At times Gandhi appeared to be waging what friends of his called a "quixotic
war against modern civilization", and that made it easier for the Indian
elite to dismiss his views as retrograde, romantic, nostalgic for a mythical
past. Gandhi accurately foresaw that the rapid deployment of modern Western
technology and business methods on rural communities enriched the few at the
expense of the many, and led to the concentration and centralization of
wealth and power.
Those on St. Maarten, who over the past twenty years have objected to
unrestrained economic growth, have similarly been scorned and looked at as
having views which were retrograde, romantic and nostalgic for a mythical
past.
In 1960 St. Martin was a quaint island with less than 5,000 people on both
the Dutch and French sides. While not exactly a wealthy island, the people
survived, and one could even say that they survived rather well. The main
occupation of the islanders was cattle-raising and fishing. A fair number of
people on the Dutch side were employed by the local government, while the
tourist trade was just sufficient to provide a good number of locals with a
part time income.
Many will tell you now that they were not rich, but much happier than today.
People had time to chat with each other, to do things together, to remember
past events. They were proud of those who were considered the local
elite-people who had risen up from the depths of poverty and from the
cane-cutting days of Santo Domingo to a stately mansion in the country and
ownership of a former van Romondt estate.
One of the big Sunday events of the fifties and earlier was to gather on the
"Longwall" for a social chat. Many can remember Mr. Leonald Conner and Mr.
Malcolm (Mally) Wathey, as well as Mr. "Willie Bee" Peterson, dressed down
in their white clothes and with their Panama hats on, taking a stroll as far
as the black rocks discussing the events of the past week. Where can one
stroll today, without fear of being run over by rapid transit?
Progress came slowly and people were willing to respect others' opinions,
even those who, like Gandhi, did not want to rush progress. There was the
time when the Board of the Philipsburg Electric Light Company called a
shareholders' meeting to discuss the possibility of keeping the lights on
until 11 p.m. Mr. Leonald Conner rose and queried: "Which self-respecting
person would want an electric bulb shining in his home after 10 p.m.!" There
were some giggles, but no one mocked the grand old man. He was one of the
elite, the elders who gave in slowly to modem ways.
In 1951 St. Maarten was granted a large measure of autonomy. In the local
elections young Claude Wathey (25 years), son of a prominent merchant, was
elected for the first time. He would control the government of St. Maarten
and dominate the political life in the three Dutch Windward Islands. Thirty
three years later, as this is being written, he is still at the helm on St.
Maarten and still very much in control.
Claude Wathey was a prophet of the rip-it-up, tear-it- down,
bulldoze-it-away-as-long-as-it-stands-in-the-way-of-progress generation. He
always considered the reversal of the flow of traffic in Philipsburg as one
of his greatest accomplishments during his early days in office. Traffic now
goes up Frontstreet and down Backstreet, where formerly it was the reverse.
According to Claude, he obtained the necessary majority to get the vote on
the council through the gift of a bull to one of the council members. The
older council members resisted that change, but they lost out to the modem
ways of forced change through graft. Not surprisingly, it was a change which
later proved to be more confusing than before. For example, if one looks at
the location of the churches, cemeteries and hospital on Frontstreet, it is
clear that traffic could have been much better regulated at funerals if it
would have remained unchanged. As it is now the procession to the cemetery
must go against the flow of traffic.
Through centuries of trial and error a certain system of canals had been
built up to drain excess water to the sea from the salt pans and the
surrounding hills. Claude, as usual, had his own ideas and scoffed at the
ways of old-timers as having held back the "progress" of St. Maarten.
Hurricane "Frederick" in September 1979 proved all his theories of the past
thirty years to have been incorrect, simply by flooding all the new areas
which had been built without regard for the proper maintenance of the old
drainage system.
