If you were on the Caribbean beat as a journalist in the late 1980s/early 1990s, you would have recognised the late Guyanese leader, Dr Cheddi Jagan, as one of the more determined voices for a new global developmental paradigm, with this part of the world as a key focal point.
Prior to his ascent to office in 1992 – (again)
since the story of Guyana 1961 is another remarkable issue – he was among the
more ubiquitous Caribbean politicians; appearing almost anywhere there was a
platform to air his concern that the developing world had not been receiving
its fair share of global assets.
That much of it was dismissively put down
to dated, dogged “socialism” belied key messages linked to notions of “social
justice” as a phenomenon common to both sovereign countries within their own
borders, and among members of the international community.
Those who had challenged the relevance of
Jagan’s “New Global Human Order” back then were to quietly consume their words
and negative thoughts by the time the UN system convened the First Copenhagen
Summit on Social Development in 1995.
Colleague Caribbean journalists may also recall
the year before, in Miami, at the First Summit of the Americas, News Centre
tensions when someone from a US television network conducting business in an
adjoining suite, interrupted a Jagan press conference (on this very issue) and
rudely called for silence while the Guyanese leader was at the head table.
The spontaneous eruption of Caribbean media
colleagues confirmed the fact that Dr Jagan - now a sitting President - through
familiarity or sheer respect, had views considered to be worth more than
passing attention. At that moment, his mission became lived, in-your-face
reality.
 |
| Dr Cheddi Jagan |
Some considered his advocacy in this area as being seminal in the formulation of a common Caribbean agenda in time for the Copenhagen Summit. In 2000, following Jagan’s death in 1997, a resolution entitled: “The Role of the United Nations in Promotion of a New Global Human Order” was tabled by Guyana before the United Nations General Assembly and adopted by consensus.
Thirty years after Copenhagen and 25 years
since the Guyana resolution, the Second World Summit on Social Development is
due for November 4 to 6 in Qatar.
An ILO study published in advance of the
event strikes eerily reminiscent chords. Entitled: “The State of Social Justice:
A Work in Progress”, the study dissects progress with some of the key
aspirations identified in Copenhagen.
While acknowledging a world that “is
wealthier, healthier and better educated than in 1995” there is also a
concession that the benefits of such gains “have not been evenly shared, and
progress in reducing inequality has stalled.”
In a sense, such an observation is fully in
keeping with a view expressed by Dr Jagan all these years ago that mere
attention to statistical indicators is insufficient to come to terms with
realities on the ground.
At that time, there had been uneven
attention in the Caribbean to the core issues. T&T was riding relatively
high as a Caribbean energy superpower, while Guyana was in the throes of an overwhelming
debt burden and heavily reliant on regional and other external support.
The proposed recalibration of regional and
international priorities weighed more heavily on some and almost not at all on others.
We, in T&T, appeared to be sitting pretty.
Jamaica was coming to terms with banking
collapses and rising social disquiet. Barbados was confronting a balance of
payments crisis and swallowing IMF remedies. Other neighbours were
transitioning to situations of greater stability while others wobbled.
Dominica had been hit hard by Hurricane
Luis in 1995, and extreme weather events everywhere were fast becoming the norm
rather than the exception.
Today, the ILO observations can be levied
on us right here in T&T. There is precious little space between current,
growing socio-economic deprivation and past aspirations once deemed by us to be
distant and near irrelevant.
Slowed economic growth, rising
unemployment, a foreign earnings crisis, unstable social support resources,
rising informality in the labour market, and general economic malaise all
appear emergent.
Yes, there are worst-case scenarios to
contemplate, but there is no law of history to establish complete invulnerability.
For reasons such as these, Qatar 2025 seems
just as urgent for us in T&T as it was for Guyana et al in 1995. Jagan’s
New Global Human Order confronts us once again. This time from a far more
familiar vantage point.
