Prosperity for posterity is the promise of the VI Customs Zone

Belongers only, Non-Belongers welcome

East end beach, St. Thomas

    I have another strategic element to add to the mix when considering creating the Virgin Islands Customs Zone: Autonomous Area. When the discussion begins in ernest and we sit down in our digital circle to figure out how to do this customs zone, we need to consider if becoming an autonomous area would be of benefit to us as Virgin Islanders.

   As I see it both the U.S. and British Virgin Islands could be seen as autonomous areas now. An autonomous administrative division is a subnational administrative division or internal territory of a sovereign state that has a degree of autonomy—self-governance—under the national government.

    According to Native News Online, Michigan has 12 tribes* currently recognized by the federal government. They are considered sovereign states within the larger state and therefore are also autonomous administrative divisions.

    When you ask, what benefit could it be to be an automous area within the United States, simply look at the sovereignity of these Indian tribes. It is more than the lure of casino money. In the USVI we have the right to create casinos now. It is more in the area of self-rule, Earth stewardship and the territory that entails.

    Indian tribes in the United States are growing in strength and importance and as they grow they reveal new patterns where other autonomous areas can thrive. Ours would be one of those. Currently, we are two autonomous areas connected in geography but disconnected by design. Divided we serve two masters when united we could have two masters serving us.

    As the Virgin Islands Customs Zone we are focused on import and export trade, but by creating the zone, we also create a governing standard which can be extended to social standards. The social standards in the British Virgin Islands are more restrictive than those in the US Virgin Islands as witnessed when you enter a BVI port of entry. There is a line for Belongers and another marked Non-Belongers. In the USVI there is no such standard.

    This is one area that could make an amalgamaton like this impossible. The standards of both territories are different  enough to be noticeble among individuals. In a crowd of brown-skinned Virgin Islanders you could not pick out the BV Islanders from the USV Islanders, but hear them talk, see them functioning among themselves and suddently they shape themselves into two different groups of people. Mixing them to form one would be the work of centuries, but there is no need of that to form the Virgin Islands Customs Zone, which seen as an autonomous administration division becomes a sovereign state within two nations Great Britain and the United States.

    The nexus of these two best of allies in the South Atlantic feels like the completion of something that didn’t know it needed to be completed. It’s a happy alliance on the macro and micro scale. The US and Great Britain will see themselves as parents of this child of which they are both responsible. And as you know, the strangest bed fellows will stay together if just for the sake of the children. So in this way, creating the Virgin Islands Customs Zone is a bond of peace between two already well-bonded nations.

    What would it do for us and how it will work is part of the fun of creation. It’s the discovery of what we have and the shaping of it. What if, for instance, we were to create it so the VI Customs Zone was the only place to repatriot US Foreign Corporation profits. (That’s trillions of dollars, mehsahn.) The USVI has the experience of the FSC evolution, giving them 37 years of dealing with US corporations’s foreign sales, and the BVI has one of the best international business statues in the world, or did last time I looked. Amalgamate that experience and knowledge into one Virgin Islands Customs Zone and we secure our own prosperity for posterity independent of both parent countries.

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