Transcript:
This is Bonaire Bulletin, I am Arjen de Wolff.
Those looking for a case study in arbitrary government needn’t look much further than the shorelines of Playa Forn’i Kalki, or: Bachelor’s Beach, as it is known by most non-Papiamentu speakers; one of the few remaining, freely accessible public beaches.
Until one day, yesterday in fact, it wasn’t anymore.
Bonaire is by no means a unique place, as far as public administrations without any principle, plan or process go, but as of late, in Kralendijk, policy and politics are best described as distant cousins.
And currently, they are not on speaking terms.
A politician’s easy slippage between rhetoric and reality is as unsurprising as, say, our own incurable incapability to elect representatives who, for once, prove us wrong when we vote, but expect nothing.
We all appear increasingly impervious to the distinction between fiction and facts, and elected officials are more than happy to oblige our inclinations because, after all, that’s how a market works: supply and demand.
And when it comes to elections, democracy is a market just like any other.
But markets need not turn into bazaars, where cajoling and chaffering are the rule rather than the exception, and where any logical relation between price and product is purely coincidental.
Some 5 years ago, in 2017, the then ruling coalition decided it might be a good idea to institute some form of organized management of Bonaire’s public beaches.
To keep things tidy, safe, and generally pleasant.
Not a particularly contentious thought, of course, and a decision that, according to government documentation, should have led to the writing up of a viable management plan, and the drawing up of a list of public beaches that might benefit from the idea:
Two fairly uncomplicated follow-up steps that any systematically operating government should be able to complete.
So, of course: they weren’t.
Instead, out of the public eye, subsequent commissioners and civil servants zeroed in exclusively on Bachelor Beach. For years, building volumes were considered, architects sketched designs, and construction companies submitted cost quotations.
What didn’t happen was: comprehensive plan making, open dialogue on the future of Bonaire’s public beaches, transparent and accountable balancing of different interests, or any meaningful communication with the general public.
What also didn’t happen was: proper construction permitting. Because why bother with distractions like procedure or the rule of law.
Amongst the many growing pains the island of Bonaire has been experiencing since 2010, is the reinvention of the contract between its government, and its ever expanding citizenry.
The case of Bachelor’s Beach might look like a trifle to some. And it would be, of course, if only it was the one exception to the rule; and not so emblematic an example of generally inadequate stewardship.
As the size of both population and economy rapidly increase, the competition between diverging interests naturally follows suit.
The fight for every inch of space on the island hasn’t even reached the end of the first inning yet. This is lost on no one on the ball field; except, it seems, on the referees: those that make decisions in the general interest.
Lamentably though, the referees appear to be the very last ones to come to grasp with the simple fact that Bonaire has become too complicated and too commercially attractive to be left at the mercy of short term, incidental, transactional politicking.
Few people enjoy untying the Gordian Knot that Bonaire’s various growing pains have become. So perhaps it’s understandable that Bonaire’s elected officials also prefer addressing each particular predicament on the fly, instead of taking a more systematic approach.
But there are some Gordian Knots that should not require an Alexander the Great.
A government that surprises its citizens by organizing the dumping of building materials on the endangered species that centrally located public beaches have become, without the right permissions in place, without meaningful external engagement, should not be surprised by public outrage, nor by the consequences of the one system that functions still: democracy.
For Bonaire Bulletin, this was Arjen de Wolff.
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