The recent view expressed by the prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago that any aid given to CARICOM states affected by Hurricane Tomas “must in some measure” benefit her country provides yet another instance of the death of the integration idea at the hands of a newly elected leader eager to play to the local gallery.
Following so closely upon the heels of her ATM statement, it suggests a fully formed Persad-Bissessar perspective on Trinidad’s role in CARICOM.
It is a perspective which should be urgently reviewed.
This call for a rethink is not meant to suggest that Kamla Persad-Bissessar should abandon the pursuit of her country’s self-interest. Instead, it is based on the recognition that Trinidad and Tobago is the one Caribbean country best placed to benefit from economic and political integration.
Leadership not resistance It should therefore provide leadership and not resistance.
Politics always follows economics. It is for this reason that the possibility of Caribbean political integration has become truly real, only with the emergence of the Trinidadian business class as a genuine Caribbean bourgeoisie. Trinidadian investment in the commercial and banking sector in Barbados alone tells the whole story.
The next logical step must be for Caribbean political arrangements to adjust to these economic realities.
When viewed in this light, there was much method to Patrick Manning’s apparent political unification madness.
Given Trinidad’s comparative advantage, the OECS was the logical place to start.
“Tied aid”
In contrast, Persad-Bissessar has articulated a policy of “tied aid” no different from that practised by the United States and Britain over the decades. Indeed, the choice between imperialism and unification is always the option facing an economically dominant country in relation to its weaker, dependent neighbours.
Sadly, Persad-Bissessar has chosen the former. A more evolved political consciousness would have seen her pursuing a unification project which would have continued to retain the self-interest of Trinidad and Tobago as its main focus. Instead, once again, narrow nationalism has won out.
Another potential regional leader has cut off its economic nose to spite its integration face. Whilst in the past the newly elected leaders trumpeted the integration idea only
to neglect it once they had settled in office, today, the post-2005 leaders make the previous years appear as a “golden age” of Caribbean integration. Devoid of creativity, their first months are now spent denigrating the integration effort.
Real lesson
The real lesson therefore is that it is in Trinidad’s best interest not to become more Trinidadian, but to become more Caribbean. Trinidad and Tobago is the only country in the Caribbean today that has the economic basis to lead and benefit from a genuine Anglophone Caribbean regional and political space.
Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s failure to recognise that reality is a tragedy that is surpassed only by the insensitivity that her utterances exhibited to the victims of Hurricane Tomas.
Tennyson Joseph is a political scientist at the University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus specialising in analysis of regional affairs.
