Honourable Prime Minister Sarah Wescot-Williams recognizes the growth of the national book fair over the past years.
The Prime Minister who was one of the speakers at the recently concluded 9th Annual Book Fair added, "I say this taking into account the changes that have taken place over the years on all fronts and the challenge to maintain your core objective, promoting writing, literature and documentation.
"In doing so, you have been confronted with the impact of the rapid changes, especially in technology and information, enormous! Just imagine how technology has transformed the production and reproduction of books and writings, of exchange and dissemination of information and of course publishing.
"You had no choice but to every year assess the scope of these new and exciting developments and their significance for an event like this book fair. In doing so, you have managed to keep it exciting, year after year."
Wescot-Williams pointed out that the island has come a long way from the days when the right to free speech was paramount to ensuring and securing democratic societies. In some countries, this right is still subject to conflict, sometimes with fatal results.
Prime Minister: "Today so-called Governance Indicators (a project of the World Bank) tie accountability to freedom of speech as a measure of the quality of governance under the indicator labeled "Voice and Accountability".
"St. Martin anno 2011: Fundamental Rights, (liberties), because we also have the rights of equality, solidarity, administration of justice, and citizenship. Chapter 2 of our young constitution: (one of the 15 "liberties") No one shall require prior permission to publish thoughts or opinions through the press………without prejudice to the responsibility of every person under the law.
"There shall be no prior supervision on the contents of a radio or television broadcast. No one shall be required to submit thoughts or opinions for prior approval in order to disseminate them by means other than those mentioned.
No one shall need prior permission to gather and receive information………without prejudice to the responsibility of every person under the law. The right to gather information may be restricted by national ordinance.
"These are excerpts, which in full contain some nuances that diminish the absoluteness of the right itself. The more complex the society becomes, the more we will see this.
Freedom of speech, is one where quickly the right of the individual vis-à-vis the right of others or the community at large could easily become strained.
"Exercising one’s right could be harmful or offensive to another or even trample that other person’s rights. That right could even be a threat to the security of all.
"And so, mostly these rights are not absolute. In the case of St. Maarten, you heard the part "without prejudice, without prejudice. To be further regulated by law in the interest of the orderliness of society at large.
"Speaking of orderliness, how could that work as far as the freedom of information is concerned, where the medium of expression is the internet. What about the right to privacy in the context of the internet and information technology?
Is there a happy medium to be found?"
With respect to the book fair, "I know full well in what context the freedom of expression should be seen for this book fair.
"St.Martin is at cross roads where the exercise of some of our fundamental rights is concerned. Not that these rights are new to us. We have been subject to constitutions and human rights treaties since the 20th century. But now, do we place limits on some of these to protect others?
"When you go there, you enter the realm of customs and norms and what is acceptable to us, now as a St. Martin society or not.
Notwithstanding the potential down sides of one exercising one’s fundamental rights such as that of expression unabridged, this particular right and freedom allow us to bring out the best in us, and to bring it out in our way.
"Writers are free to write. Books are viewed as new-borns of literature. Poets are free to express in poetry. Dancers in dance and actors in acts and all means of expression thinkable.
"In its purest form this has a huge social value.
Every part of it, the book, the author, the party, the criticism, the praise. The same goes for the dance, the speech, the song," Hon. Prime Minister Sarah Wescot-Williams concluded.