In recent times, the view that the problems of the Caribbean are largely psycho-social and not structural, has become increasingly hard to deny.
Everywhere, from the quality of national leadership, to the myopic retreat from the indispensable integration cause, to the daily reports of meaningless homicides and sexual irresponsibility by adults and youth, to the paralysis of many governments in the face of the global recession, our region seems to reflect symptoms of a pervasive mediocrity.
We are now in the throes of the full realization of the “learned helplessness” that Prime Minister Ralph Gonzalves of St Vincent has long railed against.
Since CLR James’s masterful presentation in Beyond A Boundary of West Indies cricket as a microcosm of the sociology of the wider society, so much has been written on the subject that it is almost clichéd to identify the current travails of West Indies cricket as the clearest reflection of West Indian civilizational reversal.
However, the glaring and deliberate decision by Denesh Ramdin to celebrate his milestone of a century in the third Test in the 2012 series in England, in the form of a crudely written and rudely intended message to West Indies cricket great, Sir Vivian Richards, was too poignant a moment of West Indian civilizational collapse, to go unanalysed.
Most disturbing of all was its predetermined nature. Certainly, the time spent contemplating and writing his silly note could have been better utilized on professional development.
But poor Ramdin is a product of the dominant value system in which he was nurtured. Long before his premeditated display of political immaturity, the signs of similar instances of misplaced self-importance,
and displaced priorities, were evident throughout our declining civilization. We see neophyte politicians whose contributions to regional development are still miniscule, boldly cursing elders who have spent years working at the project.
Many of the current generation of post-1980 emerging adults have no understanding of, or respect towards, the past that shape their current reality. Nor do they care.
All noble traditional values are scoffed at and dismissed as irrelevant to our times. In the new religion, supreme homage is paid to the god of self-aggrandisement, while nation, country, community and people are sacrificed at the altar.
Thankfully, however, a few voices of warning have been hoarsely preaching against the descent into chaos. Sir Hilary Beckles is not alone. Immediately following Ramdin’s childish display, one writer, David Hinds, a Guyanese scholar at the Arizona State University, was moved to respond by way of a letter to the Stabroek News in the following way: “When the primary motivation to score a century is not to propel your team to win or to intimidate or contain your opponent, but to settle scores with one who paved the way for you, then we are in deep, deep trouble.”
Deep trouble indeed.
• Tennyson Joseph is a political scientist at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, specializing in regional affairs.
