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.
