By Terrance Rey
Originally published in Dutch on DossierKoninkrijksrelaties.nl as “Interconnectedness”
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When explaining what my Cusha Columns book ‘The Enigma that is Sint Maarten’ is about, I often use the term ‘the interconnectedness of things‘. Simply because everything is interrelated and everything is connected.
Everything happens for a reason. Even if you have no idea why. Sint Maarten is such a connected and small community that if someone sneezes in Point Blanche, a guy in St. Peter’s gets a sore throat, a woman in Simpson Bay catches a full-blown flu, and her sister’s father-in-law in Marigot suddenly turns out to have Covid. You would be surprised how fast things spread in Sint Maarten, like news and especially melee. Sint Maarten has so many interconnections, you would almost think it is like the ‘internet of things’.
With the advent of social media and apps like Messenger, Whatsapp and what not, you can let a piece of melee spread like wildfire. Due to the melee broadcasters in Sint Maarten, Whatsapp has set the forwarding limit of one message per person. I ain’ telling no lie! The interconnectedness of things in Sint Maarten has even spawned such monstrosities as the Pointe Blanche Prison, the Elephant with the Green Hat, and Mount Dump. For years people have taken their trash out to be picked up and disposed of by companies that are not certified garbage collectors, and today people are paid thousands of dollars to move away from Pond Island. How is all that connected?
To show you another example of the interconnectedness of things in Sint Maarten. An Anguilla woman can send a voice note to her doo-doo darling down the road in Dutch Quarter. By the time that voice note has reached all of Sint Maarten, the communications officer at Princess Juliana International Airport has been suspended for spreading false rumors about management. It can be crazy like that.
Due to the interconnectedness of things on Sint Maarten, people do not dare to open their mouths. Today a Richardson can submit a report to the government advising to fire a manager in a government-owned company and tomorrow another Richardson can get sued in court for writing a damning report about a hack. You might want to ask me what the one got to do with the other, but in Sint Maarten that is how the interconnectedness of things works.
An Indian businessman told me that he once filed a complaint at Economic Affairs about a problem he had with his neighbor. The very next day, an inspector shows up at his place of business demanding to see his business licenses and permits. Because everything is related and connected, you cannot mash anybody’s corn just like that. You would even be afraid to complain about your neighbor running septic water into your backyard because your uncle’s sister’s last child might get turned down for a piece of government long-lease land. It is so bad in Sint Maarten that today you can cross someone’s path and ten years later, your son gets turned down for a job for no discernible reason. The interdependence is so unpleasant in Sint Maarten that a politician can be arrested on suspicion of bribery and abuse of power and he tells you to watch out for identity theft on Instagram. You can get a fear of agoraphobia just thinking about the interconnectedness of things in Sint Maarten. You would hardly dare to go out on the street anymore. Let alone to complain about the crazy bills of prutsbedrijf GEBE. You will certainly be disconnected the next day.
You still don’t believe me? Try this mindblowing reality on for size. A butterfly flaps its wings in Mumbai and a category 5 hurricane named Irma hits Sint Maarten with devastating and catastrophic consequences. In the rest of the world, they call that global warming, but here in Sint Maarten I call that the interconnectedness of things.
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Originally published in Dutch on DossierKoninkrijksrelaties.nl as “Interconnectedness”
The working title of the next Cusha Columns book is “The Interconnectedness of Things in Sint Maarten“.
