The lessons of history

April 14, 2021

Wesley Gibbings

Two months from now, with the advent of the annual hurricane season, the Caribbean region will come face to face with yet another challenge to its resolve to persist as a viable, sovereign geographical space.

We have latterly added to chronic socio-political dysfunctionality, extreme weather events, earthquakes and volcanoes, the unfolding reality of the climate crisis and now, another pandemic.

We’ve been down all these roads before. It is in the natural course of history that nations are tested from time to time to the limits of their endurance. In most instances they prevail. In others they collapse and disappear – if not from internecine disquiet, from the weight of exogenous destructive and predatory forces.

I have more than once attracted considerable vitriol for suggesting that a long review of history witnesses the disappearance of civilisations far greater than ours, and that there is no objective reason why we should be any less vulnerable or more privileged, particularly as small island states.

Following a public lecture on the future of Caribbean media at the Montego Bay Campus of UWI almost exactly five years ago, an angry university student from an OECS nation walked up to me with a telling-off.

I had wondered aloud during my presentation how, given small space and woefully finite natural resources, his country continued to exist as a sovereign state attempting to make it into the future alone – even frequently denying the value of an integrated regional space.

Then, more recently, one T&T journalist was inclined to reference the “tiny island” state of St Vincent and the Grenadines – blissfully unmindful of the context of our own small size and vulnerabilities. I suppose this means we are a “big” island. Steups.

Here we go again, I told one colleague, the “small island” talk that occupies permanent, obsessive space in the minds of ethno-centric commentators, some of whom have emerged in recent days regurgitating the political myth of imported votes 65 years ago.

Meanwhile, not far from our own small island state, the Mayans once thrived throughout the Yucatán Peninsula. When the pandemic storm ends, travel and see for yourself what remains of their legacy. There are other examples. Look them up. Pre-Columbian Tainos. Indus civilisation. The Khmer Empire.

I have also visited the Pacific region more than once. You can look down from your aircraft and see the disappearing atolls. In Tebunginako, Kiribati, the village church stands in the ocean when the tide comes in. Tuvalu - with a vote equal to ours, the United States, Russia, and China individually – is known as a disappearing island.

I have noted to the consternation of many that, in some instances, the continued existence of some of our regional constituents as states flying independence flags challenges several historical norms – whatever the state of self-delusion. That many of our economies defy the meaning of the texts.

Venezuela once thrived as a modern metropolis next door. We visited frequently for tourism, shopping, and the camaraderie of neighbours. Today, it stands testimony to the ravages of political depravity.

There is very little to suggest our own immunity. The quality of the current responses to adjoining tragedies do little to engender optimism that a wholesome approach by all elements is adopted to prepare for challenges beyond immediate pandemic and economic woes.

Desperate Venezuelans fleeing political and economic disaster are “de Venes”. The government is advised “not to bring the Vinceys here.” There were convulsions when Dominicans were invited to rest their weary heads here following Hurricane Maria in 2019. I shall not be apologetic about insisting that all of this has emerged mainly from the same quarters.

Such is the work of vandals, unmindful of our own susceptibilities and many with one foot planted outside home terrain, who applaud each pandemic misstep and have led the way with everything from early COVID denial to current vaccination hesitancy.  

None of this suggests meek compliance with authority or silence on breaches of rights, proper political behaviour, or plain common sense.

But what we have been witnessing reeks of a sense of invulnerability and privilege. Two weeks ago, someone was declaring the demise of Caricom. Today, an empathetic regional response can make the difference between life and death. Just saying.

 

 

CARICOM'S COVID CO-MORBIDITIES

March 31, 2021

Nothing like a pandemic to expose brittle institutions, shatter developmental delusion, and test the mettle of leadership at all levels.

We’ve been here before. But not as independent states attempting to make our own way in the world, employing our own structures of governance.

Prof. David Killingray’s 1994 paper on The Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919 in the British Caribbean captures the nature and scale of the tragedy – 100,000 dead between October 1918 and March 1919.

Despite relatively centralised colonial rule at the top, the collective regional response was disparate and reliant on territorial peculiarities and preferences. Unilateralism prevailed. Uneven application of measures was the norm.

So, as a region we have a history of this sort of thing. The integration movement – even when directed by the colonials – was an attempt to address fragmented approaches to both issues of life and death and broader developmental aspirations, while recognising self-interest and individual will.

There is a lot more between this introduction and the conclusions I offer here, but that’s for the academics. This is a newspaper column.

So, we as a region have always been challenged by the fact that we do not represent a political or socio-cultural monolith. Successive reviews of the integration project have noted the anomalies. Much more than now dated recognition of MDCs and LDCs, developed and under-developed sectors, have been important socio-cultural dynamics.

Come now to a collective response to a pandemic, and there are lessons of 1918-1919 to be learned. As national governments, CARPHA, the Caricom Secretariat and other institutions realised early that coordinated COVID-19 management is no simple task. The “Caricom Bubble” never materialised, for example. The Gavi Vaccine Alliance, which informed the COVAX process, determined a hierarchy.

Not entirely unrelated to all this, are the co-morbidities of existing institutions that are expected to take us through a challenging, if not epochal period.

That said, I for one, consider news of Caricom’s passing to be wildly exaggerated – even coming from a politician of sturdy pedigree. It is unbelievable hyperbole to consider the OAS fiasco over Venezuela a matter of terminal significance.

Mr (not Dr) Gonsalves must have paid insufficient attention to Dr Gonsalves’ vast compendium of grandiloquent accolades supportive of a “maturation process of … Caribbean Civilisation.” It would however be tragically ironic if such a conclusion emerged from pandemic home schooling.

The fact is, Caricom was not found to be dead upon the arrival of the pandemic. Neither has it been lifeless against the geo-political challenge of a failed neighbouring state. It is in the nature of this business to disagree, and sometimes to even not wish each other well.

The EU assembles a group comprising people who once killed one another. The AU is hardly a pillar of internal peace. These arrangements all leave space for infidelity, separation, and even divorce. The Bahamas, Haiti and Jamaica know that very well.

All of this, though, is not to diminish Caricom’s pre-existing institutional ailments. I have contended, to the chagrin of some, that the Caricom Secretariat needs to substantially up its game. The transition in August to a new Secretary General provides an opportunity to begin the process. The required credentials, as I have said before, exceed bureaucratic competencies. Some potential contestants have emerged. I believe there is room for more aspirants.

There are also issues associated with two other key institutions – UWI and CWI. Now, don’t get me wrong. I still think that within the context of Caricom of 2021, these are two peripheral areas of regional engagement. More so, cricket, than the university. But they are important to us in most Caricom states.

It cannot be of comfort to anyone that the imbroglio over tidying things at UWI is now a hotbed of high-level gossip, rumour, and ad hominem attack. Lost in the debate is the fact that so many things about this institution are in desperate need of repair. I, for one, am paying absolutely no attention to platitude or fancy talk. Neither, I am certain, are most students, administrative staff, and faculty.

Look now at CWI – as I have said before, of virtually no significance to at least four of Caricom’s 15 member states, and of rapidly declining importance to people who never saw Clive Lloyd bat. Same thing.

In these pandemic times, co-morbidities matter. The institutions for joint action are not all healthy. But death is not an option.

Colin Robinson's Unequal Opportunity

March 24, 2021

Colin Robinson wasn’t easy. We disagreed (at first) on what I considered to be the inalienable connection between freedom of expression and LGBTQ+ rights. But never quite settled differences of opinion on marriage equality, which I support entirely, and which he did not consider to be a key part of the current struggle.

Then my son, Mikhail, got me ‘You Have Your Father Hard Head’, Colin’s collection of poems. “To enable my citizenship,” he wrote in ‘NYCitizen’, “I cannot act alone.”

I had by then written repeatedly about the fact that the Equal Opportunity Act explicitly denies redress based on “sexual preference or orientation.” I had said it out loud at more than one consultation. This was a challenge for all of us. We could not act alone.

Why? As Colin quoted me as saying in 2018: Among Caribbean people who, for the most part, embarked on a future on the basis of legislated freedoms, “there exists an instinctual aversion to the notion that freedom is superior to prohibition.”

On that subject, he credited me with “putting words to (his) fury.” It was both flattering and a reminder of what he by then considered to be a relatively distant but joint enterprise.

The last time we met was on a flight back home from Jamaica in late 2019. He’d stored his luggage in the overhead compartment over my seat. When we landed at Piarco, I got up quickly as he weaved his way to the back, as I warned him, “before you buss my head with that bag.”

As we stood and blocked steupsing people in the aisle, he expressed abstruse fear for his well-being. I had seen expressive anger and joy on his face before, but never the sadness I detected in his eyes – even through the glitter in his thick glasses. He could not have missed my own gloom.

This has taken some time. Colin passed on March 4. We weren’t really “close”, so I have not been on the inside loop. Things have also been busy. We’ve been having a pandemic and an ensuing infodemic to address.

The EOC responded quickly to news of his passing. Vice chairman Dr Gabrielle Hosein declared less than a day later that the EOC “walks in the footsteps of giants like Colin and we continue to work in his memory for justice.”

The EOA was something we discussed far less frequently than the broader question of constitutional protections and the public language that helped express a sometimes-deadly hate agenda against the LGBTQ+ community in the Caribbean.

The fact is the 2000 Act is but one of several frontiers and, even so, had footsteps of its own, with metrics and concerns that had little to do with the issues that occupied Colin and his allies.

Read the Hansard of May 19 and June 2, 2000, when the EOA was being debated. You would realise that the political backdrop to the introduction of the EOA, whatever the eventual add-ons, was the need to protect Africans and Indians from one another. Such was the politics of the day. Such is the politics today.

Then opposition MP, Barry Sinanan, was the only member of the House to address this outrageously explicit omission from protection under the new law.

“In any society you have people who are different from others, so we have homosexuals, and we have lesbians, and this is a fact that we must recognise in any progressive country,” Sinanan said. There was no follow-up during the debate from either his colleagues or from government speakers, including then prime minister Basdeo Panday who had piloted the bill.

There are a few things in this country for which there is apparent bipartisan support and this, clearly, has been one. Even a public health crisis has not reached this level of agreement across the political divide.

From what I understand, there isn’t much work left to be done though. Former EOC chairman Lynette Seebaran-Suite and her team have done most of it.

Current EOC chairman, Ian Roach, has recently been concerned about racist commentary on social media. The politicians have their eyes on him. Colin’s footprints persist. Work in his memory remains incomplete.

 

The hierarchy of disagreement

It is now exactly 13 years since the UK/US writer, Dr Paul Graham, came up with his visionary “hierarchy of disagreement.”

At the apex of Graham’s hierarchical pyramid is refutation. At the murky bottom, you find ad hominem attack and name-calling.

It is not unique to social media, but if you scan the main platforms many of us now spend hours upon hours engaging daily, you will catch the general drift of Graham’s assertions.

Witness a hypothetical structure with refutation at the top, followed by counterargument, contradiction, responses to “tone”, ad hominem attack and, at the very base, name-calling, insult, and innuendo. Many times, though, the pyramid is inverted.

We see it over and over. Someone posts something she considers to be a reasonable observation on a matter of public interest and there is speedy reference to an unflattering physical or emotional attribute.

Sometimes lies, ridicule, and defamation emerge out of the blue almost as a pre-emptive assault. Journalists and others in the public eye experience this all the time. I have heard, for example, that I am “a CIA.” This, I suppose, disentitles me to say or write anything credible about China, Venezuela, Russia, the OAS, Caricom or hotdogs.

Sadly, our political parties do not routinely set the best example. Loyal trolls, without caution of any kind from leaders, help by amplifying race-baiting, childish name-calling and outright disinformation introduced via dispatches often bearing official seals.

On Saturday, for example, T&T Guardian’s Gail Alexander provided a glossary of terms from the contemporary UNC information engine room: “deadbeats”, “muppets”, “shameless”, “conman”, “dithering nincompoop”, “comatose”, “flaccid” (!), “rogue” and “lame”.

Only the day before, the PNM Women’s League described its UNC counterpart outfit as “a house of ill-repute.”

But, back to Graham and others who have explored his thesis. It is par for the course that people appear far more motivated to engage an assertion when they disagree with it.

People like me, who tightly control our friends’ lists on Facebook but leave ourselves out in the open on Instagram or Twitter, can tell the difference.

For example, you more frequently see “likes” and favourable comments among members of your self-constructed echo chambers than you would with accounts that operate out in the wild.

Additionally, people you attract as online “followers” or “friends” are highly likely to share the same values as you. For instance, I do not regularly have to respond to people who are openly opposed to gender equality, reproductive rights, or freedom of expression and the press. But I know other types are out there in large numbers and very actively engaged in undermining these positions.

There are also, of course, taboo areas sensible people generally avoid because they tend to tacitly invite irrational discourse. These may include issues associated with organised religion, political ideology, and race relations.

On these and other issues, as suggested by Graham, your “tone” rather than the arguments themselves can become the focus of concern. “I can’t believe you are so dismissive and condescending when it comes to the anti-vaxxers.”

“A man/woman like you …” is not an infrequent form of tone-based counterargument and constitutes a variant of what is often referred to in the behavioural sciences as “passive aggression.”

It is preferable if an error or display of illogic is addressed in an informed and direct manner rather than through innuendo or insult. “He is a PNM” or “He is a UNC.”

This is not to say you cannot, with some experience and street smarts, spot a political hack from a mile cloaked in passive aggression. My preference is to avoid them at all costs, including the penalties your ego pays.

Striking back cleverly through parody or satire or even “throwing words” is well within bounds. But they frequently miss the mark. Leave them alone. Or write an entire newspaper column as a technical diss.

Parliament and the hustings also provide no best practice examples. There you find the inverted pyramid exemplified. But while politics is no tea party it is also not a “zess” where the one who wines down lowest prevails.

 

 

Some Caricom Tidying Needed

Caricom and the West Indian Caribbean

Wesley Gibbings

Two things. Firstly, what possessed Caricom leaders at last week’s Inter-Sessional meeting, to contemplate the rebranding of joint tourism as something “West Indian” and not as “Caribbean”, as currently holds?

Secondly, and not unrelatedly, who is there to occupy the soon to be vacated seat of Secretary-General of Caricom?

Dominica PM Roosevelt Skerritt’s precise words at last week’s post-summit press conference were: “We need to create a West Indies brand, as was indicated by the prime minister of Saint Lucia (Allen Chastanet), we are known as the West Indies … University of the West Indies … West Indies cricket … and I think it is important for us to start promoting this definition of ourselves as the West Indies, rather than the Caribbean which extends well beyond the Caricom grouping.”

Who is going to break this news to Martinique, Sint Maarten, Puerto Rico and other members of the Caribbean(!) Tourism Organization to whom neither cricket nor UWI means anything? Who is going to explain to Caricom members such as The Bahamas, Belize, Haiti and Suriname that promotion of the tourism product is about to be reconfigured in keeping with the reputations of two institutions that mean so little to them?

Nobody appears to have recalled how 30 years ago the “West Indian Commission” had proposed the calibration of wider regional identities to embrace a notion of a single Caribbean space to best pursue developmental objectives. The Association of Caribbean States – comprising 25 states (not all “washed by the Caribbean Sea”) was one product of the exercise.

Hopefully the Caricom Secretariat did not have to pay some “expert” to formulate that “West Indies” suggestion last week. If T&T helped pay the bill, as a citizen I wish to apply to get our money back.

Of course, while membership of both Haiti and Suriname was underway, I recall (as a Caricom employee then) the cognitive dissonance - different language groups, bureaucratic practices, and historical habits and systems. That was part of the deal. The then Secretary General Edwin Carrington was preaching a sermon of “open regionalism” and “widening” not only as economic imperatives, but as pillars of the needed socio-cultural dynamism.

So, when the ACS (which, incidentally, administers a sustainable tourism programme) came in 1994, there was at minimum a conceptual framework abroad – via the work of the WI Commission and through Carrington’s aggressive diplomacy on this – that embraced the idea of a “wider Caribbean” – mismatches, administrative pimples and all.

PM Skerritt’s two minutes and 30 seconds at the presser last week raised questions about all of this. I cannot say I wish this proposal the very best.

The second thing is the fact that a replacement for outgoing Caricom Secretary-General, Irwin LaRocque, is due in August. This means that by the time Caricom heads meet again – probably face-to-face in Antigua in July – a single consensus candidate would have already emerged. In that event, the process will not end in acrimony as was recently the case with the Pacific Forum.

Foreign and Caricom affairs minister Amery Browne, when consulted by me on this, recalled that a T&T diplomat has held the post “multiple times” – actually it’s twice. This may or may not suggest that a candidate from T&T will be in the running.

He however added that “for the first time a specific process has been approved by Heads for such a recruitment.” The two names currently being floated are not highly impressive given the urgent requirements of the day.

The member countries should only consider candidates who bring a combination of technical, bureaucratic competence, political savvy, and real leadership to the job.

LaRocque was undoubtedly a superb public servant but was no Carrington, Demas or McIntyre who were charismatic, confident, and capable managers of complex regional political dynamics. By the way, and no Googling, who is the current deputy secretary general of Caricom?

Whoever gets the top job, his/her skill set would need to exceed mere bureaucratic orderliness and faithful reporting. The “West Indies” madness, as just one example, ought not to have reached this far. The Caricom Secretariat needs to be modernised and re-focused. Our regional institutions, as indispensable as they are, need tidying up. Our future hinges on these things. These are special times.

First published in the T&T Guardian on March 3, 2021

 

 

When Regional Integration Works

 First published in the T&T Guardian on Feb 10, 2021

There has recently been sufficient for many to condense public life in our small republic into a single, tragic story of murderous stories. There is validity to this, and we should never shift our sights too far away from root causes and prospective solutions.

Yet, if we are to eventually prevail as a nation, our field of vision must as much capture breadth and periphery as it reflects depth and dimension on chosen matters. We need to remain alert to other challenges that have the potential to undermine our advance into the future.

Over recent weeks, for instance, I have been spending time looking at the contribution of regional integration in addressing pandemic issues and its role in recovery efforts everywhere.

We already know of the royal Brexit mess. So, none of that today. But another learning opportunity can be found in the current plight of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) – the rough equivalent of the Caribbean Forum (Cariforum) which comprises Caricom plus the Dominican Republic.

If you have travelled there or studied the connections, you would realise that in many respects, there is more in common between the insular Pacific and the Caribbean, than there is between Latin America and our sub-region.  The PIF is also a key partner in EU/ACP relations.

Last week, contrary to longstanding practice, rotation of the post of PIF Secretary-General by consensus was superseded by an unprecedented election for the post – an act inspired by geo-political shenanigans with poles aligned to Australia and New Zealand (members of the PIF), and the United States.

The result was the departure of Palau and the threatened withdrawal of the other small Micronesian member nations – part of a narrative that spans almost 80 years.

The longevity of this conundrum is reminiscent of the circumstances surrounding the Venezuela problem - the role of dominant and domineering global powers and the counterbalance of regional institutions.

But, like the Pacific, our own self-confidence – expressed as international self-awareness - has often fallen short of the requirements of real independence.

The OAS is in near shambles and Caricom cohesion has been similarly affected by the clash between Bolivarian imperialism and hegemonic US intent.

Notably, and ironically, among the more unifying challenges of that period has been Venezuela’s persistent territorial conflict with Guyana.

To be clear, Venezuela’s claim to the Essequibo region did not arise because of Guyana’s recent hydrocarbon finds or Maduro’s January decree, nor did it enter the Caricom agenda in 2019 following problematic elections in Venezuela.

There is partisan disinformation designed to draw negative attention to T&T’s role in all this. But Caricom’s position on Venezuela’s imperialistic designs is longstanding and has crossed political divides. “Guyana-Venezuela Relations” has also been one of the more persistent Caricom agenda items spanning decades.

In July 2010, for example (note the date), Caricom leaders in a Summit communiqué “reaffirmed their unequivocal support for the safeguarding of Guyana ’s territorial integrity and sovereignty and its right to develop its resources in the entirety of its territory.”

Again, in 2016, even as things warmed up hemispherically, the leaders “reiterated their full support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all CARICOM States and their entitlement to rights regarding maritime zones under international law.”

It is an issue that has long enjoyed common posturing throughout Caricom, in Guyana, and in Venezuela. So much so that in Guyana, even now, there is bipartisan agreement on this.

In Venezuela, it has also transcended the political aisle. Both the Maduro regime and the Guaidó claimants to office have pointed accusatory fingers at each other with claims of reduced passion on this matter.

So, while tyranny and deprivation in Venezuela have proven to be polarising regional issues, the country’s conflict with Guyana has not. The territorial controversy also did not emerge in 2019 but goes back to an Arbitral Award in 1899 involving the UK and Venezuela.

Last week, T&T’s independent position on domestic Venezuela politics positioned it favourably to play a role in the release of Guyanese fishermen (unlawfully) detained by Venezuelan authorities on January 23. We must note the efforts of minister Amery Browne.

In an accompanying statement, there was the studious omission by the Venezuelans of reference to Caricom but mention of the grouping’s campaign for the Caribbean as a “Zone of Peace.”

No Trump. No Mondello. No Biden. Only Caricom and an unwavering commitment to a key member. Regional integration worked.

Tobago - the lost opportunity

I have not yet seen the view being openly explored, that a relatively fanciful but theoretically feasible solution to the THA impasse exists. The point actually came up, albeit fleetingly, on election night. It had also been raised several times during the internal self-government debates. But that has been all.

The fact is, there is a way to considerably satisfy the desires of almost everyone who voted on January 25. It is not unlike the prospect offered in December 2001 when we awoke on December 11 to the knowledge that the country had been split right down the middle in its political support for two main contenders.

As is the case in Tobago today, the constitution and electoral law were capable of only reaching the point of installation of elected officials, but not of activating the mechanisms to resume formal representation, and therefore island governance.

But these things are not just an issue of constitutions and laws. They are the stuff of politics – especially the politics of national development.

I remember the shenanigans of 2001 relatively well. Academia ought to have captured the dialogue and made sense of it. I am not sure whether this has ever been done. Where are the books? The papers.

When the moment arrived 19 plus years ago, there could have been an avalanche of knowledgeable opinion and analysis. Instead, all it found was pervasive partisan preference through all sectors of the national community, including academia. The quick resort to shibboleth prevailed. And we went nowhere.

It was the late Lloyd Best who captured the moment by proposing a reformulation of not only the constitutional models, but the political behaviours required to advance the game. Even so, the main players were not oblivious to the possibilities of the occasion. We were hearing the talk.

Could there have realistically been a rotation of command? The excavation of the best available skills and competence from among the ranks of the competitors – across the electoral aisle in the formation of a government of national unity? Whatever the public posturing, nobody really cared for the gigantic task. People could not understand that even under such circumstances, in a maturing country, the notion of civil society led opposition and participation is eminently possible.

In Guyana, such a question has arisen numerous times. But even as proportional representation heads off the mathematical possibility of a “tie”, on-the-ground political realities do more to reinforce division than the country’s constitution does to mitigate it. This should instruct those whose constant refrain in T&T is for “constitution reform.” They need to say what they really mean by this. They have not.

In this instance, the main reason for changing the rules cannot only be to break tied results. There ought to be a way to freely permit the arrangements necessary to enable willing political parties and their representatives to coalesce in the public interest.

To me, for example, there is little by way of broad policy prescription to distinguish the major players in Tobago – as is mostly the case nationally. Whoever emerges “victorious” – whether by way of fresh elections or judicially-induced solution – we are more likely to get, in a general sense, more of the same.

True, there is a feeling that longstanding strangleholds on power need to be discouraged – even as the PNM itself resided in the virtual THA wilderness between 1980 and 2001 but has held on since then. There is also the discomfiting spectre of corruption.

But who, for example, is going to overturn the provisions, made possible by the 1996 Dispute Resolution Commission, to allocate between 4.03 and 6.9 per cent of the national budget to Tobago’s financial affairs?

Who is going to negotiate a retreat from 70 per cent THA employment and all this means for private industry, independent food production, and entrepreneurship?

It is not that I am unaware of the dynamic which dictates what, prima facie, appears to be a disproportional per capita share of the national spoils. But even opponents of the measure are highly unlikely to reject this on their own turf.

I know. I know. It’s a whistle in the wind. But as a small country making our way in the world under difficult circumstances – today the pandemic – we cannot be shy about engaging our development in bold new ways.

But it seems like we are going to miss yet another opportunity to change the nature of the game, even if the rules continue to hold or are adjusted for convenience.