Anguilla is about to
enter upon the year 2023 with government legalising casinos. They are doing so with the usual caveats that
it will be restricted only to “high-end” players. Locals will not be permitted to use the
facilities. So, there will be no
negative social impact on Anguilla.
The
Premier has publicly said that this activity, once licensed, will provide
much-needed revenue to support Anguilla’s social programmes. He sees no problem with it. The government has published that it expects
to raise EC$5 million from this activity.
So, this APM administration is all on board with the idea of developing Anguilla
as a casino-friendly destination.
This
is not the first time that this initiative has emerged in Anguilla. But it is the first time with the support of
the island’s government. When in the
early 1980s a Sicilian hotel developer from St Maarten met with the then Chief Minister
and put a proposal to him to cut off the western quarter of the island and turn
it into a resort area to be occupied by his hotels and casinos, the Chief
Minister called on the Chief of Police to take the developer to Blowing Point
Port and to put him on a boat with instructions never to return to Anguilla. The diorama he produced to illustrate his
proposal still hangs on the wall in the Land Registry.
A
few years later, in the 1990s, the US entertainment magnate, Robert “Bob”
Johnson of television’s BET Network, made another casino proposal. He wanted to dredge the Road Pond and
construct a casino and condominium apartments.
Government put it out for public discussion and the mood was
overwhelmingly one of opposition. When
it emerged that the western end of the Pond consisted of an estimated forty
feet of rock salt that would have to be removed by blasting, the project died.
In
2020, the first year of this Administration’s term, there was another proposal
to put a casino in a marina in the Road Pond.
The leader of the opposition party in the House of Assembly has admitted
that the outgoing Administration first approved of this project. She was on radio supporting the proposal on
the ground that it would bring much-needed development to the island. However, the proposal met with almost
universal public disapproval, and appears to have been quietly dropped.
Back
in April 2019, the AUF administration issued a press release that they hired
consultants to write a report about casinos for Anguilla. So, it was not surprising, in the last week
or two, to hear one of the young, male elected members of the opposition AUF
party in the House of Assembly adding his voice to those in support of this
proposal. He gave a serious and studied
argument why Anguilla had to enter the modern era, casinos and all, and why the
resulting revenue would be good for the Treasury. He has obviously not read any of the hundreds
of studies on the social damage caused by casinos.
We
do not know who has now approached our new government with a renewed proposal
to put casinos in Anguilla. It may have
been some of the bigger foreign-owned hotel owners who come from places where
it is normal for hotels to have casinos.
It may have come from some rather more unsavoury types. The gaming and brothel businesses in nearby
St Maarten are reputed to be owned and run by local politicians and their Sicilian
mafia bosses. In Curacao, it is the New
Jersey mafia who, together with the local political bosses, are reported to
control the industry. You just need to
Google the terms.
In
previous years, before the casinos of St Maarten came under unified management,
it was not unusual to see that on a change of casino management, the old crew
left the island with their arms in slings and the bullet holes
well-bandaged. The new bosses entered
with bulges under their arms. Unless the
mafia takes immediate control of any casinos that are licensed in Anguilla,
similar exciting events can be expected for a while until ownership issues get
sorted out.
I
was not surprised to read an article in support of casinos in a recent issue of
The Anguillian Newspaper written by the youthful past Minister of Economic
Development. It must have been his
Ministry that put up the proposal to include legalizing of casinos. He is young, impetuous, and inexperienced in
the world. So, he can be expected to
rise in support of the proposal now that it has come to be questioned.
The
most surprising thing of all was to hear a Baptist preacher on radio a few days
ago giving a passionate speech in favour not only of legalizing casinos and
lotteries but also brothels (or whorehouses, or bordellos, or however you call
houses of ill repute). He called them by
the Anguillian euphemism, “houses of entertainment”. It was a stunning reversal for a preacher of
morality. Maybe he was just being
sarcastic and is not really in favour.
I
have been thinking of what these developments mean for Anguilla and her people’s
future. There must be some good explanation
for this new evolution in morality. All
three of these young men share certain characteristics that may explain their
positions.
They
are young and naïve. They have no
experience or learning of the history of casinos. They have never made any kind of study of the
damage the casino environment does to the lives of its habitués and their
families. They have never read any of
the hundreds of reports on the societal evils of casino gambling. They are innocents. They can’t really be blamed.
They
enjoy the over-confidence of youth. They
believe that they can control the heartbreak and crime that casinos will
inevitably bring to our families. They
believe they can keep Anguillians out of the temptations and addictions of casino
gambling. They sincerely believe that
Anguillians’ past opposition to casinos was mistaken and misguided.
They
are misinformed. They believe that
opposition to casinos come only from “white people”. I have heard them saying on radio that they
believe that these white people are hell-bent on keeping our Anguillians back
from developing ourselves. We can do
this apparently by emerging into the modern world of casinos and houses of
prostitution. This xenophobia and race
blaming is very effective in Anguilla when you want to rile up public sentiment
against something or someone.
The
preacher who spoke so passionately in favour of casinos and houses of male
entertainment was also in favour of lotteries.
He thought casinos were a sign that Anguilla was modernising. He pointed to the fact that there are several
“madrokas” or Dominican Republic lottery outlets operating in Anguilla. Madroka Anguilla Lottery Ltd was in fact
licensed three or four years ago to run lotteries in Anguilla.
It
is a fraud on the revenue for lottery tickets to be sold without government
collecting the 10% fee on each ticket.
We can’t collect revenue on illegal tickets. Yet, illegal lottery ticket sellers openly
operate in Anguilla today. The police
very occasionally shut one down, but they soon reopen without any difficulty.
There
are scores of brothels operating openly in Anguilla. They front as sports bars and other houses of
entertainment. It is a serious offence
to operate a house of prostitution. The
police occasionally shut one down, but it soon reopens. No one seems to care that these facilities
are illegal and not medically inspected.
It is not surprising to learn that sexually transmitted diseases are on
the increase.
I
have a modest, Swiftian proposal to add to these suggestions for increasing government
revenue. It should fit in well with
Anguilla’s modern public morality. My
proposal will also prevent the children of poor people in Anguilla from being a
burden to their parents or to the country.
“A young healthy child under a year of age is a most delicious,
nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled. I have no doubt it will equally serve in a
fricassee or a ragout.” (Johnathan Swift). I propose that of the 200-odd babies born
in Anguilla each year, a nominal 25% be butchered and the best cuts sold in
supermarkets. At the price of veal, the
resulting increase in GST revenue will greatly benefit the Treasury.
Given
the lack of any apparent public opposition to the proposals for legalising casinos,
lotteries, and bordellos, there should be no objection from the churches to the
idea of selling baby meat. The silence
from church and community leaders serves to reinforce the acceptability of
casinos and brothels. Today’s churchmen
will be so busy raising revenue by holding revivalist meetings that they will
not object to this modest proposal of mine.
It will be a benefit to the poor and the public and increase government
revenue. It should be a runaway success
all round.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTE: Anguilla as
a country is less than 70 years old. Anguillians
have no literary heritage. Indeed, only
within the last 50 years has any Anguillian writing of any kind been
published. Thus, save for a few
exceptions, doggerel takes the place of poetry.
Unsurprisingly,
we have no understanding of, nor appreciation for, irony, satire, sarcasm,
mockery, or parody. Most Anguillians
don’t recognize sarcasm or satire. Everything
said or written is interpreted literally.
As a result, the last two paragraphs of the above essay, based on Johnathan Swift’s famous satirical essay “A Modest Proposal” were taken literally. The proposal to sell and eat baby meat was read literally and considered offensive, even by English language teachers who read the essay. It was politely rejected by the local newspaper.
