Tony Fras­er

It is most ap­pro­pri­ate that in the midst of an in­ter­na­tion­al con­fer­ence be­ing held here on sus­tain­able tourism that the di­lap­i­dat­ed state of the Mag­nif­i­cent Sev­en is brought in­to sharp fo­cus.Suc­ceed­ing gov­ern­ments have been di­rect­ly re­spon­si­ble for the state of these na­tion­al trea­sures of our colo­nial past.

For those un­aware of the sus­tain­able tourism thrust, it is an evolv­ing form of tourism which places em­pha­sis on those as­pects of the cul­ture and the phys­i­cal en­vi­ron­ment which should be de­vel­oped and pro­tect­ed.Para­mount is the preser­va­tion of cul­ture and the phys­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture as part of the na­tion­al pat­ri­mo­ny to be en­joyed in­to the fu­ture.As a re­sult, the cul­tur­al her­itage can then be an at­trac­tion to vis­i­tors want­i­ng to par­tic­i­pate in world cul­ture.

One el­e­ment of the un­said of the sus­tain­able-tourism tagline must be the fact that any peo­ple who are seen to trea­sure the built-up and nat­ur­al en­vi­ron­ments must be a peo­ple of val­ue and hu­man­i­ty.They will be ad­mired as a peo­ple ap­pre­cia­tive of the beau­ty of our cre­ation and what gen­er­a­tions be­fore have added to it.

As most na­tion­als and long-time res­i­dents would know, the Mag­nif­i­cent Sev­en refers to the group of sev­en build­ings from Queen's Roy­al Col­lege in the south to Stollmey­er's Cas­tle in the north.These grand ex­am­ples of colo­nial ar­chi­tec­ture were con­struct­ed just about the turn in­to the 20th cen­tu­ry. They are land­marks of our rich ar­chi­tec­tur­al past and ex­am­ples of the beau­ti­ful land­scape.They tell the sto­ries of our im­me­di­ate past–sto­ries good, bad and in­dif­fer­ent.

I well re­mem­ber for­mer min­is­ter of works Franklin Khan be­ing crit­i­cal of the Tri­ni men­tal­i­ty that be­lieves noth­ing to be hap­pen­ing at a site of dis­in­te­gra­tion, as Mil­lie Fleur then was and has now all but been shred­ded of its pride, they be­lieve noth­ing is go­ing on.That must have been ten years ago. To­day, that par­tic­u­lar Sev­en is a shell of dis­grace that can col­lapse at any mo­ment. Noth­ing has hap­pened Franklin Khan.

Not far be­hind in dif­fer­ing states of ne­glect and de­cay are Stollmey­er's Cas­tle, White Hall (the for­mer Prime Min­is­ter's of­fice), the res­i­dence of the An­gli­can Bish­op and Am­bard House, said by John Newel Lewis to be the most beau­ti­ful of the "Queen of the Bands."But to find the worst state of dis­re­spect­ful ne­glect, the jour­ney north has to curl to the north-east to find the Pres­i­dent's House.

Oh, what a shame on us as a peo­ple and a civil­i­sa­tion that this build­ing, the home of the Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic with its crag­gy frame and ug­ly um­brel­la, could have been al­lowed to have reached this stage of al­most no re­turn.And this has hap­pened in the midst of the coun­try ex­pe­ri­enc­ing its great­est eco­nom­ic boom ever, bil­lions and bil­lions in re­turns from oil and gas. It on­ly demon­strates the vul­gar­i­ty bred by "easy mon­ey."

In al­low­ing Pres­i­dent House to fall in­to ru­in, we have dis­played ut­ter dis­re­gard for the Head of State.Pres­i­dent Max Richards was rel­e­gat­ed for his en­tire ten-year term of of­fice to an an­nex.This scan­dalous ne­glect is in­dica­tive of us as a peo­ple with­out pride, shame­less and ig­no­rant of the val­ue of his­tor­i­cal and cul­tur­al ar­ti­facts.

In the in­stance of the Pres­i­dent's House, I sus­pect that ne­glect swung on the ax­is of "over-vault­ing" po­lit­i­cal am­bi­tion of a then prime min­is­ter who was con­sumed with the pas­sion of con­struct­ing a man­sion for him­self to take up res­i­dence as ex­ec­u­tive pres­i­dent of the re­pub­lic.But if Man­ning and his ad­min­is­tra­tions were con­sumed with van­i­ty and hubris, the present ad­min­is­tra­tion, af­ter promis­ing faith­ful­ly to cor­rect the wrongs, ig­nored the build­ing when it found Pres­i­dent Richards not to be pli­able to its will.

On Sun­day last, at the start of the Sus­tain­able Con­fer­ence of the Caribbean Tourism Or­gan­i­sa­tion, Tourism Min­is­ter Stephen Cadiz could on­ly iden­ti­fy the po­ten­tial that ex­ists for de­vel­op­ing el­e­ments of the sus­tain­able tourism prod­uct.Lit­tle that ex­ists of the nat­ur­al and built-up her­itage of his­tor­i­cal val­ue (and I have on­ly point­ed to the em­bar­rass­ing Mag­nif­i­cent Sev­en and the Pres­i­dent's House) can be claimed to be ready for na­tion­al us­age, far more to share with vis­i­tors.

Since his grand pub­lic en­try in protest against the crim­i­nal cul­ture that has wreaked hav­oc on the hu­man­i­ty of our peo­ple (that too is part of the un­sus­tain­able tourism prod­uct), Stephen Cadiz has al­ways struck me as a man gen­uine in his con­cern for re­con­struct­ing away from the de­struc­tive present.The is­sue is whether the prime min­is­ter and the Cab­i­net have the in­sight to ap­pre­ci­ate the im­por­tance of con­struct­ing the plat­form for a thrust in sus­tain­able tourism.

Host­ing a tourism con­fer­ence is hard­ly in­dica­tive of gen­uine in­ter­est in this area of pride, hu­man­i­ty and po­ten­tial eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty. So too, it is mere­ly a start for a min­is­ter of tourism to recog­nise the po­ten­tial which ex­ists for sus­tain­able tourism.If Mr Cadiz is to es­tab­lish a point of de­par­ture from for­mer min­is­ters and gov­ern­ments, he has to demon­strate that gas, oil and the in­dus­tri­al sec­tor are fi­nite re­sources which can­not be de­pend­ed up­on.