Regionalization and beyond

We are living in the era of global economy dominance and for the future of developing countries especially the Caribbean we must look at the demand for equity. We are taking and experiencing changes which will reorganize or redefine the policies and economies of the next century.

The task of providing a human dimension to development in the era of globalized dominance by super power government, multinational organization and capitalism has become a major challenge, since all of us have to deal not only with a radically new reality, but especially with the ethical vacuum which the idolatry of the marketplace has caused and which the demise of the revolutionary utopias has exacerbated.

If, through regionalization (OECS, CCJ, and CARICOM) the economy becomes the conditioning factor in the realm of production and management, the same does not apply in the realm of values. It is necessary to separate the concrete facts ushered in by regionalization from a pseudo-ideology which is building up around the phenomenon, with nuances which range from the uncritical preaching and celebration of the “virtues” of the emerging system, to the affirmation of the inevitability of the loss of relevance of the nation state.

In this regard we need to reflect on how regionalization, which signals the onset of an era of prosperity unprecedented in the history of regional peoples, a new renaissance, can be oriented toward the fulfillment of the demand for equity on the part of humanity which subsist in conditions of poverty and other anti-social setbacks. How can we reinvent the sense of community on the regional and international field, so as to avoid social exclusion and segregation? How can we strengthen the social responsibility of the power control, cultural and economic elites?

This last question regarding the social responsibility, or as some would describe it the ‘national responsibility’ of the elites requires, as I see it, demands a more pondered response. Independently of the “democratization” of human capital (HC), cultural capital (CC) and financial capital (FC) and even for precisely this reason, the mechanics of the reproduction of the elites has become more robust. At the same time, the elites, politician and civil units begin to close themselves off in the defense of their own more particular and narrow interests, which threaten not only the idea of democracy, transparency and regionalization but also the very concept of the nations.

This irresponsibility of the power and economic elites fosters an exacerbation of individualism, egoist and a culture of conflict which cannot be sustained. What can be done to revive this social responsibility of the political and economic elites is one of the great challenges of our times regionally. The appeal for an ethics of solidarity, a redefinition of national values and, especially, the struggle against inequality, which the elites today consider as something quite natural and even acceptable, are ideas which only Politics, as the art of building consensus, can resolve.

I am of the conviction that the developing countries (in this case the Caribbean region) can contribute, perhaps even more than the developed countries, to this conceptual passage from the realm of the economy to the realm of values. More than ever before, we have to exercise our creative/innovative capability of responding simultaneously to the challenges of the new reality and the overcoming of a social legacy which grieves and shames us.

It is not a question of going back to the values of the past, reviving utopias which no longer explain the contemporary world nor mesh with the prevalence of democratic and basic values and the market economy. The solution to contemporary problems goes beyond territorial borders and demands universal mobilization.

A key to the framework of thoughts that I have attempted to address at this point is the lack of definition which prevails at the present time as to who are to be the social protagonists in the building of the future of regionalization. I do not believe that it is any longer possible to identify a specific social class with this role of helmsman of the nation on the path to development, in the midst of the turbulence changes. Giving a human dimension to progress, strengthening the ethic of solidarity both in the national and international dimension, has increasingly become a collective, dispersed and fragmented exercise: a veritable composite of partial utopias. No single social class or group today has the monopoly over the demand for equity.

It is precisely for this reason; I once again persist in saying, that we must revitalize the essential values of humanism, of wise understanding and of tolerance. These are the distinguishing characteristics par excellence of modern legitimacy. A real engagement on the part of the Government and civil society is necessary to counter the current climate of exacerbated and nihilistic individualism, which conspires against our very notion of national identity.

Governments, intellectuals, the leaders of civil society, all have a vital role to play so that the new renaissance may bloom with all its capacity to transform Caribbean History.
For regionalization is a great idea but there are many odds to shine some lights on.