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.
