For decades now, Prime Minister Bruce Golding and his Jamaica Labour Party have been an intrinsic part of a social and political system that has led Jamaica and the Jamaican people down a path of impoverishment, social, cultural and moral decay, and a descent into increasing criminality in the society.
Over the years, we have met many senior Jamaicans who have been heart broken and devastated by what has happened to their beloved Jamaica over the past half century of Peoples National Party and Jamaica Labour Party rule.
And a similar observation can be made about Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and her United National Congress (UNC). They too have been part of a system that has brought Trinidad & Tobago down to the depravity of some 500 murders per year and widespread corruption in the society.
Generally speaking, the mainstream political leaders of our Caribbean countries have been content to squander the years of our so-called “independence” by keeping our separate Caribbean nations enmeshed in neo-colonial type relationships with Europe and North America, and permitting our societies to be inundated and shaped by the capitalistic value system of the North.
This has proved to be a recipe for social decay and psychological weakness, and it is now becoming more and more clear that it is also an economic dead-end. Yet, in spite of the clear signs of their futility and failure, our mainstream political leaders continue to reject any alternative that might offer a way out of the predicament that they have put us in!
How else can one explain Mrs Persad-Bissessar being so contemptuous of the CARICOM relationship that she would publicly announce that her Government would only assist hurricane ravaged CARICOM countries if Trinidad & Tobago business people benefit from the dispensing of such assistance?
Or how else can one explain the contemptible manner in which Bruce Golding has just poured cold water on the regional effort to establish and operationalize a Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ)?
Where are the Caribbean people really going with such irresponsible, infantile and myopic leadership?
Back in August 2010 the Peoples Empowerment Party and the Clement Payne Movement (CPM)
joined together with other non-governmental and community based organisations from throughout the Caribbean region to stage an Assembly Of Caribbean People, at the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies.
Conscious of the urgency of the times, the organizers made it a point of duty to invite all of the Prime Ministers and Opposition Leaders of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) to attend the Assembly, and urged them to embrace the opportunity to engage with civil society activists in devising a collective regional strategy out of the unfolding crisis.
Needless-to-say this invitation was accepted by only one CARICOM Prime Minister or Opposition Leader – the Honourable Ralph E. Gonsalves, Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, a political leader with a proud history of progressive political activism.
It is time for the conscious, patriotic citizens of the Caribbean to make a new effort to come together in a mighty People’s Movement devoted to building a Caribbean nation and civilization. The Assembly of Caribbean People constitutes such an initiative.
• The PEP column represents the views of the People’s Empowerment Party. Email [email protected].
