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.