Stephen Vasciannie
THE MOVEMENT for Caribbean integration has been given a good booster shot by the appointment of Professor Kenneth Hall as Jamaica's Governor-General. His Excellency has worked actively within the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), has been the principal at the largest campus of the most successful regional institution we have had to date, and has promoted initiatives such as the journal, The Integrationist, that are explicitly designed to widen opportunities for regional approaches to various problems.
Prime Minister Patterson, too, has been an active integrationist. However high or low his stocks have been in Jamaica from time to time, the view among Caribbean intellectuals has been generally supportive. Some of this may possibly reflect the legacy of Norman Manley and the federal idea, and some of this may be due to the view that the Opposition JLP has been opposed to integration since the time of independence. The latter view is implicit, for example, in Selwyn Ryan's fairly recent book about the Caribbean judiciary.
I am not sure whether this characterisation of the JLP attitude to integration is correct, but that point is an aside. The fair point, however, is that Patterson, as Prime Minister, has garnered considerable respect from his CARICOM colleagues, and is now regarded as the political leader of CARICOM. This situation has arisen largely as a result of Patterson's commitment to regional institutions and by his steady insistence that Jamaica should honour the country's obligations arising under the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas.
ECONOMIC
Strong supporters of the idea of regional integration often place economic considerations at the heart of their position. Thus, a part of the theory driving the Caribbean Single Market and Economy is the notion that integration will increase market opportunities for producers in each Caribbean territory.
At the same time, the single market concept will be broad enough to allow production integration among Caribbean-based enterprises, so that presumably we will be able to compete more effectively in larger, extra-regional markets. The economic approach to integration, therefore, places considerable emphasis on the fact that small-size is not an asset for post-colonial states with rigid production structures that are called upon to compete in the era of increasing reliance on laissez-faire approaches.
But even if the impulse to integration is essentially economic, it will help if the Caribbean people perceive themselves as part of a broad social unit, with a core set of shared values, and with common objectives. It will also help if the social unit has a similar set of interests, is attentive to similar cultural developments, considers itself as having commonly held historical experiences, and recognises the need for the countries of the unit to respect each other.
NATION
I had some of these rather vague thoughts in mind last week Tuesday as I read the Daily Nation in Barbados. This was a morning in which The Gleaner carried lead stories about possible murder ('Deadly dealings?'), rape and protest ('Schoolgirl raped, teachers protest'), and the cement import duty issue. On that morning, The Nation devoted its entire front page to the possibility that a leading Bajan cyclist could be subjected to scrutiny on drugs charges, to track and field competition between the Red and Green houses at St. George Secondary School, and the destruction of an unfortunate lady's home by fire. The contrast is, I believe, somewhat striking.
The Nation is a serious newspaper, so I was keen to find references to Jamaica on the pages within. The editorial addressed the latest American International Narcotics Strategy Report, and noted that Jamaica has been criticised "for lack of effective legislation to deal with money laundering." The next reference, on the comment page of The Nation, comes in an article on the need for culture to be treated as a business. There we are told, alongside a picture of the DJ, that Sean Paul "is said to earn a major portion of Jamaica's foreign exchange each year." Incorrect, I presume, but not deeply damaging to Jamaica's image.
Then, however, I turn to the Caribbean link page and there Jamaica is hurt: "Seven Children Killed in Jamaica" states the headline. This is over a period of one week. There is nothing else in that day's paper about Jamaica. If you were a Bajan without personal knowledge of Jamaicans, you may well take the view that Barbados is not Jamaica, at very least.
Stephen Vasciannie is a professor at the University of the West Indies and a Deputy Solicitor-General.
