Monday, January 19, 2009

The new book about history of the anguillian peopl;e.

All Is Not Lost!

THE ANGUILLIAN

Editorial

It will be up to us and our leaders to find ways and means to ride out the present storm and at the end to arrive, even somewhat battered probably, on a still safe economic shore from where we can continue our journey of development and hope

The just-published book, God Bless Our Forebears, by local historian, Colville Petty, provides insightful glimpses into the struggles and resilience of the Anguillian people of whom he wrote about in the periods covered by the book. Our people then demonstrated a great deal of courage and strength and were prepared to die in the land they loved rather than to be moved to British Guiana by Britain in the days of the great economic depression.

There are parallels that we can draw today from their bravery and resolve and this has already been demonstrated by the stance the leaders and people of modern-day Anguilla took during the 1967 Revolution. Our forebears of the 1840s and 1890s did not panic in the face of adversity, but clung to the hope that one day the plight of their lives would be turned around and rightly so, it eventually did. All was not lost as it appeared to them and those who wanted to transfer them to the South American mainland.

At present, Anguilla is entering a phase of economic and financial difficulty it never imagined would overtake its people, at a time when we were making so much progress and boasted a double-digit percentage growth in our GDP. Though the outlook is now bleak, and perhaps foreboding, we must take example and courage from our forebears who, despite their depravity, rallied on.

Compared with their abject poverty we, even in this time of economic and financial gloom, are still seeing an abundance of prosperity in Anguilla though, admittedly, it could quickly disappear. The analogy therefore is that if they could survive in their dismal situation, we can survive better and have an even greater hope in our still prosperous island home.

It will be up to us and our leaders to find ways and means to ride out the present storm and at the end to arrive, even somewhat battered probably, on a still safe economic shore from where we can continue our journey of development and hope.All is certainly not lost.