Caricom’s dream

After a period of 30 years, a new generation of Caricom leaders are of the view that they are getting somewhere in their chase for what, to them over the years, they had viewed as an elusive dream. The feeling is that they have at last hit the nail on the head, and unlike over the years at previous meetings, this new generation seems fired up with hope that the goal of Caribbean unity can be achieved. The leaders meeting here in Montego Bay at their 24th Caricom Summit seem convinced that a Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME) is the answer to their hopes. At least one man, Barbados’ Prime Minister, Owen Arthur, is convinced. He should know because he is the Chairman of the CSME which was established in 1989.

Amidst the glitz and glamour of Wednesday’s opening of the 30th anniversary of Caricom, Arthur dished out a list of ingredients which he felt was the right recipe to catch that elusive dream. Arthur told his Caricom counterparts that he felt Trinidadian author CLR James in his book The Birth of a Nation” had got it right when he wrote, “Nobody knows what the Caribbean population is capable of.......nobody has even attempted to find out.” Arthur feels the creation of the CSME is the ultimate test to find out what Caribbean people are capable of achieving. This latest find he said had come in the wake of three centuries of a fragmented regional existence in which 14 societies  had evolved with 14 separate markets, divided by the most formidable barriers, and 14 separate economies governed by their own economic rules, laws, policies and institutions. Now these same 14 separate societies and economies were seeking to become one single market, free of economic and financial barriers, and one single economy governed by a common set of policies, rules and institutions. In his view, CSME, as a form of economic integration, had exceeded in its scope, among regional groupings, only by the European Union, which had taken over 30 years to carry out a similar exercise.

At the outset Arthur assured that the CSME belonged to the future, not the past, and it was in this vein he sought to pour in his ingredients. He said the CSME was for the young Caribbean entrepreneur with the right to set up his enterprise anywhere he wishes in the region. CSME, said Arthur, also belonged to the ordinary working man and woman in agriculture, industrial and tourism sectors — people who have long yearned in how to use the resources and develop their respective fields in order to provide sustainable livelihoods. Now this is where Arthur’s ingredients kicked in as to what CSME means. He said it belongs to the Barbadian fisherman who believes that he has an entitlement to catch what he regards as wayward Barbadian flying fish that have ventured into Trinidad and Tobago waters: Every Caribbean patriot who believes they should extend equal economic terms to each other as the same, no less favourable, as those granted to others outside the region: Also, the Guyanese artisan who yearns to showcase his tremendous talent to people in the entire region, and in doing so be treated with respect — same as any transnational corporation.

Arthur says CSME also belongs to the Jamaican higgler who seeks to make a living through hassle free travel; sports people and artists as well as media people and others whose existence depends on their having at their disposal a common economic space within which to ply their trade. It also belonged to those who have confidence to believe that they can create Caribbean companies with their own brands and transnational enterprises; and that they operate in a regional environment, for the first time, made fair for all. According to Arthur, it also belonged to those who accept that by granting themselves faster, deeper and broader liberalisation than granted to others, that they can integrate themselves into a new global economy as free men, living in a free state, on terms of their own making. While dishing out his ingredients Arthur warned that no one ought to be mistaken into believing they can achieve excellence without difficulty. Quite to the contrary. According to the Barbadian PM there was also need for a new intellectual ferment about the course of Caribbean development — a ferment that was rich between the 1940s and 1970s which inspired the movement to gain its first independence. Hence, it was his feeling that the creation of a single market and economy would be akin to assertion of a second independence by the Caribbean people. To achieve CSME he advised, there must in addition, be a new spirit of constructive engagement between the State and all stakeholders in civil society. But above all, he warned his Caribbean counterparts, “We must trust and engage the people.” Arthur insisted that it was these fundamental things in these unprecedented times that the leaders of the Caribbean “must set out to change.”