By Mshaka
There is a backlash coming to Antigua! It is a backlash that will be driven by the behaviors of non-nationals and the attitudes they demonstrated during the weeks leading to the recent elections.
This backlash is coming from everyday, grassroots men and women from town and country side. Antiguans are fed up. They are stirred up. People are angry!
This is one Antiguan who believes that the backlash is long overdue. For too long we have allowed Bird, Saunders and Reese to manipulate our immigration system. We have allowed them and their cronies to purposefully pack up Antigua with people from Jamaica and Guyana particularly. And when those people get here, they act as if they are not visitors - but people who have a right to be here. As a matter of fact they act in ways that they cannot act in the towns and villages and ghettos from whence they came.
Most of these people come here because they need work... they need education... and they need medical care. Yes, there are some who are educated... but the level of work that they may get in Guyana cannot compare to the salaries they get here. And, where they are from.. they are politically disenfrancised.
Antiguans are tired of the fact that wherever we go people are speaking Spanish... responding to you in Spanish... act as if you are dumb if you can't speak Spanish... and often choose to serve Spanish speaking people first... even if they are in the back of the line.
And then there are the Jamaicans who are aggressive and try to intimidate both our children and our women. Listen to them speak... listen to their music and the trash that they are chanting... Look at how they dress... men's pants down at their knees... the women showing the buttocks and breasts and everything else...
Within a few short years, Antigua has changed... radically... negatively and violently. Yes... there are Antiguans involved in some of the negativity. But for the most part, most of the negative changes can be laid at the feet of non-nationals - most of them here illegally.... many of them with brought in by polictical operatives of the ALP.... some of them with criminal backgrounds!
But the backlash is being driven because Antiguans have now awakened to the fact that we are fast becoming second class citizens in our own country. We are almost outnumbered... I think we are already outnumbered.
As an Antiguan who has traveled back and forth for over twenty years... I have been more sensitive to these changes than people living here. For years, I have been complaining to my friends and family that the countenance of Antigua had changed. For example, about 12 years ago, I noticed that the Grays Gren area was changing rapidly. Thirty years ago, I used to coach and train the Empire Football Club. I also used to teach at the Greenbay Government School. I lived at Perry's bay for almost forty years of my live. I was born down there!
Each time I came back (several times per year) I would visit King George V grounds to watch the guys practice cricket or soccer. When someone passed by, if I did not know them, I would look at their faces and recognize that they were so-and-so's family... But graudally, I began having problems... Who is that? Where are they from? Oh... they are Dominicans... Guyanese... Jamaicans... Spanish... Jamaicans... Spanish... And so it went... and so it has been.
Now, when I pass through the area... I scarcely see anyone who even looks Antiguan. And... being a student who went to school when I had to pass the G.C.E. and had to learn a more formal type of English... I cannot understand the languages being spoken... sometimes I cannot tell whether it is English or Spanish!
So Antiguans are now fed up. Most Antiguans have been uncomfortable for a long long time! But enough is enough. We won't take it any longer!
We need to take steps to weaken the growing immigrant stranglehold... to destroy the web of manipulation and deceit weaved by the ALP... to obliterate the conspiratorial influence of Bird, Saunders and Reese in which they seek to control the future of Antigua and become Kings and Emperors of Antigua crowned by Jamaicans and Guyanese!
