Territorial at Large Representative Honourable Carvin Malone has expressed the view that Virgin Islanders who are competent in areas of relevance to the territory’s political advancement but choose to remain silent unless personally confronted by the issues of these times, are complacent in hindering the territory’s ability to navigate these challenging times.
Malone at the time was responding to “Honestly Speaking” host Claude Skelton Cline while appearing as a guest on the talk show.
Cline asked Malone if he was hopeful that more Virgin Islanders would lend their voice or expertise to help navigate this challenging time, to which Malone responded, “If I could admit to speaking in riddles before it has been around this subject, but there’s no more time for riddles. We have a lot of learned people who have stayed quiet, they’ve stayed on the back bench and I’ve said it before, it’s only when the elephant comes on their toes that they will begin to shout.”
One prevailing example of this, Malone said, has been observed in lawyers who appear to be staying out of discussions surrounding the Constitution, waiting for something to go wrong in order to seize an “I told you so” moment.
“We have more lawyers per capita than any other place in the world. We have more administrators per capita than any other place in the world because we have invested in them, we have invested in a lot of people who come here. We have people from all over the world coming here but we have a lot of local lawyers and mindset and so forth… This particular constitution of which we speak, 2007. Straight up. We have a lot of lawyers locally and everyone is sitting back and waiting either for the error or waiting for an I told you so or thinking it does not matter,” Malone said.
Malone who is now a member of the Opposition noted that the public is likely to be more receptive to discussing certain issues when they are brought from the perspective of non-political figures or members of the community with whom they can relate and often share similar views and perspectives.
In effect, he said these speakers bring new perspectives and add value to the conversation which ultimately assists in ensuring that the resulting solutions meet the needs of a wider majority.