Oh Sweet St. Martin Land…..
St. Martin is my home and I’ll do just about anything to make it bloom…
Rumba, Rumba St. Maarten Rumba Rumba …..
Brim, Shoot, Ponum Ponum Ponum Ponum…..
Sin Maatin, soooo beautiful. Sin Maaatin, so wonderful…..
Songs and Poems of St. Maarten conjure memories experienced and bring to life the words of Tan Tan Nez Baly, Miss Yaya, Miss Vivian, Camille Baly, Mother Gath Vlaun, Milton Peters and so many other Icons in our cultural heritage. The words of our elders resonate in my mind, stories of families sharing and caring for each other, working hard to make a living and stressing the importance of education and entrepreneurship, fostering pride in standing on one’s own two feet. These morals and values were taught at our ancestors’ feet and passed on from generation to generation.
St. Maarten/St. Martin Day is a day to celebrate One Island, One People and the unified destiny of us all. Historically we have celebrated this day officially with our brothers and sisters to the North with symbolic ceremonies of Unity and Sharing, while acknowledging that there is much to do to truly unify us in the legal sense. Despite this, I encourage the general public to come together with their families and friends to share a meal, witness the displays and performances and generally to celebrate being a St. Maartener with pride.
Much still needs to be done to truly equalize and optimize opportunities for our people on both sides. Much still needs to be done to educate our youth and the nation about our rich natural and cultural heritage. As a people we must choose and recognize a national anthem that represents us today. Record and preserve our other national songs, poems and dances. We must also decide once and for all if we will recognize a flag that truly unifies us – which does not make us Dutch or French, but St. Martiners. We must also define WHO is a St. Maartener and choose the spelling that identifies us all.
WE have large shoes to fill, in looking back where we were, acknowledging where we are now, and planning ahead to where we would like to be. St. Maarten/St. Martin Day is a day to celebrate, to reflect and to plan on how to do it better together in the future for the benefit of our children, their children and all the others to come. This is our moral obligation, to leave this world better for having been entrusted with its care.
Happy St. Maarten/St. Martin Day 2015 to all people of St. Maarten, including those who love and claim St. Maarten as their very own.