Many of you will have gathered from my articles that I am an ardent advocate for the integrated economic development of the Caribbean. However, notwithstanding my passionate advocacy, earnest pleadings and unsolicited advice, I’m acutely aware that I have relatively little influence on regional leaders who have been entrusted with the stewardship of our manifest destiny.
Therefore, I am honoured to publish the following article by my colleague and friend Sir Ronald Sanders. It is, in fact, a lecture Sir Ron delivered at the prestigious University of the West Indies last week on the evolution of our regional media and the role they (including little gadfly bloggers like me) must play in helping to develop a sustainable Caribbean Single Market. However, to coin a phrase, (unlike me) when Sir Ron speaks, people listen.
Nevertheless, I feel obliged to disabuse any of you of the impression that this might be too academic or parochial an article to read. Because not only is Sir Ron a brilliant and engaging lecturer but integration of Caribbean economies is almost as topical and relevant an issue to everyone in the Americas as illegal immigration to the United States.
Therefore, I urge you to take a little time to read, ponder and debate Sir Ron’s insights and admonitions in this regard. And please feel free to email the link to colleagues and friends….
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“The Evolution of CANA and the Role of the Regional Media in the Caribbean Single Market”
A Public Lecture to mark the 30th Anniversary of the Caribbean News Agency
By
Sir Ronald Sanders KCMG
The title of this lecture is long: “The Evolution of CANA and the Role of the Regional Media in the Caribbean Single Market”.
Therefore, in a paraphrase of the words used by radio broadcasters to encourage their audiences not to tune out, let me ask you to sit back, relax and endure: I will not be short!
It is right that the occasion marking the 30th Anniversary of the Caribbean News Agency (CANA) should be linked to the creation of the Caribbean Single Market.
For, CANA’s formation was a direct result of the recognition by regional leaders in the late 1960s that regional institutions and regional integration would not succeed without more “regional thinking and awareness” and their declared belief that the mass media “provided inadequate coverage for regional events and policies”.[i]
And, here, I should explain that by “the Caribbean”, I mean those countries that came to be members first of the Caribbean Free Trade Association (CARIFTA) and then the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM).
By the end of June this year, twelve of the member states of CARICOM hope to have established a Single Market with a Single Economy to follow by 2008.
The decision to join a Single Market is a far-reaching one.
It has consequences for all the people of the region who will be ceding local autonomy over some of their economic affairs to a process of regional decision-making that will be binding in law and enforceable by the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ).
For the most part, the decision to establish the Single Market, like others to form CARIFTA and then CARICOM, has been taken by governments almost on the assumption that because they have concluded that these developments are in the region’s interest, the people should conclude so too.
There was no referendum in CARICOM States when CARIFTA was formed and none when CARIFTA was deepened into CARICOM. Similarly, there has been no referendum asking the people of the Caribbean whether or not they favour the CSME.
Despite this absence of direct consultation with the people, CARICOM leaders have not mounted information and education programmes designed to explain these developments to the population of the Caribbean Community.
As the Guyanese diplomat and scholar, Lloyd Searwar, observed in a commentary written days before he died last month and published posthumously:
“Deliberate use of the communications media is of vital importance because CARICOM is a unique experiment in integration among non-contiguous territories, in which member States are divided from each other by the sea and is some instances by great distances” (as is the case with Belize and the Bahamas).[ii]
Later in this presentation, I will return to this point more fully, but let me now declare my own position.
Years of work as a broadcast journalist, a writer on Caribbean affairs, as a diplomat who negotiated for the Caribbean in the international community, and as a business executive in several Caribbean countries, have convinced me that a deeply integrated region is in the best interest of the Caribbean’s people.
Click here to read Sir Ron’s lecture in full….
NOTE: In addition to all of his other bona fides, Sir Ron is also a feature columnist at the Caribbean’s premier online news publication Caribbean Net News.
Sir Ronald Sanders, Caribbean Single Market
Jill says
Hi Anthony
It’s almost impossible to make this stuff interesting but I admire your commitment to the development of the Caribbean region.
I promise to read the entire lecture;)
Anonymous says
ALH,
First I must confess I haven’t read the entire lecture. However, I’ve been following the debate off and on, so feel (somewhat) au fait enough to say, that I can understand why some countries would be for it, but also why others would be opposed. For example, how could this benefit countries like The Bahamas or Turks & Caicos, with already strong economy and v. high standard of living? What’s the incentive to join? An influx of emigrés from less thriving nations? Or economic parasites or criminal elements hoping to exploit a clearly successful system?
You only have to look at what’s going on presently in the UK to see why sometimes you’re better off giving your neighbors a helping hand on some occasions, rather than offering them carte blanche to drain your (sometimes modest) resources.
I say thanks but no thanks to CSME. With much respect to you and Sir Ron.
James says
I think anonymous makes a valid point. But it only describes the narrowminded view that has made integrating the Caribbean impossible. If there was no merit to regional integration, American, European and Asian leaders of all political stripes would not be trying to do it in the longterm interest of their national economies. Pretty soon countries like the Bahamas will find that they cannot stand alone against the tide of globalization. And, last I checked, the Turks and Caicos was a dependent territory of the British.
Anonymous says
James, of course it has merit, and as the world continues to shrink, is likely inevitable. But until and unless the rest of the Caribbean pulls themselves up to an economic standard of the likes of the Bahamas, why should they permit themselves to be pulled down. Which is what would happen. I believe there are a series of comprehensive criteria which must be met before countries are allowed to join the likes of the EU. It’s not just by virtue of geographic location. These global giants are also somewhat better prepared to withstand a sudden population boom by the variety of industries, housing and healthcare facilities which can support the growth. It’s very different in these small Caribbean countries. So let’s compare like with like.
Rebecca says
Hi Anthony
I think Sir Ron makes some really good points and he clearly understands the fears of people in the Caribbean who resist integration.
I admit I don’t understand much about this subject but what I do know is that with Chavez organizing his group of countries to counter what America is doing with NAFTA and FTAA, the Bahamas will eventually have to join one of these group to survive. And the best way to have leverage when negotiating the terms for joining is to do it as part of a bloc not as one stand alone country.
Em Asomba says
In this era of intensive globalization I do think that integration could be seen as an element of consideration in the development debate. However, given the nature and contexts liaised with small islands developing states, cautions have to be raised when looking upon matters of harmonization and policy adjustments, and the relevance of such outcomes when it comes to the state and characteristics linked to distinctive social, political and economic contexts.
It is true that such framework cannot be to the advantage of more advanced economies. Thus, issues that raise more questions about the effectiveness of past programmatic that were initially set to strenghten regional cooperation in order to move closer to integration scenarios. And therefore leading to the problematic of “Leadership… leadership?” in the Caribbean zone.