In case we were ever inclined to forget,
Hurricane Beryl announced the dramatic start of a predictable, annual scramble
for Caribbean survival much earlier than has been recorded in an exceptionally
long time.
This diminishes (or perhaps reinforces),
through immediacy, the broader metaphor of fragile socio-economic persistence
because at stake are lives and livelihoods and other assets that assure
viability in the face of extreme vulnerability.
Time to painfully recall the admonition of
a young Kittitian student in Jamaica angrily moved by my suggestion that there
objectively exists no real reason why some countries of our region consider
themselves sufficiently impregnable to declare a notion of sovereignty.
Every single year, you see, we are
confronted by the threat of devastation and the need to rebuild ahead of
another interminable round of potential destruction. In some instances,
elsewhere, human conduct in the form of violence and political instability
exists as ultimately manageable traits.
We can end wars, intervene in conflicts,
stand in solidarity against atrocities and help bring perpetrators to justice,
even across borders. We can learn to negotiate and to understand each other
better and punish those who thrive on violence and disruption. However hopeless
may currently appear the plights of Palestinians, the Sudanese, Rohingya there
have been paths traced by Rwanda, Cambodia, Bosnia which indicated resolutions
… of sorts.
There are also episodic naturally occurring
events that defy precise prediction, and we know some of them well right here –
earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Shortly before midnight Sunday, there was a
Magnitude 3.7 earthquake off Trinidad’s northwest tip barely noticed as we
scoured online resources for word on Beryl.
In St Vincent, the folks of the village of
Fancy who faced volcanic ash in 2021 now feared surging tides as the winds and
rain raged.
Yet here we are, as usual, as expected, as
officially declared, in “hurricane season.” It flows from our tongues in the
midst of cricket commentary, defiant fetes, and political exchanges.
Over the weekend, a long relocated relative
quipped about T&T and hurricanes that “they threaten but always avoid” as
if to suggest that avoidance reduces direct and indirect victimisation and
involvement. Devastation in Carriacou is our issue in T&T, in the same way
a volcanic eruption in St Vincent clearly was, and so will any number of
weather events yet unleashed off the west coast of Africa wherever they land in
our neighbourhood … or right here.
The statement ought to also invoke an
implication of collective responsibility – the stuff of which the regional
survival project aka “Caricom” was meant to address.
What, therefore, is there to suggest the
centrality of this question in our formal processes? Acknowledgement of the
growing climate crisis has helped close some ranks.
The fact that while we occupy different
vessels we sail on the same ocean or that in many respects we share cabin space
on a small brittle vessel negotiating hostile waves. We can orient the
narrative in different directions, but it almost always describes
susceptibility to extreme outcomes.
How, in the face of this therefore, is a
psychology of “invincibility” - as prescribed by my friend and colleague, Tony
Fraser, with respect to cricket – a realistic possibility; and not simply
self-delusion of the highest order?
This is not to dismiss the prospects for
confidence and self-belief – for which we are well known in select areas of
public life – but to acknowledge some stark realities including our
deficiencies. And here, in my view, is where the skills of adaptation and
change and mitigation of risks are left to be developed and honed.
The suggestion that perils “threaten but
always avoid” T&T may further weaken the determination we employ to engage
our own survival project and the wider regional rescue.
Maybe Beryl has opened an opportunity to
reformulate the Caricom agenda not by supplanting existing areas of concern but
by attaching stronger awareness of their survival implications.
We have several months left in this long
season, and next year it will return. We cannot, as island and coastal states,
relocate. The scientists also say, at the current rate, things will worsen.
When the postponed Caricom Heads of
Government Meeting, initially due this week in Grenada, eventually convenes it
might be useful to ensure this common thread of responsibility to ourselves is
inserted.
The agenda needs to reflect such urgency
through all issues requiring thought and action, and 12 months a year.
