{"id":1313,"date":"2004-05-01T12:54:35","date_gmt":"2004-05-01T12:54:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/?p=1313"},"modified":"2015-05-17T12:54:54","modified_gmt":"2015-05-17T12:54:54","slug":"publisher-hopes-sekous-knighthood-encourages-more-to-write-deeply-and-creatively-about-st-martin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/2004\/05\/01\/publisher-hopes-sekous-knighthood-encourages-more-to-write-deeply-and-creatively-about-st-martin\/","title":{"rendered":"Publisher hopes Sekou\u2019s knighthood encourages more \u201cto write deeply and creatively\u201d about St. Martin"},"content":{"rendered":"

GREAT BAY, St. Martin <\/strong>(May 1, 2004) \u2014 On April 29, 2004, Lt. Gov. Franklyn Richards presented the St. Martin poet\/author Lasana M. Sekou with a knighthood that was conferred by Queen Beatrix of the Dutch kingdom on March 16, 2004.<\/p>\n

The royal decorations constitute the kingdom\u2019s highest national awards and are awarded annually for merit and outstanding community service in the Netherlands and in its remaining colonies in the Caribbean. \u201cWe hope that news of this award to Sekou for his work in the cultural field, especially in literature, will inspire more St. Martiners to write deeply and creatively about St. Martin,\u201d said Jacqueline Sample, president of House of Nehesi Publishers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis award could also encourage those who are writing or who have a book to continue putting more faith, time, and creativity in building the St. Martin literature by researching, writing, and getting their books published.\u201d Sekou is House of Nehesi\u2019s projects director and his own books are at the foundation of the small press that has published most of St. Martin\u2019s authors and at least three world-famous writers from the Caribbean and the USA.<\/p>\n

\u201cHouse of Nehesi would like to see more books not only about our culture and history, but also about the St. Martin experience in business, education, sports, law, government leadership, tourism, traditional and modern medicine, immigration, agriculture and animal husbandry, science and infrastructural development and so on,\u201d said Sample<\/p>\n

In media interviews following the royal decorations ceremony to the 12 St. Martiners at the Lt. Governor\u2019s Mansion in Little Bay, Sekou thanked Lt. Governor Richards, the territory\u2019s decorations committee (RODAC), which organizes the selection, nomination, and presentation process, and the Dutch sovereign that directs the approval and conferring process. The poet also congratulated his fellow recipients. Former St. Martin Lt. Gov. Dennis Richardson, with the award title of \u201cOfficer,\u201d was conferred the highest rank (of the three categories of awards for St. Martin this year) followed by three knights, and eight recipients of the medal of \u201cmember of the Order of Oranje-Nassau.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sekou said that he would continue writing about \u201cthe core cultural values of the St. Martin nation, about the unity and progress of the island and its people, the Caribbean liberation and integration process, and political independence for St. Martin.\u201d<\/p>\n

The poet \u201cdedicated\u201d the award to \u201cthe folks of my father\u2019s and mother\u2019s generation who sent us to school with that traditional sense of pride to do better for ourselves, our families, and for St. Martin but never to betray the St. Martin nation.\u201d There are now 37 people on record with the rank of knight in St. Martin (South), out of about 150 recipients of the Dutch royal decorations since 1954, when C.G. Buncamper received a \u201cMedal of Honor in Gold.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sekou sees the royal decorations today in St. Martin as \u201ca step\u201d to when \u201can independent St. Martin will have its own highest national award. Then the Netherlands\u2019 royal decorations and St. Martin\u2019s national award might be granted by each country to their own and each other\u2019s citizens in, for example, a category such as the promotion of friendship, cooperation, and cultural exchange between both sovereign nations based on mutual understand and coexistence.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GREAT BAY, St. Martin (May 1, 2004) \u2014 On April 29, 2004, Lt. Gov. Franklyn Richards presented the St. Martin poet\/author Lasana M. Sekou with a knighthood that was conferred by Queen Beatrix of the Dutch kingdom on March 16, 2004. The royal decorations constitute the kingdom\u2019s highest national awards and are awarded annually for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-2004"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1313"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1314,"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1313\/revisions\/1314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/houseofnehesipublish.com\/sxm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}