A commitment to regionalism
Published:Friday | February 11, 2011 | 12:00 AM
David Jessop, Contributor
Over the last few weeks, I have had the opportunity to discuss with a wide range of Caribbean visitors their views on where the regional integration process is headed.
To a person, all were concerned that national self-interest and the absence of vision among leaders was pulling the Caribbean apart and removing any ambition for taking the regional project forward.
Instead of addressing how to share sovereignty and create a viable regional structure of governance that would ensure implementation of what was agreed, Caricom Heads were, they observed, now moving in the opposite direction despite their public rhetoric to the contrary.
Caribbean governments, they suggested, were looking at significantly cutting the regional secretariat's budget. This would mean the loss of key staff. Worse, Caricom was at or near its financial limits and governments that normally supported its cash flow in times of difficulty were seeking a reduction in their contribution. On top of this, the search for a new secretary general was getting nowhere. The original candidates had been distanced and there was an ominous silence surrounding what was now happening in relation to this key appointment.
Key challenges
Just as concerning for those I spoke with, was the fact that many of the key challenges facing the region that governments had previously sought to resolve, were making no progress. They cited as examples the absence of any collective response to the economic crisis the region has faced since the global banking system almost collapsed in 2008. Also, the failure, to date, to deliver a regional policy on food security, despite another impending crisis; and the inability to do more than add new layers of non-functional bureaucracy to regional governance in an attempt to deliver the Caribbean Single Market and Economy.
Although there were bright spots, such as the decision among the members of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States to come together in an economic union, their concern was that whatever might be agreed there, or elsewhere, might either idle or be set aside for further discussion.
Yet, what was interesting, despite this commonly shared gloomy prognosis, was a personal resolve on the part of each of my interlocutors on the need to achieve an integrated Caribbean. Their belief in the need for a single West Indian (anglophone Caribbean) space was undimmed by events; progress, they believed, had to be made, even though the ways in which this might come about were very hard to envisage at this time.
Coincidentally, our conversations took place as Sir Shridath Ramphal, the Caribbean's erudite elder statesman, was making an address in Grenada that explored this very subject, but in a broader and more fundamental manner. Giving the 10th Sir Archibald Nedd lecture, Sir Shridath chose as his theme, 'Is the West Indies West Indian?'
Sadly, as far as I can discover, there has been no significant Caribbean media coverage of what, by any standards, has to be one of the most moving, well-argued and challenging appeals for a renewed commitment to regional integration to have been made in the last decade. With eloquence, in beautiful English and with great clarity, Sir Shridath made clear that by falling into a state of disunity and failing to advance Caribbean integration, there will be a slow descent into an ending that will cause West Indian people to lose their identity.
His remarks ought to be required reading in all schools, colleges and universities across the region, and among those outside who care about the Caribbean's future. They are divided into three parts.
The first tries to place self-determination, separatism, integration and identity in an historical context. Sir Shridath argues that what is happening today is not an identity crisis but a failure to put the values of being Caribbean and a part of the West Indian family into practice. He welcomes any move to bring all West Indian people closer to governance through the infusion of their sense of regional identity and purpose into the integration process.
The second part uses the recent denial in some states, of a role for the Caribbean Court of Justice, as a manifestation of the turning away from regionalism and regional identity, and suggests that not only does this undercut the Treaty of Chaguaramas, but implies either a lack of confidence in Caribbean courts as the repositories of freedoms, or a desire that it should not be placed beyond national influence.
Third part
In the third part, Sir Shridath argues that the region has been touched by 'the siren song of sovereignty'. This, he believes, has diminished the Caribbean's standing in the world. By disowning one another, the nations of the region, he argues, will no longer be able to argue for unity when required of other developing nations.
It is in the final part of his remarks that the true weight of his argument appears.
It is not possible, in limited space, to do justice to this - his remarks need to be read in full - but just one quotation provides a sense of his deep concern about the future.
"The burden of my message is that we have become 'casual, neglectful, indifferent and undisciplined' in sustaining and advancing Caribbean integration: that we have failed to ensure that the West Indies is West Indian, and are falling into a state of disunity which, by now, we should have made unnatural. The process will occasion a slow and gradual descent - from which a passing wind may offer occasional respite; but, ineluctably, it will produce an ending."
"In Derek Walcott's recently published collection of poems, White Egrets, there are some lines which conjure up that image of slow passing:
"With the leisure of a leaf falling in the forest,
Pale yellow spinning against green - my ending."
Sir Shridath's concerns are matters worthy of deep reflection when Caribbean heads meet next in Grenada.
David Jessop is the director of the Caribbean Council and can be contacted at david.jessop@caribbean-council.org. Previous columns can be found at www.caribbean-council.org