Rolling Over (Cayman's expats)

How intriguing it is, that some of our not-in-power politicians have declared that the Rollover Policy has “served its purpose” and can be put back on the shelf for a while. What purpose did it serve, exactly? Well, it was a successful ethnic-cleansing exercise, that’s for sure.

A couple of thousand domestic servants and labourers were sent back to Jamaica despite having established domicile in Cayman. Some domiciled immigrants from other countries were also deported to their original homes - even some white people. Yes! Their removals provided handy cover for getting rid of lots of unskilled and unmoneyed black Jamaicans. Anti-Jamaican sentiment is the driving force behind most of our immigration “reforms”, isn’t it?

Most ethnic-cleansing exercises replace settled immigrants with newcomers, often transient migrants. Was that part of the purpose of Cayman’s Rollover? Presumably so. Quiet, law-abiding individuals and families with years or decades of residence in their established homes were replaced by persons of unknown quality. Most of the latter were good people too, but not all.

Immigration is always a risk. Every village and town in the world of our size can confirm Cayman’s experience with newcomers. The sensible thing to do with them is to encourage them to settle - to put down roots and think of themselves as belongers. The worst thing a host community can do is erect barriers to integration - to keep reminding them how unsuitable they are to hold any stake in the community’s future. “This is NOT your home, you bastards. Don’t even think about it.”

Presumably, the PPM Team is hoping that its Party’s anti-immigrant reputation will be forgotten by immigrant voters in the next elections. And maybe it will be - who knows? Somebody posted on the CNS website the other week, “A lepper [sic] doesn’t change his spots.” But there is a first time for everything. Maybe the PPM “lepper” can indeed change its spots. We shall see.

Its leaders have a wonderful chance to improve its image among immigrants (if they want to) by taking a stand in favour of the latest United Nations human-rights Convention. The ILO Convention on Domestic Workers was adopted on 16th June (two weeks ago), and of course it has great relevance for Cayman. Its contents are the stuff of nightmares for householders who exploit their migrant helpers - and for the politicians who support that exploitation.

The elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation (Article 3) - BOO! Fair terms of employment (Article 6) - COMMUNISM! No exemption from overtime rules (Article 10) - HOWL! The same protection as other workers (Article 14) - SAVE US, JESUS!

Mind you, our authorities take no notice of any other human-rights Conventions, so why should this one be favoured? Our new Human Rights Commission is already too cowed by the politicians to even bring this new Convention to the public’s notice. Good God! How pathetic is that?

However, hypocrisy is the backbone of our local politics. Will somebody from the new-image PPM cross fingers behind his back and say something positive about the new Convention? Maybe welcome the remote possibility that migrant helpers will actually come under the full protection of the Labour Law one day? Come on, one of you chaps! Be a devil.

Island Watch (catching criminals)

The concept of a “neighbourhood watch” is well established in Cayman. A friend of mine has suggested extending the concept to an island-wide community-alert program: “The Island Watch”, using mobile phones and texting. SMS texts are already used by LIME to notify hundreds (thousands?) of subscribers - all at the same time - of special events.

The Police have said repeatedly that the active participation of the general public is essential in the fight against crime; combining the speed of mobile telecommunications with an island-wide “neighbourhood watch” might be very useful in this regard. The aim would be to mobilise IW members in the vicinity of a reported crime to observe and identify suspected burglars, robbers, muggers, attackers or drugs-sellers – and maybe catch them too, if that could be done safely.

At the moment, witnesses to crimes in progress can phone 9-1-1. The operators there first authenticate the calls as best they can, and then connect the callers to the appropriate unit of the Police. The caller receives no feedback. You make your call, and the Police take it from there at their own pace.

An Island Watch communications base would receive SMS messages from IW members reporting a crime in progress or shortly afterwards, and relay the messages first to the Police (or to 9-1-1, if that service can receive texts) and second to all IW members. The relaying could be virtually instantaneous, unless heavy monitoring or authentication were required: texts in, texts out, texts in, texts out. Photographs would be a bonus.

A question arises, relating to liability in respect of libel, in the event that a message carried the name or other identifiable description of an innocent person. Would some lawyer please advise on this?

The communications base could be provided by Crimestoppers (an independent volunteer committee), or the Chamber of Commerce, or one of our local telecom companies, or even one of the service clubs. (Not the 9-1-1 organisation, I think. Cayman doesn’t need to be adding to government services, at this stage of the game.) I know nothing about Twitter or how it operates; could IW open a Twitter account and give its members access to it? Answers by email, please.

Who might IW’s members be? All residents of Grand Cayman by default would be best, if the telecom companies would allow it. That might deter a lot of crime as well as help the Police identify and maybe catch those whom it didn’t deter. I’m not talking special constables, here, just plain old public-spirited residents of Grand Cayman.

Of course it’s one thing for people to receive incident-alerts and quite another for them to be pro-active in feeding information to the base. Would it be possible to guarantee their anonymity? Maybe not. Calls from cellphones are famously traceable. It would be a foolish expat security guard who put his name out there to be picked up by someone who resents his presence on the Island. An anonymous and untraceable denunciation to Immigration might have him deported in a flash.

Indeed, any expat without Status would be foolish to allow himself or herself to be identified in relation to any incident that might carry the risk of deportation. Is there a way around this problem, or would an Island Watch just have to get by with the citizenry alone?

Any reader with a constructive suggestion to make on this topic, please email it to barlow at candw dot ky. I will forward it to the Brains Trust. The more, the better. Updates will follow here, when there’s something worth reporting.

Absent Fathers (juvenile crime)

This week my column in Cayman Net News deplores our community’s failure to tackle the root causes of juvenile crime and ignorance. Generally speaking, the young wastrels are those who are raised by incompetent and/or irresponsible parents. Their mothers can’t cope with them financially, educationally or socially; their fathers often aren’t in the picture at all.

We tend to concentrate on the mothers more than the fathers. Well, these sweet-talking Caribbean men, you know; what can you do? They are what they are, and they do what they do, and the culture has been around since slavery times. And anyway, it’s up to the women to take care of birth-control, right? The men don’t care, and never will care. That’s just the way of the world.

Bob Dylan once wrote a cynical song in defence of male arrogance -

I ain't sayin' you treated me unkind
You coulda done better but I don't mind
You just kinda wasted my precious time
But don't think twice, it's all right*

He also wrote what must surely be the theme song of all bachelors -

But it ain’t me, babe
No, no, no, it ain’t me, babe
It ain’t me you’re lookin’ for, babe**

Middle-class morality requires that men who sire children take some responsibility for their upbringing. There is a comprehensive body of law relating to families and to parents’ duties to their children. In marriages, fathers and mothers are legally obliged to share those duties. Usually, the main burden falls on the mothers; that’s the way of the world, too. And, more often than not, it is the fathers who contribute most of the money needed to ensure that the children are properly prepared to cope with the world. When parents divorce, their responsibilities towards their children don’t cease. The justice system is there to ensure that both parents continue to contribute fair shares of the children’s care until they are old enough to care for themselves.

It is usually outside the middle-classes that the social problem exists of children with mothers who can’t cope financially, educationally or socially, and fathers who often aren’t in the picture at all. Those children are currently posing a very serious problem to our community here in Cayman. Many of them are running wild, and we don’t know what to do about them. The mothers are often working, instead of being at home caring for the needs of their children. The fathers are often uninvolved to the extent that they don’t even contribute money.

Oh, dear: these young girls! Surely they know how to stop babies coming, even if they don’t seem to know how to stop their boyfriends. It’s their own fault if they end up with four kids by four different men. Let them sort out their own mess.

But it’s not just their mess, is it? It’s the entire community’s mess. It’s our homes the out-of-control kids are burgling, and it’s we whom the kids are looking to rob, and it’s our kids whom those other kids are trying to get addicted to illegal drugs. So: if it’s our mess too, what are we doing about it? Not a lot, as far as I can tell. We (as a community) pay one of our bloated Civil Service empires to ensure they don’t starve, but that’s about it. There is only a token effort to make fathers pay for the maintenance of their children. The rest of the time we all sit around and kiss our teeth whenever somebody mentions how silly it is for young girls to get pregnant.

But why do we take it out on the children themselves? Surely they deserve better from us than that.

* Don't Think Twice, It's All Right Bob Dylan, 1962
**It Ain't Me, Babe  Bob Dylan, 1964

A Tourism Idea for the Brac (Cayman tourism)

It’s always puzzled me why so many people on the Brac want the place to become like Grand Cayman. “More hotels!” “More jet planes!” “A dock for cruise ships!” Maybe Brackers aren’t as laid-back as they pretend. Maybe they dream of getting among the big tourism dollars like GCM.

While Manager of the Chamber of Commerce I was once thrown out of the Director of Tourism’s office for suggesting that the Brac should aim to attract budget travellers by opening the Island to a Youth Hostel and camping ground. The reaction was hostile. Why should Brackers aim for anything less than Grand Cayman was achieving? Hmm... how has that strategy worked for them, these past 24 years?

The International Youth Hostel Association is still going strong, although overtaken now by generic backpackers’ hostels. In my travelling days, official IYHA hostels were spread over most of the world. In Europe only USSR, East Germany and Albania didn’t have any; Poland had hundreds. Some were fairly grand, some very simple; some were attached to fancy hotels. All were cheap.

I recall paying a pittance at one basic-but-comfortable place beside a lazy river in a small town in France. The hostel’s warden was also the town’s mayor; he admitted the town lost on the venture. “It’s a long-term investment”, he explained. “Of course we lose money on you. But when you’re older and in a good job, you might remember us kindly and want to come back with your family. Then, we’ll make a profit.” “I might not come back,” I said. “Maybe not, but most of you will.” He was full of confidence.

That’s what I had in mind for the Brac- a long-term investment in the form of a cheap hostel and camping ground, listed in every budget-travel book in the world, in forty languages. It was a big mistake for our Tourism man to rubbish the idea. Young backpackers in 1986 would be around fifty today- ready to come back with their families and rich enough to spend real money.

There are plenty of places where the idea has worked. In 1973 there were a hundred of us staying beside Kuta Beach in Bali, paying a dollar or two a night for simple rooms. Despite its fame as a hippy hangout, Kuta wasn’t much of a beach. Unless they’ve brought some clean white sand in since, it still isn’t. But now, there are 114 hotels listed, priced up to $200. The local tourism people knew what they were doing, back in 1973, and weren’t too proud or greedy.

As soon as we got back from Kuta to our home on an island near Fiji, Linda and I turned our backyard maids’ quarters into a simple, informal (and slightly illegal) hostel. We charged a buck a night (about $10 in today’s money) for a bed, toilet, cold water shower and basin, and no cooking facilities. The word spread gradually on the travellers’ grapevine. Hey, it was worth flying into Vila after all; there was a place that didn’t cost an arm and a leg. Before, Vila was not on the backpackers’ list of places to go.

Embarrassingly, the situation was getting out of hand by the time we left. One night we had two in the tiny room, six in tents, and three in our house. That’s when we got rumbled for doing business without a licence. “Come on! A buck a night is a hobby, not a business!” Well, okay. So ruled. Case dismissed!

Would the concept work on the Brac? I don’t see why not. It’s not as though anybody has a better plan.

Not Enough Cake (Cayman politics)

It’s amazing how often Caymanians have to be reminded that we are a British colony. The CNS website is packed with protests against Britain’s insistence on a balanced government budget. “Imperialism!” “Slavery!” “Exploitation!”

In fact, our colonial status is secured by a contract freely entered into by our Caymanian legislators. All the terms are clear and out in the open. There are no hidden protocols. What you see is what you get. Britain is in charge of Cayman’s finances- and indeed everything else. It delegates some areas of responsibility to the local MLAs, but all legislation still has to be approved by our Governor before it comes into force. He is not the token figurehead some Caymanians think he is. Sure, he must do what he’s told by the FCO; our MLAs have no authority over him.

This reality is apparent in the current squabble over our government’s 2011 Budget. The FCO is withholding its consent until it sees evidence that government’s core operating expenditure will be less than its core operating income. For years, the British government has privately warned successive Cayman Islands Cabinets against over-spending. The warnings had no effect. It was like telling little boys that eating too much cake will make them sick. Well, our little boys did eat too much cake, and now they’re sick. At least, they’re sick with anger because Mummy has taken the cake away.

Most communities of our size in the world are constitutionally required to balance their budgets. There’s nothing unique about Cayman in that regard. Our figures are a bit bigger than the typical small community, but we’re not unique in that, either. There are plenty of communities of 50,000 people in the UK and US that are as rich as we are, per capita. Unfortunately, we combine high Public Revenue and Expenditure with a high level of governmental incompetence. Like the little boys and the cake, our MLAs’ eyes were bigger than their stomachs.

Now they must choose between higher revenue and lower expenses. Reducing expenses is the sensible choice, if they could but see it. (Let them eat less cake!) Our little boys have over-spent their allowances, and now Mummy is telling them to stop spending. Sigh. That’s what Mummies are there for, though, isn’t it? Raising their allowances would simply encourage them to buy more cake! Which they would eat! And get even sicker! And – ugh – I’m not sure where I’m going with this...

Unfortunately, our little-boy MLAs have never learnt to discipline themselves. They are self-centred and self-indulgent. It’s partly Mummy’s fault. She should have taken the damn cake away long before now. During the past forty or fifty years our local rulers have never had to pull in their horns. The money has kept pouring in as fast as they were able to spend it. They had to burn the midnight oil thinking up new and sillier ways to spend it. God forbid that they should save for a rainy day. The forecast was always bright. We are God’s people. He will never let us down; he will always make sure we have enough cake. Right, God? God? Are you there?

The temptation to build extravagant vanity projects (PPM), the excitement of unlimited First-Class travel (UDP) – “self-indulgence” scarcely does justice to the folly. We have a Premier- oh, my! Brighton Town Council has a Cabinet these days, so it probably has a Premier as well. Titles are depreciating as fast as currencies and college degrees. Generalissimo, that’s what we should write into our next Constitution.

You don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Cry, is my advice.

The Tribal Instinct (grandchildren)

Our two grand-daughters (aged ten and seven) are coming to visit in July for three weeks. It will be bliss for us. They’re lovely girls, and a joy to have around. Even if they were horrible kids, I’d put up with them just to have my son here; but they’re not horrible at all. I adore them, and would without hesitation die for them, if I had to.

It is surely some kind of genetic instinct, to love one’s grandchildren- a simple extension of the instinct that makes us protect our own children. Except that in my family’s case, the older girl was inherited. She carries none of my genes, or my son’s. My genetic instinct really should not allow me to love and protect and cherish her as much as her younger sister. Yet it does, and I do. Assuming I’m not deluding myself about that, my loyalty to the older one must not be genetic at all, but tribal.

It’s a fascinating distinction. Biologists in general believe that every individual gene is purpose-driven to keep its bloodlines alive. That drive first manifests itself in reproduction, and then in protecting the offspring. Those offspring protect their own interests to the extent they can. And so on down the generations.

But man is a social animal, with a tendency to suppress some of his own personal interests in favour of the interests of his society - his “tribe”. People who don’t do that are called sociopaths. Their loyalty is to their genes first and last, not to their societies. They are reckoned to be “not normal”, to be so obsessively self-concerned. The rest of us are “normal”.

Broadly speaking, it’s a huge ask, isn’t it, for human nature to require that we put society above our genetic instincts and above our families. Men do it almost without thinking. Despite the urgency with which they seek and grasp opportunities to spread their genetic seeds*, only the most wimpish of men will favour his children over his community. Perhaps the urgency and disloyalty are two sides of the same coin. If a man spreads enough seeds, he doesn’t need to worry about their survival.

Biology has mapped a contrary course for women. Mothers’ bonds with their offspring are longer in the binding, and their loyalty is much stronger than fathers’. Paradoxically, it is their genetic loyalty that drives women (in male-dominated societies - i.e. all societies) to permit their sons to conform to male social expectations, at whatever cost to the sons’ physical well-being or moral standards.

We see this clearest in times of conflict between rival societies. Mothers don’t like to wave their sons off to participate in wars of aggression, but they do it all the same. Not to do it would bring shame on those sons, and that would never do. Tribal instincts beat out genetic instincts every time.

In one of our family photo-albums we have a snapshot of our son (then aged seven) winning a sack race at a Prep School Sports Day. In the background is a girl cheering him on and obviously thrilled with his win. “Somebody was glad for you”, I said. “Who is she?” “I don’t know”, he shrugged; “somebody in my House.” Our tribal values begin with School Houses. Siblings assigned to rival Houses learn to value their fellows above family ties. It’s a practice run for the national and religious loyalties demanded in later life.

We accept adopted children into our families in the same way and for the same reason that most societies accept outsiders assigned to them either by their tribal rulers or by circumstances. Most societies...

* As a general statement, women need a reason to make love; men just need a place.

Osama bin Laden

The same day as the events in Pakistan, the Irish SAS carried out a raid on Debenhams Department Store in Dublin. Irish intelligence had reported that Summer Bed Linen was on the Third Floor.

Besides all the corny jokes, there is one good thing to have come out of the US Navy Seals’ assassination of an old man in his home in front of his 12-year-old daughter. That is, the American authorities have established their right to execute anybody at any time in any place, without trial. Well, it’s a good thing if you’re a US patriot who believes that the rule of law doesn’t apply to The Empire. Not if you’re not, perhaps.

Considering the number of professional torturers in the US Armed Forces and associated Agencies, it seems thoughtless of the Seals to have killed him immediately. Presumably the victim’s wives and children will be introduced to the joys of water-boarding and anal rape (and why not?), but surely it would have been just as much fun to do it to the old man. God help Osama’s former cooks, barbers and valets scattered throughout the American gulag. From Guantanamo to Bagram, the screams will thrill an entire generation of CIA thugs. What tales they will have for their kiddies at bed-time.

A man walks into a bar and asks for an Osama bin Laden. The barman asks, “What’s in it?” The man says “Two shots and a splash of water.”

Whoever was in charge of the Seals’ operation should have thought twice before imposing the cover-up, though. Didn’t they learn anything from the JFK fiasco? The thing that makes the official version of that incident so dodgy is the assassination of Oswald. Almost fifty years later, most people in the world believe that Oswald was a patsy, and that the government lied. If they had kept him alive, they could have tortured him and his wife and his mother and the fifty nearest crippled orphans until he confessed. Or until one of them confessed. If you snuff the man you identify as the criminal, you can never close the credibility gap. As one blogger put it, Barack Obama is our Jack Ruby.

Killing the man advertised as being the master-mind of 9/11 means that the official version will always have its doubters. Sure, they shot somebody, but who was it?

There’s a photograph doing the rounds showing a boundless sea with a black sandal floating on top. The subject-line reads “Proof of Bin Laden’s death.”

The same people who are assuring us that it was bin Laden that they assassinated once told us that Iraq had WMDs. A million dead Iraqis later and four million townsfolk living in tents in the desert- still no sign of WMDs. They also told us that the tightest national defence system the world has ever seen was bamboozled by nineteen barefoot boys with box-cutters, without inside help or connivance. And, that WTC Building #7 crumbled to dust in its own footprint under the weight of odd bits of debris from the Twin Towers. It might have been worth pulling a few fingernails to discover how Osama’s goat-herders managed that engineering miracle.

The scary thing is that they (“They”) don’t seem to care whether we believe them or not. I am not being anti-American here, by the way, just anti-thug. Oh, and anti-psychopath, I guess.

Politics in Education (in Cayman)

It’s disappointing what low priority our MLAs grant to educating Cayman’s children. It should be at the top of the list, but it’s not. Political control of the private-sector workforce has always been their top priority. Cayman Governments’ labour policy ever since the 1973 Protection Law has been to keep wages low for unskilled workers. That goal was inherited from the merchant-politicians of old, and has never been abandoned.

The goal is achieved by means of the indentured-labour system, which the British Colonial Office first introduced into the Caribbean sugar-plantations to replace slavery in the 1830s. It was discontinued eighty years later on humanitarian grounds, on the initiative of the Government of India. Yet today unskilled migrant workers are assigned to Caymanian employers who are permitted to set wages and conditions with no guidance beyond their own consciences. The only government monitors are the ruthlessly pro-employer Immigration bureaucracy and crony-Boards.

By the natural law of economics, low wages for unskilled foreigners result in low wages for unskilled Caymanians. It is no accident that so many true-born ethnic-Caymanian workers are frustrated with their lot in life. The state schooling system was never designed to educate them beyond a token level. The standard of the system’s graduates is so poor that without the birthright-entitlement written into the Immigration Law, many of them might never be employed- at least in the offshore sector.

Why do Caymanian MLAs allow this situation to continue, year after year? Don’t they care? Apparently not. Politicians, everywhere, work hardest at minimising the risk of being kicked out at the next general election. For ours, it’s much easier to play the birthright-entitlement card every few years than to even try to change the state’s schooling. The voters must be free to hire domestic servants on the cheap; and if that means low wages for unskilled Caymanians too - well, too bad.

Like politicians everywhere, ours enjoy the power. Who wouldn’t? Cayman is only a small society, but it is awash with money; and power attracts money. Controlling the entire private-sector workforce is an exciting objective and an intoxicating achievement. Nothing could give quite the same rush.

Then there are the portfolios. Being Chairman of the Board of an airline, or a seaport, or a tourism agency, a community health-service, a road-building program, a waste-management conglomerate - all those jobs are a thrill for people who are actually qualified to do them. Imagine their effect on excitable small-town politicians who owe their appointments to a mere thousand or so voters. Man! You talk about a rush?

Chairman of the Board of Directors of a school is a responsible position. Learning all the ins and outs is a challenge to even clever individuals. Being in charge of an entire community’s schooling system and strategy is so far beyond the competence of our Ministers of Education, it’s no wonder they freeze at the thought of changing it. Easier to throw money into vanity projects, and leave reforms for some other sucker.

Recent postings on the CNS website have expressed a lack of confidence in the MLAs of both political parties. Some have gone so far as to suggest that long-term immigrants could do a better job in some areas of governance. The Education Portfolio might be a good place to start.

One Angered Caymanian (anti-expat in Cayman)

Three weeks ago I got an abusive email in response to a blog of mine back in December headed “More Immigrants, Please”; the email’s subject-line was “More Natives”. The body of the email, following an obscene greeting, was as follows. All the emphases are as per the original; I haven’t changed a thing.

Caymanians are already OUTNUMBERED... how about some more NATIVE Caymanians? Huh?
It is MORE than clear to see that you are ALL ABOUT keeping and importing "More Immigrants...". You have ALWAYS been about the EXPATS/IMMIGRANTS and to HELL with the Natives and what opportunities are LEFT for them of our SMALL Island Nation. WHERE oh WHERE is your ADVOCACY for the Native Caymanian you Status-Granted Foreign Fucker??? Where is the JUST 'human rights' you so self-proclaim??
Do you NOT understand the ATROCITIES and VICIOUS CYCLE of what happens in almost EVERY country that has been OVER-RUN by your fucking Gods, the "IMMIGRANTS"??? Reminder - There is always UNREST and WAR that is the end result when the natives of those respective countries are disenfranchised, suppressed and pushed aside as the 'White Man' has done GLOBALLY for CENTURIES upon CENTURIES. When are fucking CALLOUSES like YOU going to STOP the CYCLE???
May I suggest you STOP trying to AIDE in our Country's DEMISE by keeping your BIASED advocacy to YOURSELF. I think our Governments are doing QUITE WELL with the demise process and DO NOT need your assistance.
Thank you very much,
One Angered Caymanian

Angered, indeed.

The writer has confused my being pro-immigrant (true) with being anti-native (false). It would have been more logical to blame the native-Caymanian politicians and their cronies for allowing so many immigrants into the Territory, and for promising the voters a return to high rates of growth for the local economy. As that December blog noted, if Cayman is to extend the benefits of its current prosperity to all Caymanians, it will need more immigrants. I would like the present Caymanian “have-nots” to share the wealth.

The fact that they are not doing so already is the fault of the native-Caymanian politicians- not of any “Status-Granted Foreign Fucker”, at all. For the have-nots to participate more fairly in Cayman’s prosperity, radical changes are needed in each of the education system, the immigration system, and the political system. Those systems are what are holding Cayman back. If the writer of this email agrees with me on that point, then he should have the guts to go public with a call for change. As long as he doesn’t favour the bullying of low-paid immigrants, I will back him. But if he is one of the bullies- and the tone of his email hints that he is- then we will never be on the same side.

I wonder if he has written to Dr Shetty and Mr Hon and Mr Dart, and told them what he thinks of their plans for Cayman’s future. In case he hasn’t, perhaps some reader of this blog would bring the email to those gentlemen’s attention. If Angered Caymanian is predicting “UNREST and WAR”, all existing and prospective investors had better be prepared. Unrest and war are not good news for businessmen.

The email’s address (which I won’t disclose, just now) suggests it was sent by or with the approval of some kind of Caymanian protest-blogsite. Interesting, if true. A friend of mine used to pretend to belong to “The Expat Militia”, an organisation that existed only in his mind. I sincerely hope we don’t have to form one for real, to counter an army of Angered Caymanians, bent on unrest and war! (I’m joking- I think...)

Glass Ceilings, Again (protectionism in Cayman)

According to a website I came across the other day called Trading Economics, Cayman’s literacy was 99% in 1997, and no change has been registered since. It’s good to know that government’s Statistics Unit actually does produce some figures in exchange for its generous annual budgets, although one must wonder just how accurate its work is.

That 99% is of all residents aged 15 and over. Were they all literate in English, do you think? Or would Tagalog and Jamaican patwa warrant ticking the “yes” column? Or, is the 99% an out-and-out guess? Ah well, it looks good on the charts...

The dividing line between literate and illiterate is generously drawn at any time. How literate is “literate”? What exactly is “functional illiteracy”? It is hugely disappointing that Cayman’s educational authorities have been (apparently) so dismissive of the need to raise the standards of literacy in our Islands. And “need” is exactly the right word.

Our politicians’ position is that employers’ prejudices are responsible for the contentious glass ceilings that limit the promotions of true-born Caymanians. By their silence, the education authorities support that position. Whereas, in fact, it is the mindless protectionism of politicians and their cronies that creates the ceilings. If they truly cared about Caymanian children instead of the preservation of their bureaucratic empires, they would have abolished the ceilings long ago.

How? By working to a sensible definition of literacy- not the minimalist definition of persons “who can, with understanding, read and write a short, simple statement on their everyday life.” That’s not nearly enough. Cayman’s sophisticated offshore financial services industry requires a level of literacy that bears no relation to the levels in communities of subsistence farmers, for instance. Do our bureaucrats understand that? If so, why do they settle for the false comfort of the minimalist definition?

Cayman’s businessmen operate in the real world. The glass ceilings are put in place to block the advancement of persons whose literacy levels are inadequate for the jobs they are paid to do. And, regrettably, despite all the bitter complaints by Caymanians, the hated glass ceilings are too porous by half. Most customers of local businesses are regularly shocked by the number of barely literate individuals (in the context of the sophisticated language-skills expected in a rich little community like ours) who have somehow managed to burst through the ceilings.

For an alarming number of Caymanians in relatively high administrative positions, even such basic grammatical constructs as past participles are terra incognita (as, indeed, are such relatively common foreign-language terms as terra incognita). “I have learn the lesson”, we read; to which the only meaningful retort is, “no you ain’t!” Conjugating verbs is a minefield, too. “The boats is loss at sea.” “No they ain’t!” Spoken, “boats is loss” may grudgingly receive the benefit of any doubt; written, it is unforgivable. Yet mistakes of that kind are written every day, in letters and e-mails.

It’s a sad situation. Correct grammar and usage are second nature to those of us who were taught well. The credit belongs to our teachers; there is no inherent ability to speak or write well in any language. Those who do, have no right to look down on those whose language-skills are inferior. And yet it’s human nature that they do; and when barely literate clerks are in the presence of Offshore Clients, for instance, it matters.

Poor language-skills signal low intelligence, however unfair that is. It’s a cruel world. In a small and intimate community like ours, there is no reason why Caymanians need be handicapped in that way. Our education strategy must take the blame for the glass ceilings.