An MP on Thursday warned the world was going through major changes and Cayman would need to marshal all of its people to weather the storm.
Bodden Town West MP Christopher Saunders told Parliament that using the knowledge and experience of the 130 nationalities who lived in Cayman would help the country find its way through a “global reset”.
Saunders said almost half of the population had not been born in Cayman.
“Trying to pit 53% of Caymanians against 47% of Caymanians is not that solution,” Saunders said.
“We need to focus on the real solutions we have for our people.”
Saunders was speaking after former premier and political veteran MP McKeeva Bush tabled a private members’ motion to ask government to launch a “national awareness campaign” designed to promote pride in Cayman culture.
Saunders told the House that the last global reset was in 1945 after World War II.
But he said said the institutions set up in the wake of the conflict to try and ensure peace and prosperity were being “dismantled”.
He added, “There is nothing we in Cayman can do to stop that [global] reset because that is the way the world works.”
But Saunders said Parliament had a duty to “prepare Cayman for the changes that were coming” and to protect the distinct identity of the islands and the future of their people.
He added, “People complain about Caymanians feeling entitled. Where else should a Caymanian feel entitled?
“They should be entitled and I wish to God more Caymanians did feel entitled.”
Saunders said he had travelled widely and that Cayman remained one of the “best places to live and work” in the world.
He added that immigration had become a major political issue in North America and in Europe.
Saunders said, “For us, its very easy to go out and play on people’s fears and say ‘well, you know, your life is miserable and we’ve got foreigners to blame’.”
He added, “Anyone could take a look at Bermuda. I see this Bermuda video floating around where Bermuda, and let me tell you something … Bermuda got serious racial issues in Bermuda, between Black and white.
“But I’m also sympathetic to the people from Bermuda because you know what? There were in Bermuda places that you had the ‘white only’s. There were places in Bermuda where Black people couldn’t go.
“There were places in Bermuda where if you had land in several different districts, you could have voted multiple times because if you didn’t own land you couldn’t vote. So I do understand the Bermudian struggle.”
Opposition Leader Joey Hew, who backed the campaign proposal, said if “doors were closed to everyone” there would be no growth.
He highlighted his own background, which includes ancestors from China and Jamaica as well as from Cayman, and said that he backed the motion.
Hew said, “We here in the official opposition will support it.”
Katherine Ebanks-Wilks, who represents West Bay Central, said a national awareness campaign would “certainly foster a more inclusive society”.
She highlighted the controversy that erupted after Indigo Divers in West Bay posted on social media that Chris Alpers, one of the owners who has lived in Cayman for 30 years, had put up a gate to “keep the riff raff out and the fishermen off our dock”.
Ebanks-Wilks said the row underlined the need for a national awareness campaign to “educate the public”.
She added, “What I hope is that this campaign will encourage a better understanding among those who have migrated to the Cayman Islands”.
Ebanks-Wilks added it would help people to challenge “their own biases and cultivate empathy towards others”.
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