Slowly, It Begins to Dawn on Me
- mpgoede
- Feb 7
- 2 min read
Slowly, It Begins to Dawn on Me
7 February 2026
It is Saturday morning, after breakfast. I am sitting in my home office, reflecting. And in truth, very little is happening. Of course, my calendar is full — but are these things that really matter?
Then messages start popping up on social media, under the auspices of the VBC, the Curaçao Business Association. They concern a conference with the telling title “Curaçao Under Pressure: Navigating the Geopolitical Storm.” The post is accompanied by some two dozen glossy photographs. Political, administrative, economic and trade union leaders, all dressed in suits, holding a glass.
What strikes me is this: no one seems genuinely worried. Not about their own businesses, and certainly not about the rest of the population. It looks like a safe enclave, a world at a distance.
It reminded me of the CHATA meeting where the sector celebrated record-breaking tourism figures and a “strong start to 2026.” Once again: champagne, optimism, self-congratulation. That same gathering was later sharply and aptly criticized in an opinion piece published, among others, in the Antilliaans Dagblad. Words like bubbles, cocktail talk and hidden pits lingered.
And so the picture slowly comes together. Also, through that report by the consultancy that was so enthusiastic about the real estate boom resulting from the so-called Blue Wave. And through my recent friction with my friends from the economists’ circle. Time and again, the same pattern emerges.
An image forms of an elite living in a bubble. An elite that, safely behind glass, looks at society from a distance — without realizing that it is part of that society. As if tensions, uncertainty and inequality exist somewhere else.
But we are that society. And precisely for that reason, a new course must be set. Not by a small group among themselves, but together. Inclusively.
Coming together in concrete, steel and glass, raising a glass, and then driving past working-class neighborhoods on the way to our expensive cars — that will not work. Not in the long run. Perhaps not even anymore in the short run.
Slowly, that is beginning to dawn on me.
Miguel Goede
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References (APA)
Antilliaans Dagblad. (2026). Ingezonden: Bubbels, borrelpraat en beerputten.
Curaçao Hospitality & Tourism Association (CHATA). (2026). CHATA celebrates record tourism year and strong start to 2026 [Facebook post].
Curaçao.nu. (2026). CHATA: Record tourism year and strong start to 2026.
Vereniging Bedrijfsleven Curaçao. (2026). Curaçao Under Pressure: Navigating the Geopolitical Storm [Facebook post].
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