if they were trusted. The financially incapable
could be taught by expat volunteers – if they were trusted. The intolerant
could be educated out of their narrow tribal prejudices – if their community
would trust the outside world.
(Of course there are some expat cronies and stooges whose
lives are spent giving comfort and assurance to the intolerant. There always
are people like that, aren’t there? Those
expats brave enough to disagree openly, have given up. Their independence is viewed
with suspicion; they will never be called upon, except as prospective stooges.
What a waste of useful resources it all is!)
Every year, the Caymanians-only government schools add more inadequately
educated graduates to the ranks of the unemployable, the financially
irresponsible and the intolerant. All expats whose home this is, would love to be
called on to help stop the rot – but they never will be, because they aren’t trusted.
An uncomfortably large segment of our native Caymanian
community is addicted to its protectionist culture. Government-school standards
stay low because entitlement is more important than education. Respect for
foreign ways is absent because mistrust of foreigners is so strong. Personal
financial responsibility is pointless when every need is met by handouts.
It all reminds me of Bob Dylan’s famous song of the 1950s about
a drug-addict friend of his who, trapped by her dependency, could find “no direction
home”, he said. She was like a rolling stone, he told her brutally. By the same
token, the native-Caymanian community (as a whole) will find no way out of its
social confusion, until it casts off its dependency on its entitlement culture.