I asked a long time AVP supporter: What’s in it for Mike?
Here is his slightly edited answer:
Mike put together a shaky team. Then Richard Arends bailed out. In reality, Mike lost leadership and his grip on the party in 2013 – and he’s gotten desperate since then, watching his sinking ship.
IF MEP just sticks to its successful Covid19 management and recovery, they should have it in the bag.
The field of politics is the only field of interest to the former MinPres. What else can he do?
Like the rest of humanity, politicians have to prepare for retirement and figure out what they can do post-politics, identify another passion, an area of expertise they would like to shoulder once they hang up their political hat.
But he did not plan.
So that’s why he is still at it.
I believe the Netherlands obviously wants AVP out.
And if i hear one more Aruban or Dutch-Aruban say: We should just hand over leadership to Holland I’m gonna kick them where it hurts.
Put yourself in Dutch shoes. Because of a sense of historical guilt and responsibility over colonialism, and economic exploitation of the islands, they are still stuck with the bill.
I think most Dutch politicians would love to dump the islands, they don’t like the financial burden and it’s a nuisance for them.
They just closed an expo about colonialism, slavery and racial discrimination, at the Rijksmuseum, it ran from 12 February to 30 May 2021, as a form of mea culpa, but in reality I think they’d rather forget all about it.
Still, the islands are very useful for them, by providing work for Dutch companies, consultancies, and — just the management of our mega, unsustainable debt in the form of loans, employs an army of people.
This results in an unhealthy relationship, they give us a long enough rope, we hang ourselves, then we resent them for handing us the rope, and they disdain us for our inability to prevent the hanging.
They look good, we look terrible, weak, dependent, bumblebees.
We as islands have to go through hell to learn, and do it again and again, until we realize we have enough capacity to help ourselves. We need discipline, that is the missing ingredient in our DNA, and mostly our people need to become educated that when you vote for favors you get a government that works with favors.
This sick, nepotistic system needs to come to an end. We all need to realize that our politicians are our own reflection!
So change can only come with awareness that we lack discipline, and must master it, in order to flip the coin and become successful.
