The perils of pessimism

Part 1

Today’s headline has been borrowed from a Foreign Affairs magazine article published last week. In it, Daniel W. Drezner examined shifting poles of global power and influence and explored grounds for hope - presumably by all concerned – in the face of general gloom.

And though I propose to explore far more parochial concerns, I thought Drezner’s headline and essential arguments contained sufficient guidance for a nuanced examination of the prospects for our Caribbean region.

The first has to do with our awkward engagement of prevailing global realities. More accomplished voices on this issue are not often heard, resident as they are on the outer margins of our news agendas. So, some of the rest of us are compelled to weigh in.

The fact is, we have nowhere to go as solitary small states subject to the turbulent vagaries of natural, historical, and geo-political challenges to sustainability and survivability.

Jamaica just learned this lesson at the Commonwealth. All of us also looked on at the diplomatic flaccidity that followed prior vigour ahead of the LA Summit of the Americas.

Count on the indomitable Antigua and Barbuda diplomat Ron Sanders, though, to find shine on the other side of the cricket ball.

Even more than being “worth attending” (as his recent column on the SOA concluded) Sanders argues that the personal attention of President Biden to “candid, hard truths” jointly expressed by Caribbean leaders, provided grounds for positivity and optimism. Herein, a lesson in collective endeavour.

This segues roughly into a seemingly unrelated point I really need to make, but which fits the requirements of today’s headline.

Part 2

Much of our pessimism – and there is no denying that there is – resides in the fact of ill-equipped leadership in almost all sectors - the private sector, civil society, and glaringly in politics.

Fact: There is no substantial qualitative difference between the private and public sectors, in most of our countries, when it comes to the requirements of digital transformation and the guidance to take us there.

People are still lining up in sun and rain, having multiple visits to the same offices, being refused service in the absence of paper, and deprived of access to routine services because digital natives, and the mindsets they bring, are being denied their rightful leadership positions.

Resistance to pessimism succeeds whenever we consider the presence of a generation of innovators and thinkers who currently thrive in their own small spaces right here in the Caribbean. If you believe there is a “lost generation” of young people, you are being wilfully blind.

Part 3

The politics have evoked conflicting emotions on this question. More appropriately identified as elections and special events machineries, most of the region’s political parties are otherwise functionally moribund.

There is little, if any, systematic political education, no succession planning, and a philosophical pragmatism rooted in an absence of belief in and commitment to anything.

That some elders now consider themselves worthy of reactivation to assist equally signals their own past failures as it does a sense of contemporary hopelessness.

Even so, this is no cause to yield to dark pessimism. I looked at the recent election in Grenada (the runup to which was unpardonably ignored by too many of us in the media) and the emergence of 44-year-old Dickon Mitchell. He reminded me, during the brisk campaign, of our own Farley Augustine (36) – young, precocious, and bright.

I thought of the emergence of the other under-60s – Mia Mottley (57), Andrew Holness (49), Irfaan Ali (42), Roosevelt Skerritt (50), and Timothy Harris (58).

Whatever their current popularity/predicaments – Harris is barely clinging to office, Holness is embattled, and Skerritt is already into a fourth consecutive term – there are benefits to be derived from the fact that they were all born after the first wave of independence movements in the Caribbean.

By sharp contrast, the septuagenarians of T&T, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and up to last week, Grenada, need to understand that there must come a time when they decide to step aside.

Of course, it’s not just a matter of age. But vintage is a double-edged sword. The political scientists should spend a lot less time sneakily picking sides and explain this to us.

There is a pessimism that’s setting in that has, as a main component, the growing irrelevance of our political leadership.

In each of the three scenarios, there is the peril of pessimism. Hope only emerges when we honestly confront them.