There comes a time when we must all give way to change in some form or another. It is an amplification of Shakespeare’s each man has his entrance and his exit and in his time plays many parts – which could sometimes imperceptibly be an epilogue, an epithet or epitaph.
We recently had the unfortunate death of Professor Emeritus Norman Girvan, a truly CARICOM intellectual giant who played many parts and is perhaps the last of the truly great regional personalities who genuinely believed in regional unity.
On Monday, we also celebrated National Heroes Day, when the lives of our ten National Heroes are highlighted for the contribution they have made to the development of our country. Except for Bussa and Sarah Ann Gill, the others are of recent vintage; in some ways suggesting a glaring gap in our history.
This schism indicates that our history reflects for the most part a post-colonial focus, with greater emphasis on those who played a major part during this period in helping to dismantle the “colonial burden” on our journey to Independence. It is perhaps not accidental.
Tomorrow we will celebrate May Day, when the workers of this country will celebrate what is more generally known around the world as Labour Day. Many of our National Heroes played a significant role within the trade union movement, which provided resistance to the ravages of colonial capitalism.
However, more to the point, as we continue to mourn the death of Professor Girvan, who left firm footprints in the struggle for regional unity, it is perhaps an opportune time to assess the progress of CARICOM integration.
One of the major disappointments has been the failure of meaningful progress of CARICOM in recent years. In some respects it has regressed in the last 20 years.
It has long been pointed out that CARICOM Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, unlike the Single European Act (1986), implicitly rests on the maintenance of frontiers with the objective of liberalising conditions of access to markets. Although there is a treaty, the situation seems worse than the pre-Chaguaramas common market situation.
Another obvious failing of CARICOM is that of food security and the agricultural economy generally. Though there is much talk about the high food imports, Guyana alone has more than enough land to feed CARICOM. Dominica and St Lucia and Jamaica could possibly produce all the citrus that is needed. Yet barriers to trade persist as a result of old concepts of frontiers and discretionary liberalisation of market access. These are contradictory in nature and will continue to pose problems for regional unity and integration.
The collective failure of regional politicians to see the bigger picture of what real Caribbean unity could mean to the economic development of the region and its people is a terrible let-down to Girvan’s memory.