WHILE it is important to look at the ways in which Caribbean regionalism has worked over the years, political consultant Peter Wickham says there are still a number of “serious problems” to be addressed.
Wickham was part of a panel discussion on Brass Tacks Sunday where he held a different view from most of the panellists, noting that while the theoretical benefits are all “peaches and cream”, they don’t always mesh with reality.
The analyst used the COVID response as an example of an area that can be improved. “Has the regional platform been more effective in helping us to procure vaccines? Or have we been more successful with what we saw was the Trinidad, Barbados, Dominica ‘alliance’ that was able to procure vaccines from India on a bilateral basis ahead of time, because that seemed to have been more effective. And certainly, it was then from Barbados’ sort of goodwill and Dominica to share some of those vaccines around.”
He also referred to regional airline LIAT, which he described as the huge elephant in the room. “And I think the demise of LIAT says a lot about the issues with regional transport, but more importantly, the type of selfishness that still permeates the region as far as these issues are concerned. And regionalism has proven itself woefully inadequate to deal with that.”
Wickham also looked at the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC), of which he noted he is “very unhappy” at this time.
“And I noted that one of the other analysts thought that the CXC was a high point; in my opinion, right now, the CXC is a blot. When I watch the way in which the Caribbean Examinations Council has now started the process of forcing Caribbean students into examination for which they are clearly ill-prepared, and it doesn’t appear as though there’s a regional structure to harness or bridle CXC from running along this path, it tells me that regionalism is in some problems,” he said, adding that he could write a thesis on the challenges facing The University of the West Indies.
Wickham also challenged that there are challenges relating to insularity and pointed to Barbados. “The Barbados Green Paper on Immigration Reform came up, I believe it was 2009 or 2010, and in my opinion, that was a slap in the face of regionalism. Essentially, it was one government that was responsible for the Single Market and Economy saying, ‘Look, I have some concerns,’ and they were essentially looking to turn the clock back on the regional movement.
“The Green Paper on Immigration Reform in Barbados is an important document for anyone who is interested in regionalism to read, because it was running in the complete opposite direction that we assumed that we were going as a region.
“So while I think that it is important for us to look at all the great things that have been happening... we have to ask ourselves, how can our regional institutions be engineered to have to respond to some of these major challenges that are facing us? And this list of things that I issued is just really the start. What are we doing at the regional level to be able to deal with the realities of life in 2021?” he queried. (JH)