ST. MARTIN - BETHLEHEM OR CALVARAY FOR IMMIGRANTS?

Has St. Martin been a Bethlehe, a place of bread, or a Calvary, a place of the skull for those who have come from outside?


People have been coming to St. Martin in ever increasing numbers from at least the mid 1960's, a period of at least fifty years.


Even today in what everybody calls hard economic times, people still flock to this island. Why? And particularly, whenever St. Martiners complain about foreigners, they get as our old people used to say: "more vex than you".


These people include both rich and poor, who have planted roots on this island. Should we believe that that these thousands of people have given everything they had and St. Martiners have only been theones to profit from their labor? Don't even try to tell me that, if that was so, they would have left, nt even tourists would continue to come.


There are tourists who come to the "Friendly Island", spend their vacation and leave without ever having come in contact with a native st martiner.


Am I to believe that thse thousands of people have given their all to St. martin and St. Martiners have only profited from their work or their invesment? I am afraid that I will have to say that everybody has profited.


However, what we have today is more people that this island can handle, among whom many who do not care or who do not want to see what is going on.


No one can really say say that that things are going well on St. Martin, whether on the French or the Dutch side. And if people on the capitalistic Dutch side are suffering, imagine what those on the French socialist side are suffering.


Along with being swamped by outsiders, whether they want to hear it or not, we have lost the economic control of the island. Both sides are controlled by outsiders.


And those businesses do not employe St Martiners, they employ people from their native countries or they employ immigrants who accept salaries and conditions that natives will not.


Sot at this moment in thim I have to say that Saint Martin is definitely Bethlehem to those who are not from St. Martin.