Freedom, single market and Caribbean civilisation
published: Sunday January 1, 2006
THE NEW Year marks a new day for the Caribbean. Caribbean people enter a new era of freedom today, in the form of the Caribbean Single Market. This is not just something of economic significance, but more importantly, one of significance for human freedom.
Caribbean people have advanced to three kinds of freedom in their history. Emancipation was the first. People enjoyed freedom of movement for themselves, their capital and their goods within each territory. Each plantation had been a totalitarian plantation. A slave could not move freely from one plantation to another in the same country or even the same parish unless he had a pass, a slip of paper that acted as a sort of internal passport. Violation often meant brutal whipping, if not death.
The next stage of freedom was political independence, the freedom of people to form their own government and make laws for themselves. This meant that their governments could make immigration laws for the movement of people in and out of their countries and enter into treaties between countries for the movement of people internationally. Jamaica was able to develop its own relations with countries around the world and now, as we say, there is a Jamaican in every part of the world.
The Single Market represents the third stage of freedom. Caribbean people can now begin to move across 13 frontiers freely, at least those categories of people who immediately qualify.
A SPECIAL ZONE OF FREEDOM
CARICOM is a special zone of freedom where free movement to live, study, do business, play sports, is available to people in a way that is not available to any other set of people except for those in the European Union. CARICOM in this sense is the second freest region of the world. But the Caribbean is the more remarkable case considering that European countries were never enslaved and were independent much earlier than Caribbean ones. The Caribbean had a much harder road to travel to freedom.
Scholars have already remarked that the Caribbean is the only region in the world where the descendants of slaves govern. We can now add that the Caribbean is the only region in the world where the descendants of slaves and indentured servants enjoy a zone of freedom spanning so many countries. The freedom now enjoyed by Caribbean people today is not even enjoyed by Americans, Canadians, and Mexicans in NAFTA. Neither is it promised under the FTAA. There is no American-inspired scheme for freedom of people in the hemisphere. The Caribbean has achieved what Pan-Africanists, Pan-Arabists, and Pan-Americans have failed at.
A CARIBBEAN CIVILISATION
There is no integration or cooperation agreement going on anywhere that allows Caribbean people this kind of freedom with any non-Caribbean country or set of countries. The countries that always rank themselves as "most free" in the world have no agreement or negotiation going on to grant Caribbean people the kind of freedom that Caribbean people in CARICOM countries are granting each other. Caribbean people have to make their own freedom. Those organizations that measure and rank countries around the world on their levels of freedom must take note of this expanded freedom among CARICOM countries.
We need not measure ourselves according to the standards of others. We might ask others to rise to our standards. In the post cold war era, it has been suggested by Americans scholars that the conflict over communist and capitalist ideological systems has been replaced by a 'clash of civilisations', primarily Christian and Islamic cultures. So, these civilisations have embarked on a new reign of terror, ironically described as a war against terrorism. In that war, liberties won are sacrificed to a spate of anti-terrorism laws, some justifiable, some not.
The Caribbean has its own criminal terrorists but as a civilisation, no clash of cultures is inevitable. In fact, the Caribbean is the best example of a region where historical civilisations have learned to live together. It has been a region of safe haven for Jews fleeing Europe to avoid religious persecution, Scots deported by the British for religious and political reasons, Indians shipped out after the Indian Mutiny against British rule and American blacks escaping slavery in the US South. It has been a place where African, Indian, Chinese, Hispanic, French, British and American cultures have welded into a Caribbean Creole, a civilisation of a unique kind. Rather than splitting along these lines we are uniting despite these variations.
Caribbean scholars of politics, labour, culture and history have traced the making of a Caribbean civilisation for many years. Denis Benn has traced the growth of political ideas and the intellectual tradition. C.L.R. James studied the impact of the Haitian Revolution on the region's emancipation. Eric Williams traced the history of the region from Columbus to Castro. Others have studied the creolisation of the region, the nature of its languages, the ethnic histories of its people, the great revolutions and rebellions and the great revolutionaries and popular heroes from Headley to Lara, its political independence and modern political founding fathers. It is not a civilisation in decline. Rather it is one still in the making. It is precisely this that the Single Market and Economy must capture.
A MARKET TO CIVILISATION
A civilisation cannot be reduced to a market and economy or a market economy. But freedom of movement, necessary for a market, creates a transitional fertilisation amongst cultures. As we do more business with each other we will need to know more about each other. We will need to identify better together, do more things together, and aim for values of excellence as global citizens standing for peace, tolerance, democracy, human development and breaking new grounds for progress in science and technology, governance, human development, and a humane world order.
This means that our media, schools, political parties, trade unions, churches, business associations, human rights organizations, and sports associations, must be more relevant to the wider Caribbean project. If they are to be relevant to the wider Caribbean marketplace of people, ideas, goods, capital, and services, these organisations must make better sense to the wider audience of the Caribbean. The Single Market of 2006, the World Cup of Cricket of 2007, the commemoration of the Abolition of the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade in 2007, the Single Economy of 2008, are all major catalysts around which we can seize the moment and advance the civilisation project.
It is a good time for the UWI to hold a conference on the future of our Caribbean civilisation, one that goes beyond issues of governance and economic integration, to embrace broader issues to establish the region's goals for the next decades of this century.
E-mail the Department of Government at: Robert.Buddan @uwimona.edu.jm
© Copyright 1997-2005 Gleaner Company Ltd.
published: Sunday January 1, 2006
THE NEW Year marks a new day for the Caribbean. Caribbean people enter a new era of freedom today, in the form of the Caribbean Single Market. This is not just something of economic significance, but more importantly, one of significance for human freedom.
Caribbean people have advanced to three kinds of freedom in their history. Emancipation was the first. People enjoyed freedom of movement for themselves, their capital and their goods within each territory. Each plantation had been a totalitarian plantation. A slave could not move freely from one plantation to another in the same country or even the same parish unless he had a pass, a slip of paper that acted as a sort of internal passport. Violation often meant brutal whipping, if not death.
The next stage of freedom was political independence, the freedom of people to form their own government and make laws for themselves. This meant that their governments could make immigration laws for the movement of people in and out of their countries and enter into treaties between countries for the movement of people internationally. Jamaica was able to develop its own relations with countries around the world and now, as we say, there is a Jamaican in every part of the world.
The Single Market represents the third stage of freedom. Caribbean people can now begin to move across 13 frontiers freely, at least those categories of people who immediately qualify.
A SPECIAL ZONE OF FREEDOM
CARICOM is a special zone of freedom where free movement to live, study, do business, play sports, is available to people in a way that is not available to any other set of people except for those in the European Union. CARICOM in this sense is the second freest region of the world. But the Caribbean is the more remarkable case considering that European countries were never enslaved and were independent much earlier than Caribbean ones. The Caribbean had a much harder road to travel to freedom.
Scholars have already remarked that the Caribbean is the only region in the world where the descendants of slaves govern. We can now add that the Caribbean is the only region in the world where the descendants of slaves and indentured servants enjoy a zone of freedom spanning so many countries. The freedom now enjoyed by Caribbean people today is not even enjoyed by Americans, Canadians, and Mexicans in NAFTA. Neither is it promised under the FTAA. There is no American-inspired scheme for freedom of people in the hemisphere. The Caribbean has achieved what Pan-Africanists, Pan-Arabists, and Pan-Americans have failed at.
A CARIBBEAN CIVILISATION
There is no integration or cooperation agreement going on anywhere that allows Caribbean people this kind of freedom with any non-Caribbean country or set of countries. The countries that always rank themselves as "most free" in the world have no agreement or negotiation going on to grant Caribbean people the kind of freedom that Caribbean people in CARICOM countries are granting each other. Caribbean people have to make their own freedom. Those organizations that measure and rank countries around the world on their levels of freedom must take note of this expanded freedom among CARICOM countries.
We need not measure ourselves according to the standards of others. We might ask others to rise to our standards. In the post cold war era, it has been suggested by Americans scholars that the conflict over communist and capitalist ideological systems has been replaced by a 'clash of civilisations', primarily Christian and Islamic cultures. So, these civilisations have embarked on a new reign of terror, ironically described as a war against terrorism. In that war, liberties won are sacrificed to a spate of anti-terrorism laws, some justifiable, some not.
The Caribbean has its own criminal terrorists but as a civilisation, no clash of cultures is inevitable. In fact, the Caribbean is the best example of a region where historical civilisations have learned to live together. It has been a region of safe haven for Jews fleeing Europe to avoid religious persecution, Scots deported by the British for religious and political reasons, Indians shipped out after the Indian Mutiny against British rule and American blacks escaping slavery in the US South. It has been a place where African, Indian, Chinese, Hispanic, French, British and American cultures have welded into a Caribbean Creole, a civilisation of a unique kind. Rather than splitting along these lines we are uniting despite these variations.
Caribbean scholars of politics, labour, culture and history have traced the making of a Caribbean civilisation for many years. Denis Benn has traced the growth of political ideas and the intellectual tradition. C.L.R. James studied the impact of the Haitian Revolution on the region's emancipation. Eric Williams traced the history of the region from Columbus to Castro. Others have studied the creolisation of the region, the nature of its languages, the ethnic histories of its people, the great revolutions and rebellions and the great revolutionaries and popular heroes from Headley to Lara, its political independence and modern political founding fathers. It is not a civilisation in decline. Rather it is one still in the making. It is precisely this that the Single Market and Economy must capture.
A MARKET TO CIVILISATION
A civilisation cannot be reduced to a market and economy or a market economy. But freedom of movement, necessary for a market, creates a transitional fertilisation amongst cultures. As we do more business with each other we will need to know more about each other. We will need to identify better together, do more things together, and aim for values of excellence as global citizens standing for peace, tolerance, democracy, human development and breaking new grounds for progress in science and technology, governance, human development, and a humane world order.
This means that our media, schools, political parties, trade unions, churches, business associations, human rights organizations, and sports associations, must be more relevant to the wider Caribbean project. If they are to be relevant to the wider Caribbean marketplace of people, ideas, goods, capital, and services, these organisations must make better sense to the wider audience of the Caribbean. The Single Market of 2006, the World Cup of Cricket of 2007, the commemoration of the Abolition of the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade in 2007, the Single Economy of 2008, are all major catalysts around which we can seize the moment and advance the civilisation project.
It is a good time for the UWI to hold a conference on the future of our Caribbean civilisation, one that goes beyond issues of governance and economic integration, to embrace broader issues to establish the region's goals for the next decades of this century.
E-mail the Department of Government at: Robert.Buddan @uwimona.edu.jm
© Copyright 1997-2005 Gleaner Company Ltd.
