Sunday Morning Reflections: A Tragic Event and a Call for Change
June 2, 2024
It's Sunday, and my family left early for voluntary community work. I find myself alone and decided to start my day with an early morning cup of coffee. As I sit here in the quiet café, the only customer, I sip my coffee and check my messages. The air is heavy with the news that everyone is grappling with—yesterday's tragic event.
A Dutch police officer, who had come to the island to assist, was killed in his home during an armed robbery. It's a lot to process. My thoughts go out to him, his family, whose lives will never be the same, and our entire community. Nobody deserves to meet such a fate.
Reflecting on this, it's clear our society has been showing signs of dysfunction for some time. The island is dirty, the roads are in bad shape, and essential services like education and healthcare have declined. Our justice system struggles to address crime adequately. The economy, while recovering, mainly offers low-paying jobs in tourism, and the cost of living, especially food prices, is high. A staggering 70% of the population lives below the subsistence level. Many have left the island, replaced by newcomers from the region. Our elites set poor examples, and there's a pervasive sense of hopelessness.
You could call it corruption or moral decay, but the underlying issue is clear. The Netherlands, dealing with its own challenges, never truly grasped the depth of our problems.
The root cause, I believe, lies in the global embrace of neoliberal market values. Everything became about money and material wealth, leading us astray from what truly matters. Our only way out is to start anew with the basics: clean our homes and neighborhoods, prioritize education, care for people, animals, and the planet. We need to value people over money.
If we commit to these changes, then perhaps this brave officer's death won't be in vain.
Miguel Goede
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