COMMENTARY — VI urged to swallow COI ‘medicine’

A country or territory without an appropriate set of guiding values and principles — invisible rules of conscience and morality that sit in the hearts and souls of its residents — is a vessel with neither compass nor rudder. It will end up on the rocks.

A country is the sum total of the thinking and behaviours of its people. If the critical mass of those residents hold values that are honest and wholesome, the country is honest and wholesome. If, on the other hand, the majority possess the morals of the thief and scammer, the country is lost.

 

VI election

In the Virgin Islands, a general election is approaching, and it is imperative to elect leaders who will hold the values that drive the territory towards a vision that is safe, wholesome and prosperous. Without sound and moral values as guiding principles for the territory’s people, there can be no achieving any type of vision for the future. Eldorado will never be.

The man and woman of character and virtue are the sole guarantors of honest and accountable governance. That is so even in the private sector. Successful businesses are values driven. A business is its strategy, mission and vision, of course. However, if the values of the employees are not in line with that mission and vision, then all is in vain, and the owners of the business must replace their staff or simply go bust.

 

COI fallout

The great challenge after the recent Commission of Inquiry is the wholly reactionary nature of the response from too many leaders and other residents. Proactive behaviour is preferred to reactive. Quite clearly, this is the moral challenge we all face. There is a “harping” on about alleged conspiracies from the United Kingdom Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, as well as other purported subterfuge and bad intentions. In this observer’s opinion, such claims are simply absurd.

The longer this territory avoids the correction of what were clearly pitfalls revealed in the COI report that led to the edge of the abyss, the more likely the VI will remain underdeveloped or even plunge over the edge.

Instead of being viewed as burdensome, the COI’s recommendations should be swallowed as bitter medicine that will lead to a cure for the patient.

As the Syrian philosopher Publilius Syrus stated more than 2,000 years ago, “From the errors of others, the wise man corrects his own.”

 

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