Mar 10
In the society page of the Trinidad Guardian, I read that yet another American had bought a piece of the island of Tobago, following those who had bought pieces of Barbados, Antigua, Dominica, Montserrat… These islands were small, poor and overpopulated. Once, because of their wealth, a people had been enslaved; now, because of their beauty, a people were being dispossessed. Land values had written steeply; in some islands peasant farmers could no longer afford to buy land… Every poor country accepts tourism as an unavoidable degradation. None has gone as far as some of these West Indian islands, which, in the name of tourism, are selling themselves into a new slavery. The élite of the islands, whose pleasures, revealingly, are tourist’s pleasures, ask no more than to be permitted to mix with the white tourists, and the governments make feeble stipulations about the colour bar.
from The Middle Passage, by V. S. Naipaul, © 1962.
things out of control already dont know how or if this will stop. we soon become beggars in our own communities
jdid · March 11, 2007
You might want to read about the Newfound land deal in Nevis also, 600 acres of prime land sold by the government, with a 30-year tax vacation for the developers who bought it. Basically every commercial land deal involving foreign investment needs a lot of critical attention. The scale of the buying and the terms of the deals are just staggering. See all that tourism investment in Jamaica in recent years? I could go on and on…
kia · March 12, 2007