CARICOM'S COVID CO-MORBIDITIES

March 31, 2021

Nothing like a pandemic to expose brittle institutions, shatter developmental delusion, and test the mettle of leadership at all levels.

We’ve been here before. But not as independent states attempting to make our own way in the world, employing our own structures of governance.

Prof. David Killingray’s 1994 paper on The Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919 in the British Caribbean captures the nature and scale of the tragedy – 100,000 dead between October 1918 and March 1919.

Despite relatively centralised colonial rule at the top, the collective regional response was disparate and reliant on territorial peculiarities and preferences. Unilateralism prevailed. Uneven application of measures was the norm.

So, as a region we have a history of this sort of thing. The integration movement – even when directed by the colonials – was an attempt to address fragmented approaches to both issues of life and death and broader developmental aspirations, while recognising self-interest and individual will.

There is a lot more between this introduction and the conclusions I offer here, but that’s for the academics. This is a newspaper column.

So, we as a region have always been challenged by the fact that we do not represent a political or socio-cultural monolith. Successive reviews of the integration project have noted the anomalies. Much more than now dated recognition of MDCs and LDCs, developed and under-developed sectors, have been important socio-cultural dynamics.

Come now to a collective response to a pandemic, and there are lessons of 1918-1919 to be learned. As national governments, CARPHA, the Caricom Secretariat and other institutions realised early that coordinated COVID-19 management is no simple task. The “Caricom Bubble” never materialised, for example. The Gavi Vaccine Alliance, which informed the COVAX process, determined a hierarchy.

Not entirely unrelated to all this, are the co-morbidities of existing institutions that are expected to take us through a challenging, if not epochal period.

That said, I for one, consider news of Caricom’s passing to be wildly exaggerated – even coming from a politician of sturdy pedigree. It is unbelievable hyperbole to consider the OAS fiasco over Venezuela a matter of terminal significance.

Mr (not Dr) Gonsalves must have paid insufficient attention to Dr Gonsalves’ vast compendium of grandiloquent accolades supportive of a “maturation process of … Caribbean Civilisation.” It would however be tragically ironic if such a conclusion emerged from pandemic home schooling.

The fact is, Caricom was not found to be dead upon the arrival of the pandemic. Neither has it been lifeless against the geo-political challenge of a failed neighbouring state. It is in the nature of this business to disagree, and sometimes to even not wish each other well.

The EU assembles a group comprising people who once killed one another. The AU is hardly a pillar of internal peace. These arrangements all leave space for infidelity, separation, and even divorce. The Bahamas, Haiti and Jamaica know that very well.

All of this, though, is not to diminish Caricom’s pre-existing institutional ailments. I have contended, to the chagrin of some, that the Caricom Secretariat needs to substantially up its game. The transition in August to a new Secretary General provides an opportunity to begin the process. The required credentials, as I have said before, exceed bureaucratic competencies. Some potential contestants have emerged. I believe there is room for more aspirants.

There are also issues associated with two other key institutions – UWI and CWI. Now, don’t get me wrong. I still think that within the context of Caricom of 2021, these are two peripheral areas of regional engagement. More so, cricket, than the university. But they are important to us in most Caricom states.

It cannot be of comfort to anyone that the imbroglio over tidying things at UWI is now a hotbed of high-level gossip, rumour, and ad hominem attack. Lost in the debate is the fact that so many things about this institution are in desperate need of repair. I, for one, am paying absolutely no attention to platitude or fancy talk. Neither, I am certain, are most students, administrative staff, and faculty.

Look now at CWI – as I have said before, of virtually no significance to at least four of Caricom’s 15 member states, and of rapidly declining importance to people who never saw Clive Lloyd bat. Same thing.

In these pandemic times, co-morbidities matter. The institutions for joint action are not all healthy. But death is not an option.