In the end, it wasn’t even a nine-days’ wonder. Three days’ attention was all our local media gave to the Philippines Government’s sudden broadside against Cayman’s mistreatment of migrant workers. It can’t have taken the Philippines authorities years and years to acknowledge the slavery-like aspects of our indentured-servitude program, so we are left asking ourselves what the purpose of the broadside might have been. I think it probably had three objectives, each of which was at least partly achieved.
First, it was a general warning- notice to the whole world not to exploit Filipino citizens working abroad. There are several millions of them at any one time, and the forty-one nations and territories on the published blacklist are all very minor importers of Filipinos. How many of them could there be working in Zimbabwe, for goodness sake, or Tuvalu, or Haiti? If the home bureaucrats were working strategically, it would make sense for them to start their threats with the smaller importers and work their way up to the majors. The two or three thousand Filipinos in Cayman comprise a miniscule proportion of the total working overseas.
The second purpose of the blacklist might be the political one of assuring domestic voters that the governing Party is looking after their sisters, daughters, mothers and brothers, sons and fathers labouring in strange lands thousands of miles away. It’s always a scary move (and sometimes a dangerous one) for young people, to head off to parts unknown. We should all- especially native Caymanians- have the greatest respect for the bravery of those who make that move. All native Caymanians have forebears who made it, after all.
Thirdly, all but the most heartless of bureaucrats in Manila must feel genuine disgust at our immigration system that gives local employers a licence to cheat and exploit migrants held on bond-service. They must also wonder what kind of people we are, to be practising such a departure from civilised behaviour. Of course we know that most of the devisers and enforcers of our system are nice people on the surface. We see their photos in the paper and think, well, he or she looks pleasant enough. But a lot of us are discerning enough to see, behind some of the smiles, personalities that lack compassion. They are people from whom we should withhold our respect, however high and mighty their positions.
In my mind, endorsing servitude is not all that much less offensive than endorsing gang culture. Individuals are intimidated into silence in both cases. Filipinos in Cayman (like all migrant workers) risk having part of their wages and pensions stolen without recompense, and risk being assaulted in public places by thugs who are never brought to trial.
Ah well, Filipinos are a resilient people, and they have a strong support-network here in their fellow-nationals. They will survive, as exploited migrants everywhere survive. Ultimately, they and their families are better off being exploited in Cayman than unemployed back home. Any moral equivocation is ours, not theirs. We Caymanians should feel shame for our community, that it refuses our guest workers the full protection of the law. In many ways, Cayman is a paradise; so how can we live in paradise and not be on the side of the angels?
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Thursday, November 10, 2011
The Parishes of England
It’s an ancient English tradition that every parish look after its own natives. Parishes used to have the right to expel “foreigners” back to their home parishes. Most of those expelled were poor people, since some parishes had more money in the kitty than others. “Foreign” workers brought in to help with the harvests acquired no right of residence no matter how long or frequent their visits. In general, the only foreigners accepted as residents were men who married into one of the parish families. There was no rollover policy as such.
The natives themselves, of any and all parishes, were subject to arbitrary transplantation by decree of the king or the local lords of the manor. In the 1700s, tens of thousands of parishioners from England, Scotland and Ireland were unwillingly “planted” in the British Caribbean and North American colonies as indentured servants, and in the preceding Century King James implemented the mass transfer of villagers from his realm to what is now Northern Ireland.
One can see the link between the old British customs and the practices Britain includes in its current colonial rules. Cayman is an example of a parish’s autonomy; the deportation of the Chagossians in the 1960s illustrates a British monarch’s legal power to override that autonomy. Both examples are consistent with the old customs. If the United States had wanted Cayman Brac handed over to it instead of Chagos, all the Brackers would have been expelled without a moment’s hesitation.
It would pay native Caymanians to study British history in more detail than is done at present. It would pay their MLAs to study and understand the distinction between a nation and a parish-sized territory, too. One day those studies might come in handy.
It’s very tiresome hearing and reading comparisons between Cayman and large nations. “How would Britain like it if two thirds of its population were immigrants?” or “America’s Presidents have to be born in that country, so it’s only right that all our MLAs be born in this country.” Utterly stupid comments, deriving from a deep ignorance of the world around us.
Cayman’s proper comparisons are with British parishes or towns, not Britain itself. Why is that so hard to understand? The FCO did our Islands a great disservice when it re-titled our Leader of Government Business as Premier and our ExCo (Executive Council) as Cabinet, and set up a Protocol Office. How many English parishes have Protocol Offices, for goodness sake? Those titles just gave our local rulers ideas above their extremely modest stations. A place of our size needs Parish Councillors, not Cabinet Ministers.
Dear God, the FCO does get some cockamamie ideas into its woolly head! The junior clerks assigned to watch over the flyspecks of Empire must be laughing themselves sick, watching the ridiculous posturing of our Protocol-obsessed village aldermen. It would be nice if the aldermen would plant their feet back on the ground and bring a sense of perspective to their foolishness. Yes, maybe they don’t see their actions as foolish, but the rest of the world does.
The natives themselves, of any and all parishes, were subject to arbitrary transplantation by decree of the king or the local lords of the manor. In the 1700s, tens of thousands of parishioners from England, Scotland and Ireland were unwillingly “planted” in the British Caribbean and North American colonies as indentured servants, and in the preceding Century King James implemented the mass transfer of villagers from his realm to what is now Northern Ireland.
One can see the link between the old British customs and the practices Britain includes in its current colonial rules. Cayman is an example of a parish’s autonomy; the deportation of the Chagossians in the 1960s illustrates a British monarch’s legal power to override that autonomy. Both examples are consistent with the old customs. If the United States had wanted Cayman Brac handed over to it instead of Chagos, all the Brackers would have been expelled without a moment’s hesitation.
It would pay native Caymanians to study British history in more detail than is done at present. It would pay their MLAs to study and understand the distinction between a nation and a parish-sized territory, too. One day those studies might come in handy.
It’s very tiresome hearing and reading comparisons between Cayman and large nations. “How would Britain like it if two thirds of its population were immigrants?” or “America’s Presidents have to be born in that country, so it’s only right that all our MLAs be born in this country.” Utterly stupid comments, deriving from a deep ignorance of the world around us.
Cayman’s proper comparisons are with British parishes or towns, not Britain itself. Why is that so hard to understand? The FCO did our Islands a great disservice when it re-titled our Leader of Government Business as Premier and our ExCo (Executive Council) as Cabinet, and set up a Protocol Office. How many English parishes have Protocol Offices, for goodness sake? Those titles just gave our local rulers ideas above their extremely modest stations. A place of our size needs Parish Councillors, not Cabinet Ministers.
Dear God, the FCO does get some cockamamie ideas into its woolly head! The junior clerks assigned to watch over the flyspecks of Empire must be laughing themselves sick, watching the ridiculous posturing of our Protocol-obsessed village aldermen. It would be nice if the aldermen would plant their feet back on the ground and bring a sense of perspective to their foolishness. Yes, maybe they don’t see their actions as foolish, but the rest of the world does.
Friday, October 28, 2011
The Right to be Born
What is called “the right to life” in anti-abortion circles is actually the claimed right of a non-viable foetus to be born. (Both sides agree on the right of a viable foetus.) The doctrine is espoused by some religious denominations as an article of faith rather than of logic or science. Morality comes into the equation, but only as the stepchild of a belief in Original Sin and a supernatural creator-god. The same faith sometimes opposes artificial (pro-active) methods of contraception, which leaves the moral position up in the air. If a creator-god forbids birth-control pills, spermicidal pills and morning-after pills, in what order of priority does he or it disapprove of them?
When does life begin? If the answer were “at conception”, why on earth should it be sinful to prevent conception? And, why delay it until after an approved marriage ceremony in an approved church? (Approved by the agents of the creator-god of the moment, that is.) Well, it’s because the agents themselves say so, they being uniquely qualified to know the mind of the god they inherited. Any debate quickly descends into a battle based on false premises. I myself claim to believe in Loki the old Norse god of luck and caprice. You can probably guess what his opinion is on this whole matter.
If life does begin at conception, there are practical problems that need to be addressed, and not just the problem of when to have one’s birthday parties. Every conception would require formal registration, lest a life be lost and not accounted for. Since conception is not immediately evident, every act of sexual congress would need to be reported. Of course that is something the average boy and girl are reluctant to tell their mothers, never mind some faceless bureaucrats in a Ministry (or Church) for the Preservation of God’s Children. Anyway, where would registration leave sperm-banks and their clients?
In the movie Legally Blonde, Reese Witherspoon faced down the argument that a sperm-donor might legally be entitled to parental rights over a baby conceived using his sperm. Logically, she said, it would follow that “all masturbatory emissions, where his sperm was clearly not seeking an egg, could be termed reckless abandonment”. That’s one for the church fathers to ponder!
It’s a nice paradox, that liberals (in the British sense of the word) tend to be pro-abortion and anti-war, whereas conservatives generally oppose abortion while being pro-war. A child once born must be protected from hardship and poverty in the soft liberal world, but left to take his chances in a laisser-faire conservative society. It’s relatively rare to find a consistent opinion on the sanctity of life, however defined. Perhaps all anti-war pacifists ought to be anti-abortion, and all supporters of wars ought to be pro-abortion. The latter set doesn’t usually mind bombing a baby the minute it’s born; the former would ban the bombing while frustrating the birth. Go figure.
The famous satirical book 1066 and All That reported the English Civil War as being a struggle between the Cavaliers (“Wrong but Romantic”) and the Roundheads (“Right but Repulsive”). The descriptions could easily be applied to the parties in the debate on the right to be born. But which is which? Hmmm. My old Norse god of caprice has just told me, “It all depends...”
When does life begin? If the answer were “at conception”, why on earth should it be sinful to prevent conception? And, why delay it until after an approved marriage ceremony in an approved church? (Approved by the agents of the creator-god of the moment, that is.) Well, it’s because the agents themselves say so, they being uniquely qualified to know the mind of the god they inherited. Any debate quickly descends into a battle based on false premises. I myself claim to believe in Loki the old Norse god of luck and caprice. You can probably guess what his opinion is on this whole matter.
If life does begin at conception, there are practical problems that need to be addressed, and not just the problem of when to have one’s birthday parties. Every conception would require formal registration, lest a life be lost and not accounted for. Since conception is not immediately evident, every act of sexual congress would need to be reported. Of course that is something the average boy and girl are reluctant to tell their mothers, never mind some faceless bureaucrats in a Ministry (or Church) for the Preservation of God’s Children. Anyway, where would registration leave sperm-banks and their clients?
In the movie Legally Blonde, Reese Witherspoon faced down the argument that a sperm-donor might legally be entitled to parental rights over a baby conceived using his sperm. Logically, she said, it would follow that “all masturbatory emissions, where his sperm was clearly not seeking an egg, could be termed reckless abandonment”. That’s one for the church fathers to ponder!
It’s a nice paradox, that liberals (in the British sense of the word) tend to be pro-abortion and anti-war, whereas conservatives generally oppose abortion while being pro-war. A child once born must be protected from hardship and poverty in the soft liberal world, but left to take his chances in a laisser-faire conservative society. It’s relatively rare to find a consistent opinion on the sanctity of life, however defined. Perhaps all anti-war pacifists ought to be anti-abortion, and all supporters of wars ought to be pro-abortion. The latter set doesn’t usually mind bombing a baby the minute it’s born; the former would ban the bombing while frustrating the birth. Go figure.
The famous satirical book 1066 and All That reported the English Civil War as being a struggle between the Cavaliers (“Wrong but Romantic”) and the Roundheads (“Right but Repulsive”). The descriptions could easily be applied to the parties in the debate on the right to be born. But which is which? Hmmm. My old Norse god of caprice has just told me, “It all depends...”
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
The Right To Life
My last blog noted that without freedom of speech, no other rights can be defended. I have been reminded that without life, no rights at all can be defended, so there must exist an inherent right to defend oneself. Sounds fair to me. Most human-rights professionals, though, say not. They take governments’ deprivation of human life as an abuse of the most fundamental right of all, on the grounds that without life, no other rights can possibly exist.
Enemies of state can be locked away in dark holes and tortured daily, while awaiting enough Amnesty International letters to set them free. Foreign troublemakers can be deported beyond the reach of all human-rights organisations, and even beyond their concern. But when you’re dead, you’re dead. No Amnesty letters can set you free, and no indignant lawyer can stop your expulsion. Punishment camps may be a living death, but they’re not the real thing.
The standard list (bill) of “human rights” appears in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by a voting majority of the United Nations General Assembly in 1948 as an ideal for all nations to aspire to. Not just aspire to, but actually work towards achieving: each member-nation of the UN within its own boundaries, and each keeping its fellow-members up to the mark.
The Declaration was drafted in the wake and aftermath of Germany’s recent wars of aggression, and was therefore supposed to be universal, not tribal -- supposed to apply to all humans, not just certain nationalities. In future, all nationalities were supposed to be equally protected. Aggressive wars were to be outlawed, since each nation had agreed not to take the lives of any humans, including nationalities not its own. The chief indictment at the Nuremberg War Trials of the Nazi defendants was not for the slaughter of the Jews, or Russian POWs, but for waging wars of aggression.
How ironic, then, that wars of aggression have become so common among the nations that provided the original prosecutors, and that their current governments despise the now-forgotten context in which the original bill of human rights was composed. If the Nuremberg laws were applied today, most NATO politicians and generals would risk being hanged. The changed circumstances make it difficult to argue for the right to life any more. It seems grotesque to criticise the application of “the death penalty” for domestic murderers in nations that have embraced the practice of mass-murdering unwitting foreigners without remorse.
The argument (for the right to life) has reverted to a tribal relevance. Our national governments may slaughter whom they like, but not their own nationals. Libyan civilians YES, local killers NO. For as long as we condone that policy, it seems trivial and unnecessary to try to protect the lives of local thugs. If we applaud the killers of innocent wogs and dagoes and rag-heads in faraway places, why not issue guns to every householder and tell him to take out every guilty mugger he can find. Watch the 1970s movie Death Wish, a model of encouragement for vigilante justice. “Go, and do thou likewise.”
Some ethnic communities are inherently more valuable than others. Our soldiers are heroes, theirs are cockroaches. We have the right to defend our lives and they don’t, even while we are breaking into their homes. Might is right. Right? Well, if might is indeed right, why can’t it be applied against an armed burglar in our homes? Hey, maybe he’s a Muslim. Then what? They don’t have rights, do they?
Enemies of state can be locked away in dark holes and tortured daily, while awaiting enough Amnesty International letters to set them free. Foreign troublemakers can be deported beyond the reach of all human-rights organisations, and even beyond their concern. But when you’re dead, you’re dead. No Amnesty letters can set you free, and no indignant lawyer can stop your expulsion. Punishment camps may be a living death, but they’re not the real thing.
The standard list (bill) of “human rights” appears in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by a voting majority of the United Nations General Assembly in 1948 as an ideal for all nations to aspire to. Not just aspire to, but actually work towards achieving: each member-nation of the UN within its own boundaries, and each keeping its fellow-members up to the mark.
The Declaration was drafted in the wake and aftermath of Germany’s recent wars of aggression, and was therefore supposed to be universal, not tribal -- supposed to apply to all humans, not just certain nationalities. In future, all nationalities were supposed to be equally protected. Aggressive wars were to be outlawed, since each nation had agreed not to take the lives of any humans, including nationalities not its own. The chief indictment at the Nuremberg War Trials of the Nazi defendants was not for the slaughter of the Jews, or Russian POWs, but for waging wars of aggression.
How ironic, then, that wars of aggression have become so common among the nations that provided the original prosecutors, and that their current governments despise the now-forgotten context in which the original bill of human rights was composed. If the Nuremberg laws were applied today, most NATO politicians and generals would risk being hanged. The changed circumstances make it difficult to argue for the right to life any more. It seems grotesque to criticise the application of “the death penalty” for domestic murderers in nations that have embraced the practice of mass-murdering unwitting foreigners without remorse.
The argument (for the right to life) has reverted to a tribal relevance. Our national governments may slaughter whom they like, but not their own nationals. Libyan civilians YES, local killers NO. For as long as we condone that policy, it seems trivial and unnecessary to try to protect the lives of local thugs. If we applaud the killers of innocent wogs and dagoes and rag-heads in faraway places, why not issue guns to every householder and tell him to take out every guilty mugger he can find. Watch the 1970s movie Death Wish, a model of encouragement for vigilante justice. “Go, and do thou likewise.”
Some ethnic communities are inherently more valuable than others. Our soldiers are heroes, theirs are cockroaches. We have the right to defend our lives and they don’t, even while we are breaking into their homes. Might is right. Right? Well, if might is indeed right, why can’t it be applied against an armed burglar in our homes? Hey, maybe he’s a Muslim. Then what? They don’t have rights, do they?
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Freedom Of Speech (censorship in Cayman)
It’s disappointing to read of McKeeva’s lawsuit against Cayman News Service for defamation. The action makes no sense, and could well cause enormous damage to our Islands’ image overseas. Cayman is a much more sophisticated place than it was a generation ago when I had to fight censorship for criticising the ExCo of the day in the Chamber of Commerce Newsletter.
Ezzard called me “obnoxious” in the Legislative Assembly; Benson called the Chamber “a subversive organisation”. Dr Edlin pulled my Work Permit, and the Chamber had to scramble to prevent being closed down by the political establishment.
It was a serious dispute- but nobody sued. Presumably, the political heavies thought it would be too embarrassing, although it turned out to be embarrassing enough even without a lawsuit. Our criticism was robust but warranted. We called the new Labour Law “a lurch towards socialism”- which sounds hopelessly tame today but was inflammatory then.
Jim Graves, the Editor of the Nor’Wester magazine, had been expelled at the instigation of Jim Bodden a few years earlier. There was a big fuss over his Editorials, too - but nobody sued. Later, Jim Graves and I shook our heads over the irony that the very people who had brought him back to Cayman, after a few years of exile, were the ones now trying to get rid of me. “Well, that’s just what they’re like”, Jim said - meaning, Caymanian MLAs in general. “You today, me yesterday; who knows who they’ll go after next?”
There have been a couple of other victims along the way - and now it’s Nicky and Wendy, Daphne and Randy. Critics of our politicians can never relax, it seems. The faces change, but the censorship lives on.
The Protection Board, later the Immigration Board, was always the censors’ weapon of choice. Traditionally it was packed with anti-expats; as a general statement, all the immigration-related Boards still are. I’m surprised Randy’s Work Permit employees weren’t targeted for deportation, instead of the radio station being sued. Dear oh dear: no respect for tradition!
My persecution in the late 1980s was reported by the Jamaica Gleaner (“A Climate of Censorship”) and Offshore Alert (“ExCo Hillbillies”). Selected English newspapers were being lined up when the FCO quietly stepped in and called off the dogs. There was no coverage by Cayman’s mass media, of course. The Caymanian Compass shrank even further into its “see no evil” shell; the Chamber of Commerce was gradually subverted by political cronies and reduced to the lap-dog it is now.
CNS is pretty much all we have, today. CaymanNetNews prints my weekly columns (several of which are politically incorrect, though not all) as well as its own sometimes very critical Editorials; Knal and I do our blogs. Otherwise it’s just the Wendy & Nicky show, and all the contributors to their forums.
I don’t believe the general public can afford to let their website be neutered. Cayman is a much more prominent target than it used to be, and censorship by what Offshore Alert is bound to call “Hillbillies” will become a hot topic internationally, sooner or later. If someone close to the citadels of power can get these lawsuits withdrawn, he or she would be doing Cayman a wonderful service.
It’s an axiom of human-rights activism that without freedom of speech no other freedoms can survive. As we know, human rights are as yet unrecognised by Cayman’s authorities. All the same, the sight of a human-rights-inspired Gender Equality Law being debated in the same month as an act of blatant censorship is way too bizarre to pass unremarked by many of our international critics.
Ezzard called me “obnoxious” in the Legislative Assembly; Benson called the Chamber “a subversive organisation”. Dr Edlin pulled my Work Permit, and the Chamber had to scramble to prevent being closed down by the political establishment.
It was a serious dispute- but nobody sued. Presumably, the political heavies thought it would be too embarrassing, although it turned out to be embarrassing enough even without a lawsuit. Our criticism was robust but warranted. We called the new Labour Law “a lurch towards socialism”- which sounds hopelessly tame today but was inflammatory then.
Jim Graves, the Editor of the Nor’Wester magazine, had been expelled at the instigation of Jim Bodden a few years earlier. There was a big fuss over his Editorials, too - but nobody sued. Later, Jim Graves and I shook our heads over the irony that the very people who had brought him back to Cayman, after a few years of exile, were the ones now trying to get rid of me. “Well, that’s just what they’re like”, Jim said - meaning, Caymanian MLAs in general. “You today, me yesterday; who knows who they’ll go after next?”
There have been a couple of other victims along the way - and now it’s Nicky and Wendy, Daphne and Randy. Critics of our politicians can never relax, it seems. The faces change, but the censorship lives on.
The Protection Board, later the Immigration Board, was always the censors’ weapon of choice. Traditionally it was packed with anti-expats; as a general statement, all the immigration-related Boards still are. I’m surprised Randy’s Work Permit employees weren’t targeted for deportation, instead of the radio station being sued. Dear oh dear: no respect for tradition!
My persecution in the late 1980s was reported by the Jamaica Gleaner (“A Climate of Censorship”) and Offshore Alert (“ExCo Hillbillies”). Selected English newspapers were being lined up when the FCO quietly stepped in and called off the dogs. There was no coverage by Cayman’s mass media, of course. The Caymanian Compass shrank even further into its “see no evil” shell; the Chamber of Commerce was gradually subverted by political cronies and reduced to the lap-dog it is now.
CNS is pretty much all we have, today. CaymanNetNews prints my weekly columns (several of which are politically incorrect, though not all) as well as its own sometimes very critical Editorials; Knal and I do our blogs. Otherwise it’s just the Wendy & Nicky show, and all the contributors to their forums.
I don’t believe the general public can afford to let their website be neutered. Cayman is a much more prominent target than it used to be, and censorship by what Offshore Alert is bound to call “Hillbillies” will become a hot topic internationally, sooner or later. If someone close to the citadels of power can get these lawsuits withdrawn, he or she would be doing Cayman a wonderful service.
It’s an axiom of human-rights activism that without freedom of speech no other freedoms can survive. As we know, human rights are as yet unrecognised by Cayman’s authorities. All the same, the sight of a human-rights-inspired Gender Equality Law being debated in the same month as an act of blatant censorship is way too bizarre to pass unremarked by many of our international critics.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
War Criminals (Western ones...)
George Bush decided not to visit Ottawa recently, because of local opposition to entertaining a man who is widely accused of war crimes. Dick Cheney defied his critics and gave a speech in Vancouver. Donald Rumsfeld prudently limits his travels to inside the USA, where domestic war criminals are tolerated. Men responsible for the deaths of a million civilians in the Middle East, and the physical torture and mutilation of a million more, usually have remarkably thin skins. Most psychopaths do; it’s the nature of the beast. Self is everything, other people count for nothing.
When the victorious Allies imposed their victors’ justice on the Germans and Japanese in 1946, they invented the concept of “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity”. At the Nuremberg trials the least forgivable crime of all was reckoned to be not the death-camps or the bombing of civilians, or the oppression of conquered peoples, or even the torture of captives- but the crime of making unnecessary war. It was argued that by its circumstances war provides a natural cover for all brutalities, and aggressive wars are therefore the greatest brutality of all. Those who were hanged in Nuremberg and Tokyo were hanged for fighting wars of aggression.
The trials established the principle that aggressor-nations’ rulers could be justifiably prosecuted under international law. The International Court of Justice and later the International Criminal Court were set up to judge national leaders and other individuals for war crimes and “crimes against humanity”. Nobody was to be exempt. That was the theory. But winners are always exempt. Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld are exempt. Tony Blair is exempt. Cameron and Sarkozy are exempt; the NATO atrocities they have supervised in North Africa are overlooked. Bill Clinton is exempt in respect of the NATO bombing of civilians in the former Yugoslavia. Hillary’s and Obama’s terror attacks on villages in selected Muslim nations are okay. The essential difference between all those people and the Hitler gang is that Hitler lost.
Here in Cayman we tend not to worry about international war crimes or criminals. Guantanamo and Haiti are just over the water, but they might as well be a million miles away. Our local rulers aren’t actually concerned about human rights of any kind, so reputed war criminals are safe here. President Clinton has been here. Kissinger has been here, I think. Oliver North came down to speak at a YCLA dinner; Tony Blair will be speaking at aTennis Federation* dinner in November.
This last event is mildly inconvenient for me as a director of the Cayman Islands Tennis Club in South Sound. The Club is the chief member of the Federation, and will have some representatives at the tournament and dinner. One director out of ten can’t cancel that involvement. All I can do is vacate the office of director before Mr Blair arrives. That will be a futile act of self-indulgence, of course; nobody will even notice. But my son and his children would not respect me if I participated in a welcome to a man like Blair, and their respect is important to me. My son is a fierce opponent of human-rights abuses, so it’s probably just as well he won’t be here. The Police won’t need their pepper-spray for me!
It’s a moral dilemma. We all disapprove of our local gangland terrorists, and jail them if and when we can. More fools them, really. If they joined the West’s occupation forces in Afghanistan and Iraq they could be as brutal as they liked, and come back home as heroes. We don’t ask questions of the US soldiers who come here on holiday; we’ve no idea how well they have behaved in America’s wars of aggression. We save our visa restrictions for the children of our Jamaican helpers. Huh.
* I was incorrect in describing it as a Tennis Federation dinner. The dinner will in fact be hosted by the organisers of The Ritz Carlton Legends Tennis Event.
When the victorious Allies imposed their victors’ justice on the Germans and Japanese in 1946, they invented the concept of “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity”. At the Nuremberg trials the least forgivable crime of all was reckoned to be not the death-camps or the bombing of civilians, or the oppression of conquered peoples, or even the torture of captives- but the crime of making unnecessary war. It was argued that by its circumstances war provides a natural cover for all brutalities, and aggressive wars are therefore the greatest brutality of all. Those who were hanged in Nuremberg and Tokyo were hanged for fighting wars of aggression.
The trials established the principle that aggressor-nations’ rulers could be justifiably prosecuted under international law. The International Court of Justice and later the International Criminal Court were set up to judge national leaders and other individuals for war crimes and “crimes against humanity”. Nobody was to be exempt. That was the theory. But winners are always exempt. Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld are exempt. Tony Blair is exempt. Cameron and Sarkozy are exempt; the NATO atrocities they have supervised in North Africa are overlooked. Bill Clinton is exempt in respect of the NATO bombing of civilians in the former Yugoslavia. Hillary’s and Obama’s terror attacks on villages in selected Muslim nations are okay. The essential difference between all those people and the Hitler gang is that Hitler lost.
Here in Cayman we tend not to worry about international war crimes or criminals. Guantanamo and Haiti are just over the water, but they might as well be a million miles away. Our local rulers aren’t actually concerned about human rights of any kind, so reputed war criminals are safe here. President Clinton has been here. Kissinger has been here, I think. Oliver North came down to speak at a YCLA dinner; Tony Blair will be speaking at a
This last event is mildly inconvenient for me as a director of the Cayman Islands Tennis Club in South Sound. The Club is the chief member of the Federation, and will have some representatives at the tournament and dinner. One director out of ten can’t cancel that involvement. All I can do is vacate the office of director before Mr Blair arrives. That will be a futile act of self-indulgence, of course; nobody will even notice. But my son and his children would not respect me if I participated in a welcome to a man like Blair, and their respect is important to me. My son is a fierce opponent of human-rights abuses, so it’s probably just as well he won’t be here. The Police won’t need their pepper-spray for me!
It’s a moral dilemma. We all disapprove of our local gangland terrorists, and jail them if and when we can. More fools them, really. If they joined the West’s occupation forces in Afghanistan and Iraq they could be as brutal as they liked, and come back home as heroes. We don’t ask questions of the US soldiers who come here on holiday; we’ve no idea how well they have behaved in America’s wars of aggression. We save our visa restrictions for the children of our Jamaican helpers. Huh.
* I was incorrect in describing it as a Tennis Federation dinner. The dinner will in fact be hosted by the organisers of The Ritz Carlton Legends Tennis Event.
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Fool Me Once... (Cayman immigration)
“Feigned retreat” is a military tactic dating from the most ancient times, and practised to perfection by most armies in history. The most famous example to students of English history is that of the Norman invaders of England in 1066. By prior arrangement, the contingent of Breton troops allowed themselves to be “routed” by the defenders. The latter broke ranks in pursuit, only to be cut down by French knights on horses.
McKeeva’s proposed two-year suspension of the rollover program looks to be a feigned retreat. Release the pressure and pretend to give up the cause, then, when the enemy is relaxed and off-guard, send in the Immigration rottweilers to savage those who have fallen into the trap.
McKeeva is a very clever politician, at the village level, and it is always a mistake to underestimate his granny-wits. Unfortunately, politics at the village level requires no sense of vision. None of Cayman’s born-and-bred never-left-home politicians can envisage their Islands as a nation. A nation is defined, more or less, as a coalition of tribes; and the majority of tribal Caymanians are just not interested in a coalition with immigrants, much less with transient migrants – and least of all with low-paid coloured migrants.
Tribal Caymanians cleave to the sentiment towards outsiders reported in the Biblical legend of Joshua: Ye are cursed, and there shall be none of you freed from being bondmen, and hewers of wood and drawers of water... That passage is carved in gold and rubies above the entrance to the Immigration offices. Mere mortals can’t see it, but we know it’s there, and so do all the Immigration officers and officials. I wonder if they are required to recite it every morning before the doors are opened.
In Cayman’s tribal lore, non-Caymanians are Kipling’s “Sons of Martha”, a poem based on a tale from one of the Gospels. Martha and Mary were the two sisters of Lazarus the dead man. Martha did all the work of hospitality, and spoke with Jesus man to man, as it were. Mary spent his whole visit fawning over him. In Christianity, as in Judaism and Islam, blind worship has always trumped practical good works. It’s part of the “God’s Chosen People” theme.
The Sons of Mary seldom bother, for they have inherited that good part;
But the Sons of Martha favour their Mother of the careful soul and the troubled heart.
And because she lost her temper once, and because she was rude to the Lord her Guest,
Her Sons must wait upon Mary's Sons, world without end, reprieve, or rest.
In that context, how can we interpret the Rollover’s suspension as anything but a ruse? Give the Work Permit expats hope, encourage them to buy houses and new cars, wait until they’re settled, then tell them to bugger off home. If the UDP were (for whatever reason) reluctant to swindle the immigrants and migrants in this way, the PPM would gladly do the dirty deed.
It was the PPM who made the rollover retrospective, and who implemented the ethnic-cleansing of thousands of decent law-abiding immigrants who had made their homes here. Let’s remember that, when we talk about the alleged decline of quality of new arrivals. At the same time, let’s also remember that the Rollover law originated with a UDP Cabinet, and was introduced for the specific purpose of deporting long-term Jamaican and other residents. There’s really not much difference between the two anti-immigrant protectionist parties.
There are some sensible and practical ways for Caymanians’ elected representatives to repair relations with the immigrant communities, if they wanted, but suspending the rollover program isn’t one of them. We are not going to fall for that trick a second time. Fool me once...
McKeeva’s proposed two-year suspension of the rollover program looks to be a feigned retreat. Release the pressure and pretend to give up the cause, then, when the enemy is relaxed and off-guard, send in the Immigration rottweilers to savage those who have fallen into the trap.
McKeeva is a very clever politician, at the village level, and it is always a mistake to underestimate his granny-wits. Unfortunately, politics at the village level requires no sense of vision. None of Cayman’s born-and-bred never-left-home politicians can envisage their Islands as a nation. A nation is defined, more or less, as a coalition of tribes; and the majority of tribal Caymanians are just not interested in a coalition with immigrants, much less with transient migrants – and least of all with low-paid coloured migrants.
Tribal Caymanians cleave to the sentiment towards outsiders reported in the Biblical legend of Joshua: Ye are cursed, and there shall be none of you freed from being bondmen, and hewers of wood and drawers of water... That passage is carved in gold and rubies above the entrance to the Immigration offices. Mere mortals can’t see it, but we know it’s there, and so do all the Immigration officers and officials. I wonder if they are required to recite it every morning before the doors are opened.
In Cayman’s tribal lore, non-Caymanians are Kipling’s “Sons of Martha”, a poem based on a tale from one of the Gospels. Martha and Mary were the two sisters of Lazarus the dead man. Martha did all the work of hospitality, and spoke with Jesus man to man, as it were. Mary spent his whole visit fawning over him. In Christianity, as in Judaism and Islam, blind worship has always trumped practical good works. It’s part of the “God’s Chosen People” theme.
The Sons of Mary seldom bother, for they have inherited that good part;
But the Sons of Martha favour their Mother of the careful soul and the troubled heart.
And because she lost her temper once, and because she was rude to the Lord her Guest,
Her Sons must wait upon Mary's Sons, world without end, reprieve, or rest.
In that context, how can we interpret the Rollover’s suspension as anything but a ruse? Give the Work Permit expats hope, encourage them to buy houses and new cars, wait until they’re settled, then tell them to bugger off home. If the UDP were (for whatever reason) reluctant to swindle the immigrants and migrants in this way, the PPM would gladly do the dirty deed.
It was the PPM who made the rollover retrospective, and who implemented the ethnic-cleansing of thousands of decent law-abiding immigrants who had made their homes here. Let’s remember that, when we talk about the alleged decline of quality of new arrivals. At the same time, let’s also remember that the Rollover law originated with a UDP Cabinet, and was introduced for the specific purpose of deporting long-term Jamaican and other residents. There’s really not much difference between the two anti-immigrant protectionist parties.
There are some sensible and practical ways for Caymanians’ elected representatives to repair relations with the immigrant communities, if they wanted, but suspending the rollover program isn’t one of them. We are not going to fall for that trick a second time. Fool me once...
Saturday, September 17, 2011
The Lepper's Spots (Cayman residents)
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.
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.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
House of Cards (Cayman - a British colony)
Some recent events have thrown serious doubt on Cayman’s future as a serious tax-haven and international financial centre. If the Governor’s assent to the waiving of audited government accounts for the past six years didn’t signal Britain’s intention to let Cayman go its own way, nothing will. The disclosure in a lawsuit that our Monetary Authority was no longer monitoring the behaviour of hedge-fund directors constituted another sign.
The Civil Service’s failure to participate in the Financial Times survey on direct private investment told the world that Britain just doesn’t care any more. The UK’s meek response to all the open contempt shown to the Governor and his superiors recently, puts the matter beyond all reasonable doubt. In years to come, these won’t be remembered as straws in the wind so much as whole forests blowing away before our eyes.
Why might Britain be pulling the plug on Cayman after so many years? Well, maybe the 2003 disclosure of MI6 hanky-panky was the turning point. The EuroBank trial will surely have made MI6 a laughing stock in the international spying fraternity; James Bond it wasn’t. Maybe it destroyed the organisation’s credibility beyond recovery, and it’s time for a new start.
The world has changed a lot since 2003. The American Empire is rampant, now, impatient of obstacles. Cuba and Venezuela are two obstacles to US hegemony in its own hemisphere, and Cayman would be a useful staging-post for military action against them. If only the British could be persuaded to surrender control of Cayman...
Well, maybe they can be. Maybe they already have been. The transfer of power would not be of the Diego Garcia kind; the forced expulsion of a whole native people would be too embarrassing, a second time. Anyway, Cayman has a much higher profile than poor old Diego Garcia had fifty years ago. It would be far easier to quietly yield to the local politicians’ incessant demands to change their Constitution. Remove the UK veto on all legislation, and let the demagogues do their own thing - why not? The revised Constitution could lift Britain’s liability in respect of the local government’s borrowings, and Bob’s your uncle.
Of course without the British guarantees, Cayman’s Offshore industry would fold like a house of cards. Everyone who knows anything about tax-havens knows that. And tourism by itself can’t preserve our prosperity. Ah, but never fear - the Seventh Cavalry is here; or soon will be. In the event, the collapse might not last long at all. Nature abhors a vacuum, science tells us- and so does an empire on the rampage. The CIA would have its feet up on the Governor’s old desk before the ink was dry. Good luck arguing with them about the right of native peoples to self-determination.
The Civil Service’s failure to participate in the Financial Times survey on direct private investment told the world that Britain just doesn’t care any more. The UK’s meek response to all the open contempt shown to the Governor and his superiors recently, puts the matter beyond all reasonable doubt. In years to come, these won’t be remembered as straws in the wind so much as whole forests blowing away before our eyes.
Why might Britain be pulling the plug on Cayman after so many years? Well, maybe the 2003 disclosure of MI6 hanky-panky was the turning point. The EuroBank trial will surely have made MI6 a laughing stock in the international spying fraternity; James Bond it wasn’t. Maybe it destroyed the organisation’s credibility beyond recovery, and it’s time for a new start.
The world has changed a lot since 2003. The American Empire is rampant, now, impatient of obstacles. Cuba and Venezuela are two obstacles to US hegemony in its own hemisphere, and Cayman would be a useful staging-post for military action against them. If only the British could be persuaded to surrender control of Cayman...
Well, maybe they can be. Maybe they already have been. The transfer of power would not be of the Diego Garcia kind; the forced expulsion of a whole native people would be too embarrassing, a second time. Anyway, Cayman has a much higher profile than poor old Diego Garcia had fifty years ago. It would be far easier to quietly yield to the local politicians’ incessant demands to change their Constitution. Remove the UK veto on all legislation, and let the demagogues do their own thing - why not? The revised Constitution could lift Britain’s liability in respect of the local government’s borrowings, and Bob’s your uncle.
Of course without the British guarantees, Cayman’s Offshore industry would fold like a house of cards. Everyone who knows anything about tax-havens knows that. And tourism by itself can’t preserve our prosperity. Ah, but never fear - the Seventh Cavalry is here; or soon will be. In the event, the collapse might not last long at all. Nature abhors a vacuum, science tells us- and so does an empire on the rampage. The CIA would have its feet up on the Governor’s old desk before the ink was dry. Good luck arguing with them about the right of native peoples to self-determination.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Small Town (Cayman's settlements)
All progress comes at a price. The peaceful boredom of an isolated fishing village or farming community must be surrendered if the locals want a road connecting them with someplace else. Next thing you know, one of the locals sells a patch of ground with a shed on it to a stranger, who fixes up the shed and rents it to weekend visitors. Another local hires himself and his boat out to the visitors and shows them the reef. The next thing you know, it’s happening all over. There’s no more boredom, but there’s no more peace either. The rent-money or the boat-hire pays for a motor for the well, or a bicycle, or a kerosene fridge- and the next thing you know, you don’t know what will be next.
Economic progress and social progress tend to come hand in hand. Were the good old days really as good as we remember them? The smaller the community, the less privacy, and that wasn’t always a good thing. I can recall listening to Loretta Lynn singing about love in a small town, on Loxley Banks’s Country Classics afternoons on Radio Cayman.
Tonight at nine we get married
Friends all say it's a shame and disgrace
That he's loved every woman in Jackson
But Jackson ain't a very big place.
Sometimes it was a yearning for a proper education that began the progress. The first school-teacher in a community was often the best-educated local parent; the children’s learning was limited by the teacher’s knowledge, but it was progress. The usual standby option of home-schooling might be chosen by parents whose knowledge was equal to that first teacher’s. Later, a trained teacher would assume the job. External exams would become available for children with the proper level of achievement.
Cayman’s educational system would have grown from that sort of beginning- as did my own home community’s. In the absence of a school, our mothers taught us the syllabuses set by the provincial authorities and mailed our homework exercises in for marking. A few families paid a neighbour to teach their kids. After a few years of this, the authorities responded to pleas for a qualified teacher. “Build a schoolhouse and guarantee twenty pupils and we will send you a teacher.” So our fathers built a one-room hut with wooden awnings and we got a teacher.
Exactly the same kind of progress occurred in the Cayman settlements that were too small even to be called villages. The pattern must have been common in the West Indies, as indeed it was everywhere. The settlements grew into villages, then small towns. From Barkers to Savannah is a middling-size town now, isn’t it? Will the Shetty Hospital and the SEZ and the new school help fill the gaps to North Side and East End, or will those two small towns always be separate? Will their residents resist the temptation to progress to something larger?
I looked up the last words of Loretta Lynn’s song on YouTube. Loxley, are you there? The good old days really weren’t quite as good as we remember.
Yes, Jackson is a mighty small town
Where gossips and rumors go round
But the gossips are the ones he turned down
And Jackson ain't a very big town...
Economic progress and social progress tend to come hand in hand. Were the good old days really as good as we remember them? The smaller the community, the less privacy, and that wasn’t always a good thing. I can recall listening to Loretta Lynn singing about love in a small town, on Loxley Banks’s Country Classics afternoons on Radio Cayman.
Tonight at nine we get married
Friends all say it's a shame and disgrace
That he's loved every woman in Jackson
But Jackson ain't a very big place.
Sometimes it was a yearning for a proper education that began the progress. The first school-teacher in a community was often the best-educated local parent; the children’s learning was limited by the teacher’s knowledge, but it was progress. The usual standby option of home-schooling might be chosen by parents whose knowledge was equal to that first teacher’s. Later, a trained teacher would assume the job. External exams would become available for children with the proper level of achievement.
Cayman’s educational system would have grown from that sort of beginning- as did my own home community’s. In the absence of a school, our mothers taught us the syllabuses set by the provincial authorities and mailed our homework exercises in for marking. A few families paid a neighbour to teach their kids. After a few years of this, the authorities responded to pleas for a qualified teacher. “Build a schoolhouse and guarantee twenty pupils and we will send you a teacher.” So our fathers built a one-room hut with wooden awnings and we got a teacher.
Exactly the same kind of progress occurred in the Cayman settlements that were too small even to be called villages. The pattern must have been common in the West Indies, as indeed it was everywhere. The settlements grew into villages, then small towns. From Barkers to Savannah is a middling-size town now, isn’t it? Will the Shetty Hospital and the SEZ and the new school help fill the gaps to North Side and East End, or will those two small towns always be separate? Will their residents resist the temptation to progress to something larger?
I looked up the last words of Loretta Lynn’s song on YouTube. Loxley, are you there? The good old days really weren’t quite as good as we remember.
Yes, Jackson is a mighty small town
Where gossips and rumors go round
But the gossips are the ones he turned down
And Jackson ain't a very big town...
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