The recent downgrade of this country’s credit rating from investment to “junk” status by the American agency – Standard & Poor’s – conjures up an image of Barbados as a protagonist in a Greek or Shakespearean tragedy inexorably heading for disaster because of a fundamental “tragic flaw” in his character or system of beliefs.
Barbados’ “tragic flaw” is located in the thinking of a collective national leadership seemingly incapable of recognizing that the world changed in a fundamental manner five years ago, and that the world view, ideas and practices that might have been relevant and useful back then are no longer so now!
From the time of our independence in 1966, the leadership of Barbados chose to conceive of our small nation as a “city state” that was going to set out to service a hinterland consisting of the developed English-speaking capitalist economies of North America and Britain by providing them with leisure and tax avoidance services.
This was the very limited and one-dimensional neo-colonial path of development that we chose for ourselves, and in order for it to be sustainable or even feasible, it required the continued existence of robust and expanding United States, Canadian and British economies.
Well, as we all know, as a result of a quarter-century or more of the dominance of a parasitic strain of predatory, anti-developmental “finance capitalism”, the North Atlantic economies were dealt a ferocious blow and have sunk into a deep malaise.
All of this spells disaster for Barbados if we do not significantly change our ideas, goals and practices!
The sad reality is that the attainment of “Independence” in the 1960s did not undo colonialism in Barbados, or in Jamaica or Trinidad and Tobago for that matter. Rather, it made our countries “post-colonial” – nominally self-governing, but still fundamentally shaped and controlled by our colonial heritage!
The PEP believes there is an alternative to the dead end that we now find ourselves in!
It is an alternative that begins with the recognition that we – the Caribbean people – constitute a civilization in our own right, and that we can construct a style of living for ourselves that is suited to our environment and needs (including our cultural and ethical needs), and that is therefore unique and sustainable.
It is also an alternative that is flexible enough to recognize not one but several possible hinterlands of our city state, including the burgeoning neighbouring hinterland of socialist-oriented Latin America.
The PEP desperately wants to discuss with our people the possibilities of developing societies in which the citizens exercise real power, and in which economic development is based squarely on human development and on concrete programmes to unlock and utilize the many talents and potentialities locked away within our people.
• The PEP column represents the views of the People’s Empowerment Party.
