Here is some food for thought, and it is long overdue. In Dominica, there is a strange, almost comical hypocrisy that plays out every day, and many do not even realize they are part of it. You see it in conversations, in passing remarks, in the suspicious glances directed at Diaspora Dominicans who decide to return home, to live, invest, and rebuild their lives here in the country of their birth.
It goes like this – the moment a Dominican, especially one educated abroad, chooses to return home for good, people ask the same tired question:
“Why did you come back to Dominica? You could have done so much better abroad.”
Let us sit with that for a moment. That single question, whether it is whispered with doubt or asked bluntly in conversation, says more about the state of Dominica and the failures of its leadership than a hundred political speeches ever could.
Because buried within that question is an uncomfortable, unspoken truth, even Dominicans themselves know the country is in a mess.
- They know life is hard.
- They know opportunities are scarce.
- They know this government has driven the economy into the ground, to the point where leaving feels like the only option for success, stability, and dignity.
And Yet, Here Comes the Hypocrisy.
The same people asking why someone would return to Dominica, knowing full well the country’s struggles, are often the first to defend the same government that created this environment. They will praise the leadership. They will parrot the slogans. They will attend the rallies. All while quietly admitting, through their skepticism, that things here are so bad, it is shocking to them when someone voluntarily comes home to live.
Imagine the nerve. Foreigners, people with no roots in Dominica, no ancestral ties, no deep personal connection, will question why a Dominican-born Diaspora returns to their own country. They will ask
“Why would you come back here when you coul have stayed in the UK, Canada, the US? Why not build your life over there?”
But rarely do they ask themselves why they are still here. Why do they not leave? Why do they remain in Dominica if it is supposedly so beneath someone to return? The answer is simple: even with all its problems, Dominica is home. For them, for us, for every Dominican, whether born on the island or abroad.
But let us not miss the point; this line of questioning reveals the cracks in the public narrative. If Dominica were thriving like St. Lucia, Hawaii, or the US Virgin Islands, no one would bat an eye when a Diaspora Dominican returned home. No one questions someone moving to a country with a booming economy, functioning healthcare, real job opportunities, and decent infrastructure. But here? They question it because they know the truth.
Dominica is Struggling. The Country is Crumbling Under Poor Leadership, Lack of Vision, and Economic Mismanagement.
And still, many of those same people questioning Diaspora Dominicans decision to come back will turn around and praise the very government that created this situation, the same government that chased away investment, taxed the people into poverty, sold passports to known criminals, and left entire communities behind.
It is a contradiction of epic proportions:
- You acknowledge the country’s decline by questioning why anyone would willingly return.
- But you praise and defend the leadership responsible for the decline.
It is laughable, if it were not so tragic.
Diaspora Dominicans return not because things are perfect, but because they believe in home. They believe in rebuilding. They believe Dominica can be better, despite the government’s failures, not because of them. But until more people stop living in this state of denial, defending poor leadership while quietly admitting through their doubts that the country is broken, we will stay trapped in this cycle.
Dominica deserves better. We deserve leadership that builds, not leadership that makes citizens feel like they have made a mistake by coming home.
So next time you feel the need to ask a returning Dominican why they are here, stop and reflect:
- Why is it so shocking when a child of this soil comes home?
- And why do you defend the same government that made it shocking?
The hypocrisy is obvious. The truth is unavoidable. The question now is, how much longer will we tolerate it?
Team DRP