“ROYAL CITIZENS OF GREAT BRITAIN”

At this juncture in our history we cannot be mislead, we cannot look back, neither can we be afraid of who we are as a people. We must carefully structure our minds that would grant us our full share of self-identity, which speaks of the completeness of one’s self, the completeness of a people. We’ve come from a background of hardship and hard luck, enslaved, oppressed, and deprived, a society of total poverty. Many of the terms of our everyday living are known because of our past, and we use them often not knowing the originality, and many of our everyday analogies came from our slavish past which has ushered us into this bright and comfortable day in our history. Why do we rehearse, and continue to inhabit the misery of our fore fathers and not accept the challenges of today? Why don’t we live by the motto “to achieve and dwell in peace, for the future is ours?” We must relieve ourselves from the depth of shame and disgrace of our past; we must now look beyond that hardship and misery. Why should we indulge in that hatred again, which makes our people angry, so angry?

As a people we must appease ourselves, for our future is bright. Not because of Queen Elizabeth or Hubert Hughes, but because we have choice, we can choose who we want to be, and for our children, today, they education themselves to any desire. We must emancipate (liberate) ourselves from mental slavery; (slavery-of-the-mind) an overkill term by weary patriots without absorbing the gravity of the terminology, and the truthfulness there in. Created exclusively for black people, who failed to grasp the truth, but continue to enslave ourselves. We must talk like it and act like it. The true and full depth of this statement is meant to declare that, we are free people; acknowledge it for our own state of being.

In our recent history we have attained, while failing to acknowledge that, still feeling bound by our horrific past. Anguilla has become more autonomous, any country that has achieved constitutional status with protection of fundamental rights and freedom, has in fact laid the foundation to structure a nation. We have not reached that perfect place as yet, but we will. We find ourselves in a precarious situation simply because we fail to understand our successes! During the period 2000/2008 the country was doing well economically, and was highly recognized by most regional bodies, even St. Maarten used Anguilla’s political status to build confidence in attaining its own country state. Our government has failed the people in taking us back decades, re-colonizing our state of mind, and actually making shallow minded people feel that our country has gained nothing by way of political advancement. The former government understood! Not even close observers could tell whether there were internal political conflicts with counterparts, “the Governor and the Government.” But, here we are today being brought back to unnecessary, pointless rhetoric and vague claims of misery under a colonial power, words we had practically erased from our mind set. Independence is a practical solution, and within our reach; but not by a continuous rant of ugly insults.

The basic neglect of our government, not having a decent conversation with “the Governor” since elected! Our constitution dictates the full scope of powers imposed on the Governor as appointed by Her Majesty likewise, the scope of duties and responsibilities of the Government of Anguilla, the country must be governed accordingly. We must know that independence cannot be attained by vague talk, start the process, lead the people out of the wilderness you think we’re in. Why sabotage our success, and our future, with depressing and unrealistic chatter of oppression when we have choice, we can chose our destiny!!! The people want leadership out of our economic peril and into prosperity. We curse the British; Curse the Queen, the Governor and dishonor our people because we fail to shape the future we envision. What is our story? What it is we didn’t get?" Some things of our past we want to preserve and something, we simply want to forget period. This is a new age, we remain “British Citizens” and we invoke our full rights as “Royal British” with all rights and privileges or become an independent nation. Until there is a leader we can trust with our future, preserve our rights, our privileges and our customs; we'll remain "British" Love Her Majesty and be "Royal Citizens of Great Britain.” Let them who want to be otherwise, seek other wise, but for now we are who we are; "Royal Citizens of Great Britain." love it or leave it.

By Elliot J. Harrigan