This moment had to come. The moment of truth. Curaçao and the opposition in Bonaire have been yelling all the time that ‘Holland cannot be trusted’. They did
everything in their power to make sure their prophesy would be fulfilled, namely that Holland would prove that, indeed, they cannot be trusted.
Now, of course, such an accusation implies that the accuser believes that he can be trusted, which sounds rather shrill from the mouths of people (from all parties) who have for years retained pension-premiums without depositing them in the workers’ pension-funds, to mention just one example.
Wrong attitude
However this may be, it is a wrong attitude to mistrust the people you deal with. If we do not trust the Dutch, we should draw the ultimate conclusion and demand political independence. And then prove that we are trustworthy and do better than they. But this attitude of always criticizing and accusing without acting accordingly (because Holland supports us financially) is childish.
But all that is behind us now, for BES at least. We have decided (at least Bonaire has) that we are going to trust Holland and build up a totally new integrative relationship (meaning we’ll become part of Holland, after leaving the Antilles). Even in Holland most people don’t realize that this is a totally new approach in relations between an ex-colonial ‘motherland’ and its (former) ‘colony’. A unique experiment!
Does that mean we have to abjectly accept all Holland’s vices and mistakes?
Not at all. But our criticism cannot be based on an axiomatic ‘we don’t trust them’ attitude (which is mosly mutual unfortunately).
We know that Holland has been infected with the ‘greed-virus’, which has spread around the world like wildfire following the fall of the Berlin Wall. Holland itself is not yet conscious of the disease it is suffering from. It is one of the root-causes of a lot of trouble manifesting around the globe at this moment and for some time to come, we fear. You cannot serve two masters.
We are confident that Holland will in the end find itself back and do the right thing, both internationally and toward BES. At this moment there are some people in Holland who are vey angry at the Antilles and Antilleans. And they do not distinguish between the islands.
Partially we ourselves are to blame for this negative attitude prevalent in Holland toward us. However, if we thought that Holland would - after due soul-searching - in the end not turn around, we might as well stop here. But we will not. We have decided to integrate into Holland, so we are going to trust Holland until we have concrete proof to the contrary. In the meantime, as always, we anchor our destiny in faith.