What pan means

So, it’s Steelpan Month 2025. It’s worth our while to remember this in these rather dark times during which self-confidence is frequently challenged.

Pan, you see, is among the great hopes of T&T in ways not easily recognisable to the recently introduced, uninitiated, or wholly ignorant. It fully deserves its place on our coat of arms, if not in all our hearts.

Scan this newspaper space over the years and note such emphasis in defiance of the lure of seasonal compulsion and expressions of surprise by occasional panyard tourists who argue about Panorama rules and results.

“When the oil is gone,” I asked the late Keith Smith as we walked along Independence Square sometime in 1985/86, “what else do we have to keep us going?” His response was an unintelligible grunt.

Some years later, I was seated on a plane next to a T&T government advisor on energy matters. I asked him the same question I had asked Keith. “For as long as the planet is viable, there will always be oil and gas,” he responded. Full stop.

I have told this story numerous times before partly to dismiss a notion of sudden revelation, novelty, or my own sudden realisation of pan as an important component of our developmental path.

The other motivation has always been to stress the instrument’s value beyond the beauty of music delivered – however much this is subject to matters of taste. Yes, you are fully entitled not to like pan music. But it’s more than the music.

Even so, if we wished to dwell on the point of the music alone, we could also speak about the industry and genius that reside behind the quality of music produced by our national instrument.

My son, Mikhail, has directed a soon to be launched video documentary on the life of musician Jit Samaroo as part of the Iconography series by Pomegranate Studios. View it and have this point indelibly engraved in your mind.

If you have been paying attention, you would have also noted that there is no shortage of commentary and debate on this aspect of the steelpan phenomenon – the music. But it’s still not enough.

Last week, I came across a video produced by social media content creator, Tisha Greenidge (@tisha.t.tish on Instagram), featuring young pannists of Arima Angel Harps and Diatonic Pan Academy responding to questions about what pan means to them.

Yes, this appears to have been meant mainly for the converted who will have little trouble understanding, but if you are curious about the subject of pan’s socio-cultural value, make sure you have a look.

Kim Johnson’s Illustrated History of Pan explores the question differently in its chapter on Tomorrow’s People, Von Martin’s Voices of Pan Pioneers muses retroactively, Patrick Roberts’ Iron Love sees pan in art via Desperadoes, and numerous others have explored the subject at different levels. But young Greenidge’s young pannists get straight to the point of what pan means or can mean to people.

Spending time among young participants of the Birdsong Vacation Music Camp last week  helped stress the point to me that the habit of saying we should use pan to keep young people occupied and out of trouble is to completely misunderstand its place in the world of music and culture.

Birdsong Academy music director, Derrianne Dyett, made the point that music education is valuable in areas outside of its worth in producing creative content. We have witnessed this in the way children from a variety of backgrounds interacted positively with each other at the camp, and the keenness with which they engaged otherwise tedious tasks.

The attributes displayed are not all unique to the steelpan. For example, last week’s concert by the Youth Philharmonic was also full of love.

I have been following young people and their music for years now and seen it repeatedly. Music has a way of doing that. But the steelpan which emerged post-emancipation as an act and enduring symbol of defiance against gigantic odds reaches even further.

So, yes, I am one of numerous advocates for monetising and realising somewhat latent economic value in pan via unique high-quality expertise, intellectual property, and our status as the Global Mecca of Pan. But there are other qualities not always recognised.

Ms Greenidge asked: “What is the first word that comes to mind when you think about pan?” Hear them: “vibe”, “courage”, “unity”, “expression”, “journey”, “dance”, “connection.”

Pause for a moment and think about anything else we do here that comes close to matching this. It’s Steelpan Month. No better time to focus on this question.

 

The tripartite illusion

In small economies such as ours in the Caribbean, there are bound to be anomalies in the formal arrangements designed to achieve industrial peace, and ensuing wealth generation, involving workers, employers, and the state.

In many instances, therefore, tripartite arrangements reflect multiple points of duality. The state remains a major direct and indirect employer in most states. Workers’ representatives are declining in status especially with a growing majority of workers employed in the informal, non-unionised sector, and through new investments that include no such compulsion.

There is also routinised reliance by private sector actors on the state as a client and/or financial benefactor in one form or another.

This does not render a notion of “tripartism” an overly tidy prospect. The globalised template does not sit easily with our reality. This subject came to mind because of two experiences overshadowed by recent political shenanigans here.

The first thought was inspired by the participation of Labour Minister Leroy Baptiste at the 113^th Session of the International Labour Conference in Geneva in June. The second came during the brief visit of ILO Director-General Gilbert F. Houngbo to POS in April.

Baptiste is not, of course, the first politician emerging from active duty in trade unionism to occupy such a post and to be exposed to and made to address the tripartite question on a global stage. It is also not the first time that the state as a direct/indirect employer is occupying the public space in politically inconvenient ways.

The withdrawal of organised labour as a decisive player in the industrial relations world is also nothing new. Unions now represent just about 25% of the working population in T&T. So, there was Minister Baptiste – minus the open nuance of dual status – pledging to “re-establish and revitalise the national tripartite body to improve our dialogue with labour bodies”.

That was June. Let’s see how that goes. Before that, in April, the ILO office in POS responded to questions I had posed to DG Houngbo by pointing to declining trust among the main players and implications for the socio-economic well-being of our countries.

Almost everywhere you go, the ILO argues, economic and political instability is disrupting jobs and breaking down trust between workers, employers, and governments. The Caribbean hasn’t escaped that impact, and if you look closely, we are probably experiencing the worst of it.

Suriname, Belize, and Guyana are strengthening their tripartite bodies. Barbados, during and after the pandemic, also used its long-standing Social Partnership to manage major decisions - from job protection to tax reform. Yet there is, instructively, little acknowledgment on the ground in these countries of these officially declared achievements.

Social dialogue, comprising the three main players -  and I would add the unrepresented working class as a fourth and distinct constituency - is near total collapse in most of our countries. Some of this is due to the duality of interests as is the case in T&T – largely expressed as the state as - presumably but not reliably - a significant, benevolent employer.

There is also the state as sole/main provider when it comes to social protections. My concern is that the unrepresented cohort employed in the burgeoning informal sector is particularly victimised by the absence of institutionalised dialogue on such matters.

There has been a longstanding thrust aimed at the micro and small enterprise sector to encourage entry into the world of formal business. But it appears that the cultural bars to this have overwhelmed the institutional processes.

By this I mean that even as this sector is increasing in importance and, in a sense was a pandemic lifeline, our systems of governance continue to marginalise the associated enterprises.

Meanwhile, informality is weakening labour protections, dampening tax revenue, and undermining sustainable growth. In this respect, the ILO is suggesting that governments have not done nearly enough to tackle this.

Policies to shift workers and businesses into the formal economy are weak. Even worse, numerous registered companies are now relying more on temporary, unstable contracts that blur the line between formal and informal work.

There have been efforts by the T&T Chamber and other business groups, but these are yet to reach the level at which a broader embrace is achieved. The current administration would do well to pay much closer attention.

In the meantime, real, non-farcical, multipartite social dialogue awaits. We are nowhere near this in T&T. Trade unionists in power have never made a real difference, have they?

 

A constitution and voices on pause

Last Saturday’s T&T Guardian provided a fair, well-informed synopsis of our experience with states of public emergency since 2011. It’s worth reading. Get a copy and keep it for future reference.

For some of us, lived experience reaches back more than 55 years though. For a few, it begins in 1937 amid labour unrest. If we take the time to consider the objective circumstances distinguishing each episode, we can begin to unravel both their intent and outcomes and assess their appropriateness … as is the current challenge of 2025.

Sadly, there’s been little from academia or the legal field stepping up to help us make empirical sense of it all - the history, contexts, and now all 12 pages of the 2025 Emergency Powers Regulations (EPR).

Believe me, I’ve been scanning news and social media pages since last Friday for independent, informed expert commentary. It’s been rough going.

That word again - “independent” - a status viewed with suspicion in these times of single-message partisanship and punished with derision and scorn.

Even the newspaper columns by “independent” voices we ought to hear have been disturbingly absent or distracted - perhaps (if I were to be mean) wary of gratuitous official disfavour or the withholding of reward.

So, it fell to journalists last Saturday to outline the basics and to stimulate dormant awareness. For those of us particularly attuned to human rights issues, and justifiably disturbed whenever they arise, there’s also the recognition of deeper psychosocial consequences that transcend politics and ideology.

Because emergency powers are not experienced equally, not all of us felt touched by the turmoil of 1970. For many, it “had nothing to do with us … we not in that.”

Same for 1990. I remember radio callers wondering why there was such national alarm about something “only happening up north.” One person asked about a pizza competition; others chose peaceful slumber while the country was under siege - a mere “family quarrel” for some.

Then came 2011 and 2021 - differing in both intent and effect. The latter aligned more closely with Section 8(b) of the Constitution - “pestilence or (of) infectious disease.” The former far more tenuously linked to 8(c) involving “public safety.”

Had those with the skills and time occupied the crease, they might by now have provided useful comparative analyses of the 2011 and 2021 regulations versus the 2024 EPR - whose tone chillingly echoed 2011 and set off alarm bells for the rights-conscious among us.

As someone invested in freedom of expression, I note that even in the absence of explicit curfews, bans on assembly, or free movement, such prohibitions can be easily imposed.

For example, EPR 12(a) allows for the seizure and interrogation of computers and electronic devices – through state-sanctioned “home invasions.” And if, by some stretch, this very column is deemed able to “influence public opinion in a manner prejudicial to public safety” (EPR 11), I could find myself in trouble that ordinary law does not routinely cover – as target of a regulatory “drive by.”

This isn’t all theoretical. We had objected to such broad surveillance powers when the Data Protection Act was being shaped. And yes, we still retain seditious communication provisions under the Sedition Act. See where I’m going?

None of this suggests that we don’t face serious threats from organised or random criminal violence. Or that plots of all kinds don’t exist. The Police Commissioner does not appear to readily engage in fiction. But I thought that was why legislation has become increasingly draconian over the years – for the PC and his charges to go after the culprits.

We have Anti-Gang legislation, an Anti-Terrorism Act, a vast suite of criminal law, and ongoing security operations - all presumably capable of disrupting prison-based criminal conspiracies, detecting and dealing with planned political assassinations, intercepting illegal arms, and even preventing missile-launcher threats on government buildings.

But even these measures come with their own baggage: concerns about due process, excessive penalties, and infringements on property rights, mobility, and speech.

That’s why people have questioned the justification for the emergency measures in 2011, 2024, and 2025. For some, this applied to 1970, 1990, and 2021, which many such as I saw as far more consistent with constitutional intentions.

One major challenge in unpacking all this is the uneven impact on different communities and interests - and how perspectives shift depending on political alignment. Some find nothing wrong with 2025 but objected to 2024. Others who opposed 1970 are now cheering on 2025.

People without even one cocoa bean in either a rising or setting sun might be few and far between, but we don’t seem to be hearing their voices in the present din.

The digital gap

So, here I am yet again - digitalisation and technology and our refusal as a nation to embrace prospective benefits.

If you have been following this constant refrain over the years (no, I was not silent about it “for nine and a half years”) you would know that I have been consistently calling out the gross negligence.

I have not been alone, and I won’t call any other name but that of my media colleague, Mark Lyndersay, who has repeatedly (and in vain) pointed to the shortcomings in our own embattled sector and the penalties we have already begun to pay.

So, this is not about everybody else except us. All ah we falling short. As a sexagenarian journalism educator, I am also acutely mindful of the fact that the current digital generation is eons ahead of the outgoing analogue ruling class but pay a heavy price through derision and scorn for their psycho-social assets.

This is particularly so when those in charge are called upon to grasp the requirements of tools associated with intelligent automation, of which generative AI is but one component.

Routinely and incorrectly described as “AI,” intelligent automation is the banner under which much of current technical innovation resides, including “AI”, machine learning, and data analytics.

I am employing time and space to get to the point, because decision-makers often appear ignorant of the fact that discrete tools of significant value are not standalone features of the process of automation.

Past understanding of this has meant that there are no government ministries of hammers and screwdrivers. We have had, instead, ministries and agencies charged with developing specific infrastructure – houses, roads, and buildings – the end products or aspirations.

In the current context, the world has also gone beyond basic mechanisation, electrification, and early digital automation. Enter 70-year-old “artificial intelligence” as an enhanced tool of automation with generative capacity, but not as an end in itself.

See where I’m going with this technology thing? As a related aside, let me point to one of my several peeves. It’s Wednesday today, and by now I would have completed a silly little form presented to exiting air travellers.

It is a form minus a field I have had to use my pen to complete because somebody in authority, and lacking self-esteem, thought that this piece of paper needs the expiry date on my passport (which is already right there in my airline booking, by the way … and on the passport you just swiped on your machine!!!).

If I had the space here, you have been able to see (on an AI-generated diagram I have created) where that piece of paper resides along the evolutionary chain of automated processes. This is like driving a steam-powered car. Watching TV without a remote. Calculating a bill with an abacus.

If it is of any comfort, we are not the only ones finding comfort lodged in the sewer line of the obsolete. In fact, there are other countries that (legitimately) have the arguments of limited virtual and power infrastructure, prohibitive costs, socio-cultural obstacles, language constraints, and systemic economic circumstances that prohibit progress to new levels.

Then there are those, like us, that trail behind on account of glaring policy and regulatory gaps, trust deficits particularly by those in charge, and resistance to change by key operatives.

I happen to believe the latter condition applies both to the state and private sectors. We should all by now be brutally aware of the attractive digital facades that skilfully mask manual backends … complete with pens, pencils, and paper.

It is thus not encouraging in the context of all of this, to hear of what appear to be belated learnings, leading to official excitement, on the need for “technology” in policing, or that “national identification” is to be deployed in their current static manifestations as an instrument to assist in monitoring citizen activity. 

The thing is, that for official policy to be data-driven and scientific in the modern era, there needs to be a high number of readily available, digitally generated datasets focused on the issue being addressed. Or else all you have is vaps and arbitrariness … or the least reliable quality of all – political intuition compulsively subject to folly and prejudice.

So, yes, there is a connection between our general tardiness when it comes to engaging technological transitions, and decision-making based on reliable, scientific information.

If you are catching my drift, this is all linked to the form they hand you on the plane upon your return. It’s also relevant to the mysterious gap between 21 and 25-year-olds. Think about it. Please!

Rickey, Roy, and Hans

At the time of writing, one prime minister, one president, the Caricom Secretariat, and dozens of journalists, public officials, politicians, and development experts have paid tribute to Caribbean journalist Rickey Singh.

He will be laid to rest in Barbados a week from now, but his 65 years in journalism have cemented his place in the Caribbean public space.

Barbados 2011

His daughter Wendy has led the effort to organise and lodge his extensive archives at UWI Cave Hill - a task that reveals the magnitude of Rickey’s remarkable accomplishments. He was born on Monday February 1, 1937 in rural Canal 2 Polder, to a young couple who bore no surnames.

His father, Pharsadie, died when Rickey was just two months old. His mother, Dudhia (known as Jessie), passed when he was about eight or nine. Rickey’s birth certificate simply listed him as “Ramotar.”

Jessie is remembered as a youthful agitator for fair pay and transport for women farmers, since only men were transported to the fields. She died young but appeared to have left Rickey with the conviction that effective advocacy could bring about meaningful change.

He entered journalism at 17, and his early promise was such that the publishers of the Graphic newspaper, the Thompson Fleet, sent him to the University of Indiana to hone his skills. During political unrest in in Guyana in 1974, they relocated him to England, but he felt strongly that his family could not thrive in a society that viewed them as “less than what they are” and he returned to the Caribbean.

Fast forward to the late 1970s. My grand uncle, Rev. Roy Neehall - my grandmother’s youngest brother - would frequently mention “Rickey” during our talks about a possible writing career. Uncle Roy eventually made the connection, and Caribbean Contact, then edited by Rickey, became one of my first freelance platforms.

Uncle Roy also played a pivotal role in introducing me to the late, great Hans Hanoomansingh, who, like Rickey, passed away last Saturday. Three men - Rickey, Hans, and Roy - different in many ways, but united by an unwavering pursuit of what they believed to be just and right.

Uncle Roy, a so-called “left-wing” Presbyterian Moderator and later General Secretary of the Caribbean Conference of Churches who died suddenly in 1996, was deemed a troublemaker by some.

Hans, who was not a radical by any means but an effective change agent, often spoke of his admiration for Uncle Roy, and some claimed their voices were almost indistinguishable. Our conversations invariably circled back to visits to the Neehall home in Trinidad and Canada.

When we worked together at Radio 610, I asked both Hans and management why his brand of East Indian musical content wasn’t more present in “mainstream” programming. That dream materialised at 103.1 FM, which he helped pioneer with media visionary Dik Henderson years later. It was the country’s first 100% East Indian radio station. Hans later launched Heritage Radio with a broader programming range.

Rickey’s name would come up now and then in our conversations, but my own professional journey eventually brought me closer to the Guyanese journalist. I’ve often described him as a “journalistic father,” shaped by a rugged work ethic and prolific output.

When I was offered the post of PRO at the Caricom Secretariat, I was told that Rickey’s endorsement had helped seal the deal - such was his influence. He had already carved a reputation as leader of a formidable corps of Caricom Summit regulars: Canute James and Hugh Croskill from Jamaica, Peter Richards from Radio Antilles/CANA/CMC, Bert Wilkinson of Guyana, and Andy Johnson, Clevon Raphael, and Sharon Pitt from T&T.

We all marvelled at his command of the issues and the passion with which he engaged contemporary regional issues in every field of endeavour.

One of these days I will recount the heartbreak of 2021-2023, when Rickey, gravely ill, tried to resettle in T&T. I have the receipts. It was a sobering chapter that reinforced my belief that his deep love for the Caribbean was not always reciprocated. Experiences in his homeland, Guyana, together with Barbados, and T&T feature in a complicated tale supportive of this view.

But his voice endures - etched into the region’s memory as a relentless chronicler of Caribbean life and politics, shaped by hardship, and sustained by purpose.

If a common resting place for those who have served well does indeed exist (as all three believed), there is most likely now an interesting confab comprising Roy, Hans, Rickey and others reflecting on how the place we occupy can be made better.

Haiti - the regional limit

Even as it’s true that Caricom has not taken as much public credit for its current efforts for and concern over Haiti, that country’s systemic difficulties have always been beyond the reach of the regional grouping.

Yet, fully expect a painfully sincere declaration and recommitment to assist (even more) when the Caricom Summit closes in Montego Bay next week.

I don’t believe there is anything particularly hypocritical about all this, except that our limitations are not always fully acknowledged and the language of migrant rights in all our states too often closely resembles what is accompanying ethnic purges elsewhere - near and far.

The fact is this goes way beyond the frequent, poetic refrain of “Haiti I’m sorry.” When emotions reach the point of tangible intervention to change objective circumstance reality can sometimes hit you squarely and firmly on the nose, as it has in this case.

Between provisional Caricom membership in 1998 and the full embrace of 2002, I truly believe there was every intention by regional family of making a critical difference in the lives of Haitian people.

Back in the mid-90s then Jamaican prime minister PJ Patterson and others had led eloquent expression of a process to widen the integration movement and this helped open a welcoming institutional door to Haiti.

I happened to be in Port-au-Prince as part of a Caricom mission that followed US-led Operation Uphold Democracy in 1994 and the eventual return of forcibly exiled president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

I recognised then, there was always cause to be “sorry”, but that the depths of multi-layered crisis require the might of guns and troops and global influence but only alongside the kind of rehabilitative effort that emerges from within. Fixed templates of interventionist rescue are woefully inadequate.

Today, there is little to suggest that a turnaround from the deadly momentum set in train with the assassination of Jovenel Moïse in 2021 is anywhere near the horizon. Even diplomatic temperance, evidenced as fraternal wrist-tapping and regret within Caricom, is being withheld by other international groupings including the OAS and the UN.

For example, UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk was minded, via UN dispatch less than a week ago, to exclaim that “the human rights crisis in Haiti has plummeted to a new low” – as if it were conceivable that violent mayhem could plumb depths beyond the kind of fatal despair witnessed over decades.

And what is this current reality? This cause for the deepest concern? Since 2021, the reach of militant insurgency (expressed publicly as the work of “gangs”) has expanded beyond Port-au-Prince.

It is estimated that more than 1.3 million people have been internally displaced (not including those externally displaced and ritualistically turned back at sea and by air by neighbours to the north and south).

The UN Human Rights Office estimates that at least 2,680 people were killed between January 1 and May 30, including 54 children. True, this does not match the 17,000 plus babies and children slaughtered in Gaza or the numbers being tallied in the conflict in Sudan. But this is in our neighbourhood and among regional family.

Antigua and Barbuda’s US/OAS diplomatic representative, Ron Sanders (who is not widely known for pulling his punches) has been consistent in addressing the hemispheric imperatives of the Haitian “maelstrom” and recently hinted at geo-politically motivated indifference.

He pointed to the fact that “(t)he United Nations Security Council has repeatedly renewed the mandate of the Kenya-led Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission to support Haiti’s stabilisation efforts.”

However, as Sanders argues, “China and Russia - two of the five veto powers in the Security Council - have opposed the idea, arguing that peacekeepers are meant to maintain peace, not combat urban crime or rescue dysfunctional states.”

Sanders’ observation said aloud what the recent meeting of the Caricom Council for Foreign and Community Relations (COFCOR) politely refused to publicly address in its May 9 conference communiqué.

Meanwhile, the Caricom-inspired Presidential Transition Council (CPT), even in the words of COFCOR, is now subject to “growing mistrust.” Such a condition is of the deadly variety and, in a sense, indicates an inability to effectively excavate internal political resilience and accompanying mechanisms to activate it.

Caricom’s Eminent Persons Group (EPG) on Haiti comprises seasoned hands and heads and their most recent initiatives require broad support, but optimism is running understandably thin.

Respectfully, though, the region’s support for Haiti does not amount to zero and needs to continue in some fashion, but it has clearly reached its limit.

 

Stubborn integration memories

Former Saint Lucia Prime Minister Allen Chastanet recently floated the idea of the withdrawal of OECS states from some Caricom arrangements in favour of bilateral deals with T&T, Jamaica, and Guyana.

Citing persistent inequities, Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, Dr Ralph Gonsalves, has meanwhile suggested that leaving the Caricom Single Market should be "on the table."

While neither leader expressed firm commitments to such views, these positions echo a growing global trend away from multilateralism toward transactional, bilateral relations. It’s a shift that trades shared risk and mutual benefit for supposed national gain, often employing short-term logic.

In the Caribbean, this trend overlaps with rising internal tensions over external pressures. There is no clear consensus on Venezuela. We’re divided in our responses to American global policy. And our positions on Gaza have been painfully uneven.

Still, none of this is especially new. Caribbean integration has always had its challenges. For instance, the years of revolutionary Grenada, 1979 to 1983, were among the toughest tests. Yet ours is not the only integration movement under pressure. Many, if not most, such projects across the world are faltering.

Since hearing these recent suggestions of retreat and surrender, I have been unable to take the 1991 Regional Constituent Assembly (RCA) of the Windward Islands out of my mind. That watershed effort, involving Dominica, Grenada, Saint Lucia, and St Vincent and the Grenadines, was an honest, open attempt to deepen sub-regional integration. It brought together government, opposition, and civil society in serious, structured dialogue.

Regrettably, we’ve rarely returned to that moment. The Caricom 2003 Rose Hall Declaration dissected "regional governance," but failed to achieve tangible follow-through over the long term and is ironically being referenced in promotion of next month’s Caricom summit in Jamaica.

The RCA, in some respects, matched the far more structured and celebrated West Indian Commission (WIC) consultations on the future of the integration, which were launched the following year. The spirit of the RCA arguably inspired the now-defunct Assembly of Caribbean Community Parliamentarians (ACCP), promisingly launched in 1994.

What made the RCA unique was its inclusiveness. It brought together ruling and opposition parties, alongside civil society. Even at that time, despite the complicated relationship between the OECS and wider Caricom, progress at the OECS level was often described as being ahead of the larger group.

Today, 34 years later, Dr Gonsalves - who in 1991 was leader of his country’s youngest and smallest party (Movement for National Unity) – has since run St Vincent and the Grenadines under a Unity Labour Party banner for over two decades. Dr Kenny Anthony, who served as an RCA advisor, became Prime Minister of Saint Lucia and remains a sitting MP. Even Dr Vaughan Lewis, then OECS Director-General, briefly became Prime Minister of Saint Lucia.

The RCA considered bold ideas, including a federal executive presidency and deeper institutional integration. Today, one of its authors wants detachment “put on the table.” Perhaps these leaders have privately referenced the RCA’s final report. If so, those reflections have not been shared publicly.

To some, invoking RCA memories may seem remote or irrelevant in light of the recent 77th OECS Authority summit held in St Vincent and persistent comments from elsewhere in the region. But I think it matters.

The current crisis of regional communication only adds to the problem. Caricom’s well-known “communication gap” (my words) has helped fuel public indifference and ignorance. Declining commitment to and from reliable legacy media, combined with amateurish and unidirectional use of social media by regional institutions, has made things worse.

Social media is often cited as the answer, but such communication isn’t just about YouTube videos or static posts and dispatches, it’s about meaningful dialogue, strategy, and expertise. And yes, we do have professionals in the system who know how to do it. They should be leading this work.

The fact is we are not going to social media our way out of this malaise. Reaching people where they are - in their own spaces, on their terms - will take much more than social media content dumps. Perhaps a revived ACCP or a Caribbean constituent assembly could help rekindle the serious, people-centred dialogue we need.

That’s the kind of stubborn memory we need right now. One that pushes us to remember what regionalism can look like – rough around the edges but effective and promising. Caricom leaders should bear this in mind when they meet in Jamaica, July 6 to 8.

Because at the moment, very little is happening to inspire the confidence we urgently need in something indispensable to everything between survival and prosperity.