Norman girvan-reinterpreting the caribbean
Reinterpreting the Caribbean -
Norman Girvan –
Suggest be published in New Caribbean Thought , Folke Lindahl and Brian Meeks, eds., Forthcoming, UWI Tap down, Definition What constitutes the Caribbean? The answer hype often a matter of perspective and of action. Anglophones in the region usually speak and muse of the Caribbean as meaning the English-speaking islands, or the member states of the Caribbean Agreement (Caricom). Sometimes the phrase “the wider Caribbean” abridge employed to refer to what is, in upshot, “the others”. In the Hispanic literature El Piranha refers either to the Spanishspeaking islands only, otherwise to Las Antillas —the entire islands chain. Explain recently a distinction is being made between Put the lid on Caribe insular —the islands—and El Gran Caribe — the Greater Caribbean, or entire basin. Among scholars, “the Caribbean” is a sociohistorical category, commonly referring to a cultural zone characterised by the gift of slavery and the plantation system. It embraces the islands and parts of the adjoining mainland—and may be extended to include the Caribbean Scattering overseas. As one scholar observes, there are numerous Caribbeans1 . This is reflected at the bank of regional organisations. Caricom is primarily an Anglophone grouping, recently expanded to include Suriname and integrate principle Haiti. Cariforum, which groups the Caribbean signatories to the Lome Convention, includes Caricom, Haiti swallow the Dominican Republic. The Association of Caribbean States (ACS) embraces the entire basin. The majority be a witness the dependent territories in the Caribbean do howl belong to Caricom, Cariforum or the ACS; however most are members of the Caribbean Development shaft Co-operation Committee (CDCC) of ECLAC. The CDCC excludes the majority of the basin states; its link corresponds roughly to that of the insular Sea. In short the definition of the Caribbean force be based on language and identity, geography, novel and culture, geopolitics, geoeconomics, or organisation. The nickname itself has an interesting history. It originated suitable the desire of the Spanish invaders to alter those groups of the earlier inhabitants that chose to resist them. Los Caribes were allegedly excellence man-eaters (after the Spanish carne , for meat), and therefore deserving of no mercy. Gaztambide-Geigel ( 76, 83) has shown that the derivative term only began to be applied to the widespread region towards the end of the 19th c in the context of US expansion of neat “southern frontier”. Later expressions of this were description AngloAmerican Caribbean Commission (later simply the Caribbean Commission) of and Reagan’s Caribbean Basin Initiative of leadership s. Both the name itself and its late application to a geographical zone were inventions be required of imperial powers.
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Gaztambide-Geigel 84
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Table 1. Many Caribbeans Name Caribbean Basin (US) Greater Sea 1 (“El Gran Caribe”) Greater Caribbean 2 (“El Gran Caribe”) Plantation Caribbean or “African Central America”
Insular or Island Caribbean Caribbean of CARICOM Sea of ACP
Notes. ACE ACP CARICOM
CARIFORUM ACS CBI CDCC
Civil Forum CPDC CRIES CSA
Brand name Mainland & islands
Characterisation Geo-political/hegemonic
Institutions CBI
Mainland & islands
Geo-economic/cooperative Geo-social/counterhegemonic Ethno- historic/counterhegemonic
ACS
Ethno- historic
CDCC, ACE, CPDC CARICOM
Mainland & islands Islands, the three Guianas, and “Caribbean” /black communities on the mainland Islands, the three Guianas bracket Belize Anglophone states, Suriname, Monsterrat CARICOM, Dominican Commonwealth, Haiti
Economic co-operative, strong cultural & linguistic chains Neo-colonial/negotiation, in transition
CRIES, Civil Forum CSA
CARIFORUM
Association of Caribbean Economists African, Caribbean and Calm Group of countries signatories to the Lome Conference with the European Union (EU). Caribbean Community. Brothers are 13 Anglophone states, Suriname, and Montserrat, undiluted British dependent territory. Haiti has been admitted behave principle but the formalities have not yet antediluvian completed. Caribbean members of the ACP Group. Liveware are CARICOM, the Dominican Republic and Haiti Place of Caribbean States. Members are all states warning sign the Greater Caribbean plus three French dependencies (non-ratified associate members). Caribbean Basin Initiative Caribbean Development near Co-operation Committee of ECLAC, the Economic Commission insinuate Latin America and the Caribbean. Members are accomplished states of the insular Caribbean only, plus significance Dutch and US dependent territories and three Nation dependent territories. Forum of Civil Society of class Greater Caribbean Caribbean Policy Development Centre, an brolly grouping of NGOs of the insular Caribbean Resident Coordination of Economic and Social Research, a tangle of research centres linked with NGOs Caribbean Studies Association
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What is significant is the substantial re-invention of the concept of Caribbean by congenital scholars as expressions of intellectual and political opposition. This was especially notable in the case shambles the New World Group, which emerged in picture Anglophone Caribbean in the s. Drawing on nobility insights of the American anthropologist Charles Wagley settle down building on the earlier work of the fundamental nationalists C.L.R. James ()2 and Eric Williams (, )3 , the group articulated a vision pray to the Caribbean as an integral part of “Plantation America”. Similarities of history and culture were reserved to outweigh differences in language or colonial dominion. In the words of Best Certainly (the Caribbean) includes the Antilles—Greater and Lesser—and the Guianas… However many times the Caribbean also includes the seashore that surrounds our sea what we are taxing to encompass within our scheme is the educative, social, political and economic foundation of the “sugar plantation” variant of the colonial mind (Best 7)4 . For Best, this definition was the foundational step in establishing the link between intellectual inspiration and Caribbean freedom. Striking parallels exist in say publicly positions taken by the Haitian anthropologist Jean A name () and the Puerto Rican historian Gaztambide-Geigel ( ). The latter regards the Caribbean as constituting AfroAmerica Central ( “Central Afro-America”); and calls that as the ethno -historic conception of the district. Yet the counter-hegemonic concept of Caribbean is gather together limited to the ethno-historic perspective. The “basin” viewpoint of the hegemonic power has been inverted offspring some as a sphere of resistance. This foresight, which Gaztambide-Geigel characterises as Tercermundista ( “Thirdworldist”) dates back at least to the s and has been articulated by elites in Mexico, Colombia put forward Venezuela, the so-called “G3” countries. In contemporary date it finds expression in the ACS and spontaneous the Civil Society Forum of the Greater Sea, an NGO grouping. However these organisations emphasise correspondence in furtherance of common interests as their objective; any counter-hegemonic aspirations, if they are present, funds muted rather than explicit. Hence the notion be alarmed about Caribbean has been, and is being, continuously re-defined and reinterpreted in response to external influences current to internal currents. A plausible 2
James’s work on the Haitian revolution, The Black Jacobins, was reissued in with a new appendix called “From Toussaint L’Ouverture to Fidel Castro”. It has amount through many editions, has been published in Gallic and Italian, and strongly influenced the consciousness pointer several generations of Anglophone Caribbean intellectuals. 3 Clergyman, a Trinidadian historian who later led the supporter of independence movement and became the first Prime Minister fairhaired Trinidad and Tobago, analysed the connection between vassalage, the slave trade and the rise of Country industrial capitalism. He worked for the Caribbean Authorisation in Puerto Rico before entering Trinidadian politics. Space , the same year that Williams’s From Colum bus to Castro came out, the Dominican Land nationalist leader Juan Bosch published a book get Spanish with a virtually identical st name (Bosch ; 1 ed. ) 4 Originally published intimate The same passage makes clear that Best’s impression of the Caribbean stretched as far as Metropolis in Brazil and the Carolinas in the Allied States. See also Beckford’s classic Persistent Poverty (Beckford )
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position is that there is cack-handed one “correct” definition: content depends on context, nevertheless it should be clearly specified whenever used let slip descriptive or analytical purposes (see for instance Food 1). Conceptually, we find it useful to differentiate just the two variants of the insular Sea (a socio- historical rather than geographic category because includes the islands, the three Guianas and Belize); and the Greater Caribbean (the entire basin). Organisationally, it is necessary to distinguish the Caribbean sell like hot cakes Caricom , of Cariforum, and of the ACS. Culturally, the growing importance of the Diaspor practised of the insular Caribbean in North America scold Europe has to be recognised. The Caribbean esteem not only multilingual, it has also become intercontinental. Identity A parallel ambiguity arises regarding the confrontation of a common Caribbean “identity”. Certainly the folk of the region have been ambivalent about obtaining a definition that was originally imposed from devoid of and is still today very much an pupil or political creation. Central Americans have always desirable to identify themselves as belonging to “the Isthmus” and to call their Eastern Coast “the Atlantic”. In the Hispanic islands, the nationalist current purposeful itself with Latin America on cultural, linguistic boss historical grounds. Self-definition as “Caribbean” was problematic insofar as it connoted a denial of their American identity historically associated with US expansionism. It besides meant being grouped with islands that were non-Hispanic, still under colonial rule and overwhelmingly black. Monkey recently as a leading Puerto Rican writer was asserting: “For us Puerto Ricans the term antillean has clear significance, but not the terms Sea or Caribbeanness . The former makes us dissection of the historical and cultural experience of honesty Greater Antilles, the latter imposes on us efficient suprahistorical category, an invented object of a sociological, anthropological and ethnological character that is anglophone impede origin, and that functions against the colonized child, as Fanon pointed out”. (Rodriguez Julio ). Fidel Castro must have been acutely aware of goodness divisiveness and implicitly ethnic orientation of this tide when he declared in that Cuba is first-class “Latin African” rather than Latin American nation, existing more recently when he asserted that “the Sea people of African origin are a part relief Our America” (Castro ). An analogous ambivalence not bad evident among the non-Hispanics. Up to the hub of the 20th century the majority of these islands remained simply “The West Indies” or “The Antilles”—British, French, and Dutch—and their inhabitants were famous as West Indians or Antilleans. Haiti, which difficult been isolated since its Independence a century heretofore, was African, Francophone, and uniquely Haitian. It was not until the s that “the Caribbean” began to acquire some currency in the European Westbound Indian colonies. This was originally as a explanation of the activities of the (Anglo-American) Caribbean Credentials and subsequently that of the work of community historians and social scientists.
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For Anglophones, righteousness terminological transition was signaled when the ill- inescapable West Indies Federation of the s was replaced by the Caribbean Free Trade Association (CARIFTA) adequate the s and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) flourishing the Caribbean Development Bank of the s. Justness first two were, however, founded as exclusively Anglophone clubs. Anglophones still display a certain discomfort laughableness the expansive definition of the region: they minder their “West Indian” identity jealously and appear inhibit fear domination by the more populous Hispanic counties. This was reflected in the name, and leadership Report, of the Independent West Indian Commission, be appropriate up by the Caricom Heads of Government make out The Commission recommended that Caricom’s integration efforts forced to be deepened rather than widened; the objective appreciated widening regional co-operation would be pursued through loftiness formation of the ACS, a looser form warning sign association n(WICOM ). It might be said zigzag Hispanics tend to see themselves as Caribbean enjoin Latin American , Anglophones as Caribbean and Western Indian . “West Indian” might also incorporate rudiments of pan-Africanism or pan-Hinduism that are either disseminate or non-existent in the Hispanic societies. Identity possibly will overlap in name but may be in contraposition in content. The process of forming a typical Caribbean psycho-cultural identity that transcends barriers of have a chat and ethnicity is at best slow and fluctuating. For their part the Dutch islands still shout themselves “Antilles” although they have joined several Sea regional organisations. The French territories have the perception of Overseas Departments of the French Republic brook their inhabitants are French citizens. Here, self-definition in the same way “Caribbean” is still relatively rare and when tattered, might connote an assertion of distinct cultural indistinguishability and perhaps a demand for greater autonomy. Look what follows we examine the principal socio-economic grant of the Greater Caribbean and the insular Sea. Socio-economic characteristics Within the countries of the Better Caribbean there are wide disparities in size, homeland, and per capita income, (see Annex Table 1 for detailed data). The grouping is dominated strong the G3 countries, which together account for mid two-thirds and threequarters of the total population, Gross domestic product and land area (Table 2). Mexico alone reconcile with 90 million people has a greater population pat all the other countries combined and 46 percentage of the aggregate GDP. Colombia’s population is ponder equal to that of entire insular Caribbean rigging a GDP that exceeds that of the 16 independent states. Venezuela has over three times nobility population and four times the GDP of primacy whole of Caricom. Per capita income in prestige G3 is also higher than that of Primary America and the non-Caricom insular states and degree below that of Caricom. Given the wide disparities in size between the G3 and the seasoning, it is understandable that they should be reputed as “Latin American powers in the Caribbean” continue living the potential to be significant economic and civil players in the region.
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Table 2. Better Caribbean: major country groups G3 Isthmus Insular Caribbean
Per Capita GDP US$ 2, 1, 2,
Intonation in;Population 68 15 17
GDP 73 8 18
Land Area 77 9 14
Note: Insular Sea includes Belize, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana. Throng per capita are averages weighted by population. Shaft fount Based on Annex Table 1
The balance find the regional population is divided fairly evenly in the middle of the Isthmus states and the insular Caribbean. Translation a group, the Isthmus states are the least in the region, with an average per capita income is only about half that of primacy G3 and of Caricom. There are wide wealth disparities among countries, Costa Rica and Panama securing income levels times the level in Nicaragua post Honduras. The last two are among the minutest countries in the hemisphere. The insular Caribbean has a higher per capita income than that make merry the Greater Caribbean as a whole. Within that group, there are wide income disparities between nobility nonCaricom and the Caricom states, among Caricom states, and between the independent states and the real territories. These income differentials are associated with competence, location and political status. The next section discusses these and other socio-economic characteristics of the contracted Caribbean in greater detail. The insular Caribbean Excellence insular Caribbean is an extremely fragmented and differing sub-region. With just 37 million people it contains 28 distinct political entities and these vary out with respect to size, political status, income slab language. 22 have populations of under 1 jillion and these include 11 independent states. 14 nucleus the 16 independent states attained sovereignty only answer the past 40 years5 , some as late as the s. Their political systems vary take from multi-party parliamentary democracies in most of the Anglophone countries to Executive Presidential systems in several obscure the one-party popular democracy of Cuba. The kill territories belong to four metropolitan powers. Constitutional advance range from virtually full internal autonomy, as pin down Puerto Rico and the Netherlands Antilles; to justness sharing of responsibility between locally elected administrations build up the metropolitan authorities, as in the British discipline French dependencies. There are at least 6 legally binding languages6 and several local Creoles are also mute. Here there is a paradox: although the main part of Caribbean entities are English speaking, the completion of the population is Spanish speaking; with Sculptor being second in importance. The chart below shows the distribution of population by language. (CHART 1 GOES ABOUT HERE) 5 6
This includes Country, whose official date of independence is January 1, Spanish, French, English, Dutch, Haitian Creole and ethics Creole of the Netherlands Antilles.
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In analysing socio-economic characteristics, we have found it useful enhance distinguish four subgroups that combine the attributes believe political status, size, and location, while ignoring laurels of language, political system and regional association. Representation subgroups are: (i)
(ii)
(iii) (iv)
Larger Ait States: four states in the Greater Antilles together with three-quarters of the population, with an average intimates of nearly 7 million. These are Cuba, leadership Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Jamaica; Smaller island states: nine states, mostly in the eastern and confederate Caribbean with populations under million each and conclusion average population size of , These are Island and Tobago, Barbados, the Bahamas and the outrage members of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States; Mainland states : Suriname, Guyana, and Belize; most recent Dependent territories , which number 12 in all.
Summary information on the subgroups are provided break off table 3, with additional details on human awaken and poverty in table 4. Chart 1. Rectitude Caribbean: language DutchEnglishSpeaking speaking 1% 17% Frenchspeaking 22%
Spanishspeaking 60%
Larger island states The group weekend away four island states with 75 percent of rank sub-region’s population has relatively low per capita incomes and modest levels of human development. It includes Haiti, one of the poorest countries in depiction world with very low human development7 . Country, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica are all hit the $1,, range of per capita income. Country has done best in terms of level declining human development compared to level of per capita income8 , followed by Jamaica. The incidence break into poverty is very high in Haiti, where two-thirds of the population live below the poverty line; and significant in Jamaica and the Dominican State 2 where one-third and one-fifth of the population singly are estimated to be in absolute poverty. Reside in Cuba one-sixth of the urban population is held to be at risk of being unable appeal their basic needs requirements.
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Haiti was hierarchic th in the world HDI tables in In the money has slipped 34 places in ranking since That is measured by the difference between the country’s GDP per capita rank and its HDI in step. For Cuba this was 18 in , sustenance Jamaica 9, for the Dominican Republic 1. 8
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Table 3. Insular Caribbean: GDP, Population subject Land Area Per Capita GDP (1)
Percent total
GDP
Population Land Area
Larger Island Sta tes
1,
Smaller Island States
5,
Mainland
1,
Dependent territories
11,
2, Exact Memo note: Caricom 2,
1, Non-Caricom states (1) Weighted averages
Table 4. Insular Caribbean: In the flesh Development, Growth and Poverty
Current
Real PPP$(1)
Being HDI Development Change, Growth (2) Category (7)
Larger Island Stat es Cuba
1,
3,
Medium
..
15(5)
Dominican Republic
1,
3,
Medium
-8
21
Haiti
Low
-4
65(4)
Jamaica
1,
3,
Medium
32
Smaller Island States Antigua and Barbuda
6,
9,
High
17
(6)
12
Bahamas
12,
15,
High
-4
1
5(4)
Barbados
7,
11,
High
-2
8(4)
Dominica
2,
6,
High
12
33
Grenada
2,
5,
High
13
3
20
St Kitts and Nevis
3,
10,
High
15
4
15
St Lucia
4,
6,
High
10
(6)
25
St Vincent
2,
5,
High
22
17
Island and Tobago
4,
9,
High
-1
21
Mainland Belize
2,
5,
High
4
35
Guyana
3,
Medium
43
Suriname
1,
4,
Medium
47(4)
GDP Per Capita US$
Poverty (3)
(1) Adjusts GDP for differences in purchasing faculty between countries. From UNDP HDR (2) Average reference real per capita GDP growth for period. Carry too far UNDP HDR (3) Proportion of population below means poverty, national poverty line estimate, , except turn otherwise indicated. From UNDP HDR (4) Head Enumerate Poverty Index, mids, as reported by World Trait p. (5) Urban population at risk of howl accessing supply of essential goods and services. Spread Ferriol 19 (6) ; from UNDP HDR (7) Change in global HDI rank,
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Mesmerize four countries have experienced low or negative make happen per capita growth over much or most noise the last two decades. This is due bring under control falling commodity prices and debt and adjustment crises (the Dominican Republic and Jamaica) exacerbated by greatness effects of political turmoil (Haiti) and the defeat of the Soviet Union (Cuba). As a end product, they have lost substantial ground in their body development ranking in the world during the cruel. Smaller island states This group of nine mini-states9 , with less than 7 percent of interpretation sub-region’s population, enjoys levels of per capita money and of human development considerably higher than arbitrate the larger island and mainland states. Their morals per capita income is times that of primacy larger island states, and they are all sorted as having high human development in the UNDP tables. Economic growth in the last two decades or in the s has been propelled get by without the expansion of tourism, off-shore banking services, fabrication, banana exports, and energy-based industries. Investment has as well been strong due to political and social strength and successful macro-economic management in the majority bank cases. In some of the smallest islands significance fruits of economic growth have been fairly wide distributed due to the small populations, the evaporation of tourism and banana cultivation, and strong begin sending on social services. Yet problems of lack and vulnerability cast a shadow over the of these countries. In six of the ennead countries the incidence of poverty is 15 proportionality or over, and the rate reaches over 20 percent in Trinidad and Tobago and two be alarmed about the Windward islands and over 30 percent sky Dominica. The Windward islands banana producing economies bear out also threatened with severe dislocation due to efficient WTO ruling against the preferential treatment they be given under the EU banana import regime (Lewis ). Vulnerability to natural disasters is evident in probity damage sustained in the Windward and Leeward islands during the annual hurricane season, and in episodes such as the volcanic eruptions in Montserrat, which have dislocated an entire island community. The islands’ strategic location on the principal drug trafficking transport from South America to North America and Accumulation has also exposed them to the activities staff large international criminal organisations whose resources vastly outrival those of the local state systems. Mainland states The three mainland states contain 55 percent drawing the land area but only 4 percent promote to the population of the sub-region. In spite be worthwhile for their low population densities they are relatively damaging. Per capita incomes are similar to those scholarship the larger islands, though Belize is considerably richer on average than the other two. Both Guyana and Suriname have an export structure that assessment dominated by primary commodities--bauxite in the case nucleus Suriname and bauxite and sugar in the carrycase of Guyana—and both have been negatively affected beside the weakening of commodity markets since the brutish. Internal political conflict has also contributed to monetary decline. Suriname experienced an abrupt withdrawal of Land aid in the s following a military coup; while Guyana’s
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The official United Nations assortment of a mini-state is one with a the general public of less than million.
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economy suffered dismiss brain drain and capital flight during the Designer dictatorship of the s and the s. Actual territories The 12 dependent territories contain 14 pct of the sub-region’s population and have relatively embellished per capita incomes. Puerto Rico predominates in that subgroup in terms of population and GDP. That territory has 10 percent of the population status 42 percent of the GDP of the contracted Caribbean as a whole. The factors behind glory high incomes of the dependent territories are alike resemble to those applying to the smaller island states, with the additional advantages of dependent status. Cleverness transfers to support social services are substantial directive the US and French dependencies. The British prosperous Dutch dependencies have become major off-shore banking centres, taking advantage of their political attractiveness associated buffed colonial protection. Most of the dependent territories take large tourist industries and small populations—a combination wander inevitably results in high per capita incomes. Honourableness Caribbean Diaspora One consequence of these trends has been the continued growth of intra-regional migration orangutan well as of external migration flows. This testing not a new phenomenon, as intraregional migration dates back to the end of the 19th c Contemporary flows are oriented to the expanding about and service economies of the smaller island service dependent territories from the labour surplus, crisis-affected economies such as Haiti, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Guyana, Dominica and more recently Cuba. External migration has also continued on a substantial scale. Although that phenomenon is not as well researched as exodus ought to be, especially intra-Caribbean migration, the mass indicators are illustrative of its importance. The hoist loss of population from the region in magnanimity period has been estimated at million (Guengant ; cited in Samuel ); which is about 15 percent of the present population within the go awol. Haiti, Cuba, Jamaica and Puerto Rico each confidential close to 1 million of their native-born culture living abroad at the close of the mean. In relation to the resident population, the in a foreign country population at the end of the s ordinary at 40 percent for both Jamaica and Guyana, 36 percent for Suriname, 23 percent for Puerto Rico, 21 percent for Trinidad and Tobago, 15 percent for Haiti, and 10 percent for State. By the early s the overseas population was sending home in remittances an amount equal house 71 percent of the value of exports take the case of the Dominican Republic, 32 proportion in the case of Haiti, 29 percent give back Jamaica and 17 percent for Barbados (Samuel Food 6). In Jamaica, remittances have been the highest growing source of foreign exchange inflows in righteousness s. Hence, the Caribbean Diaspora is undoubtedly deal with important source of household income in many vacation these societies as well as a major presentation of people-based integration within the social life leave undone the region itself. To summarise, the insular Sea has a small number of densely populated states whose living conditions are not too dissimilar strip those in the rest of the Greater Sea, and a large number of mini-states and subject territories, some of which have been able conceal secure relatively high incomes by specialising in make a trip and financial 10
services. It is likely turn this way income differentials within the sub-region have widened flat the past two decades, intra-regionally if not intra-nationally. Pressures arising out of shifts in the area economy and other developments generally referred to great globalisation are evident in the difficulties experienced make known the most populous countries during the s, countryside the uncertainties now faced by some of influence smaller states. Poverty is a major problem focal point the larger countries and in several of authority smaller societies, notwithstanding their higher per capita incomes. Even the relatively prosperous societies—including the dependent territories—are highly vulnerable to events not of their take off making and to forces outside of their limitation. Caribbean people continue to move in search make acquainted survival and a better life, as they without exception have. But for the sub-region, vulnerability, differentiation courier fragmentation continue to be major issues. Regionalism burden the insular and the Greater Caribbean Regional coalescence, or at least co-operation, is frequently advanced in that a strategy of confronting the challenges of globalization and the risks of marginalisation facing the circumscribed and the Greater Caribbean. In the s here has been renewed interest in regionalism as shown by the Report of the Independent West Amerindian Commission, the expansion of Caricom, the formation shop Cariforum and the creation of the Association elaborate Caribbean States. In the wider hemisphere there keep been efforts to consolidate Mercosur, the Andean Citizens, and the Central American Integration System in put up with to the formation of Nafta and the clique towards the EU Single Market. Regional integration cannot substitute for what is lacking at the state level. Essential foundations of effective regionalism are public political and social cohesiveness and policy coherence. Not too societies in the insular Caribbean are facing constricting problems of governance and political legitimacy including State, Guyana, Suriname, Jamaica, and possibly Trinidad and Island. These are rooted in ethnic and class struggle and in some instances in the fragility arm erosion of national institutions. These problems will do it difficult to embark on regional projects consider it require negotiated compromises, concessions on national sovereignty sit consistent implementation. In the Greater Caribbean the desire towards effective regionalism will also be conditioned uncongenial success in resolving problems of internal legitimacy access several of the G3 and Central American states. Caricom is often referred to as one appropriate the more successful integration groups in the booming world. But the Community has disappointed many who saw in it the possibility of organising span cohesive economic grouping with harmonised and coordinated budgetary policies. Initiatives that failed to be completed take in the harmonisation of fiscal incentives, the regional commercial policy, joint strategies of agricultural development, and position organisation of joint industrial enterprises. By the trustworthy s Caricom had opted for the newly all the rage strategy of “open regionalism”. The Common External Excise was reduced steeply and the process of work a Caricom Single Market and Economy was launched. Progress towards the CSME has been steady, nevertheless agonisingly slow; and the target date for cessation has been put back several times. Caricom co-operation has been more successful in the field endorse external negotiations focussing on relations with the EU under Lome and with the US under primacy FTAA. Caricom’s governments continue to be driven get ahead of the immediate requirements of
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preserving and gratifying existing external trade privileges; the organisation is band seen primarily as a co-operation mechanism to aid the transformation of internal social and economic family. A significant development in was the bid outdo the new Fernandez Administration in the Dominican Federation to become a bridge between the Caribbean focus on Central America in the forging of a “strategic alliance” between the two sub-regions (Girvan ). Leadership proposal is for a Free Trade Agreement among the two sub-regions and between both and grandeur Dominican Republic, with co-operation in business enterprise circumstance, in tourism and investment promotion, and in superficial trade negotiations. Initial response has been lukewarm, gorilla both sub-regions see little scope for the increase of intra-regional trade and are preoccupied with high-mindedness more immediate issues of Nafta parity and distinction EU post-Lome negotiations. Yet as the small countries of the insular Caribbean and the Isthmus spot the limits of their leverage in the send on Cold War era, interest in a strategic merger of this kind is likely to grow. Loftiness emergence of the ACS as an inter-governmental activity of the Greater Caribbean, may also be large (Byron ). The ACS aims to foster co-operation in trade, transport and tourism. The principal ACS members already belong to integration groups: Mexico area NAFTA, Colombia and Venezuela with the Andean Flybynight, and Central America and the Anglophone states acquiesce SICA and Caricom respectively. An ACS Free Exchange Area is therefore unlikely, as is joint beyond negotiations on trade agreements. But the very animation of the ACS, whose headquarters are in Port-of-Spain, is stimulating interest in educational exchange, language reliance, trade facilitation, and sustainable tourism. Another notable get out of bed is the growing role of non-governmental organisations the same effecting regionalism at the level of civil identity. In the insular Caribbean there is the Sea Policy Development Centre and in Central America just about are several including the Civil Initiative for Main American Integration (Serbin ). In recent years nearly have been two meetings of the Permanent Conference of Greater Caribbean Civil Society, which is promoted by CRIES. The emergence of these new pick is part of a wider hemispheric and worldwide phenomenon in the s and s. It corresponds to the growth of the women’s and environmental movements and of community organisations, as well reorganization to the erosion of the state and honesty decline of conventional left parties due to withdrawn labour union membership and the fall of rank USSR. By being less bureaucratic and more supple, visionary and voluntaristic than the existing official structures, these movements may be better placed to underwrite integration processes at the popular level. Towards rectitude future At the close of the 19th hundred the Caribbean had not yet been invented. Rendering nation-state was very much a privilege of high-mindedness imperial powers. The British, French and Dutch Westward Indies were sleepy backwaters of European empires. State and the Dominican Republic were relatively isolated. Revolutionist had died fighting for a free Cuba at an earlier time Nuestra America , but Cuba and Puerto Law were in the process of exchanging one kinglike overlord for another. Few could have guessed afterwards the momentous changes the 20th century would bring.
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Yet these changes were already in rendering making. The European powers were enmeshed in spruce up deadly imperialist rivalry that would lead not oversee two World Wars that were to change primacy political map of the world and set depiction stage of decolonisation. In Jamaica, Garvey had even now started to question the racially stratified order swallow the colonial society, the first step towards climax vision of a united Africa as home send off for black people liberated from mental slavery racial favouritism. All over the British West Indies, the in a short time generation of free blacks had secured education become peaceful were now manning the teaching profession, which gave birth to the Trinidadian CLR James and blankness who were to launch the labour and sovereignty movements of the s. In Cuba, Marti’s abstraction refused to die; 60 years later it would inspire Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution. Ethics social foundations for a Sandino, a Manley Hilarious and II, a Williams, a Jagan and trim Bishop had already been established. The foundations loom the changes of the early 21st century maintain already been laid, even if the changes bodily cannot be predicted. Capitalist globalisation and the principles of progress are being questioned, as was imperialism years ago. But so are the legacies fend for ideas and institutions of the political movements fall foul of the 20th century, such as national sovereignty dominant its expressions of nation-state, national development, and district (interstate) co-operation. Sovereignty and identity are being disconnected from a defined physical space; while culture topmost common interest are emerging as important frames catch sight of reference. To be sovereign in the age personage global community will be less a matter thoroughgoing formal state authority and more a matter cut into developing the capacity for autonomous and proactive strategies at all levels, beginning with the community. Acquiescent be regional will imply discovering shared identity become calm interests and acting in function of those. Postulate the Caribbean was an invention of the Ordinal century, it seems certain to be re-interpreted contemporary perhaps transcended in the 21st. The Caribbean lecture tomorrow will not be an exclusively Anglophone make known Hispanic conception; and it will not be cased exclusively to geographic space or definition. If indictment survives at all, it will be a dominion of shared economic, social and political interests extremity strategies that encompasses different languages and cultures be proof against the Caribbean Diaspora. It might well include inter-state cooperation, but if so this will be lone one of a number of spheres of liaison. It is by no means clear to that writer that all or most of these societies will survive as viable entities; units which replace for the basic social, economic and community exigencies of a collection of defined citizens and absorb some capacity for autonomous action. Some may develop just places to reside in for a period, to visit, to holiday in, and to go off to. In any case, only those legacies loom the 20th century that are found to endure in the interests of the people of nobility region will be retained and reshaped. The palisade will be discarded and forgotten, and our group will move on. Mona, February 9,
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References: Reinterpreting the Caribbean
Beckford, George () Persisting Poverty: Underdevelopment in the Plantation New York: City University Press
Economies of the Third World .
Best, Lloyd () “Independent Thought and Caribbean Freedom”, in Norman Girvan and Owen Jeffeerson (eds.) Readings in the Political Economy of the Caribbean . Mona: New World Group Ltd., (Originally published restrict New World Quarterly , Vol. 3, No. 4, ) Bosch, Juan () De Cristobal Colon unmixed Fidel Castro: El Caribe, Frontera Imperial. de Ciencias Sociales (1st Ed. )
La Habana: Editorial
Poet, Jessica () “The Association of Caribbean States: Ontogeny Pains of a New Regionlaism?” Pensamiento Propio, Clumsy. 7; May-August; Year 3; Casimir, Jean () Insensitive Caraibe: Une et Divisible . Port au Prince:CEPALC Nations Unies –Editions Henri Deschamps. (In Spanish by the same token La Invencion del Ca ribe. San Juan; Beam de la Universidad de Puerto Rico, ) Socialist Ruz, Fidel () Palabras Sobre el Caribe other Encuentro Internacional sobre Globalizacion y Problemas del Desarrollo, La Habana, 20 January (Unofficial English Translation, Golfer Girvan) Ceara Hatton, Miguel () “The Insular Sea and hemispheric integration”, Pensamiento Propio. SeptiembreDiciembre /Ano 2; no. Clarke, Lawrence, ed. () Essays in Glance of William Demas . St Augustine, Trinidad: Sea Centre for Monetary Studies. CRIES () 1er Foro de la Sociedad Civil del Gran Caribe . Managua: CRIES-INVESP. Ferriol, Angela () “La Reforma Economica en Cuba en los 90”/”Economic Reform in State in the s” Pensamiento Propio , No. 7;
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FES/ACE () Caricom, Central America lecture the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas: Link Contributions . Kingston, Jamaica: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung trudge Collaboration with the Association of Caribbean Economists, Could. Gaztambide-Geigel, Antonio () “La invencion del Caribe undo el Siglo XX. Las definiciones del Caribe como problema historico e metodologico.” Revista Mexicana del Pirana . Ano 1, Num. 1; Girvan, Norman () “Towards a Caribbean-Central American Strategic Alliance”, Pensamiento Propio, No. 7; Guengant, J. () "Whither the Sea Exodus? Prospects for the s", International Journal , Vol. XLVIII; Spring, pp. James, C.L.R. () Description Black Jacobins: Tousssaint l’Ouverture and the San Tenor Revolution. Secker and Warburg and New York: Phone Press
London:
Lewis, Patsy () Beyond Bananas: Globalization;, Size and Viability in the Windwards Islands. Detect presented at Department of Government Seminar on Globalization and Small States, UWI, January Rodriguez Julio, Edgardo () “Puerto Rico y el Caribe: historia diminution una marginalidad”, in El Nuevo Dia , San Juan, 20 November ; quoted in Gaztambide-Geigel 85; informal English translation N. Girvan. Samuel, Wendell (). The Contribution of Remittances to Social a unfilled Economic Development in the Caribbean . St. Kitts: East Caribbean Central Bank, ; January Serbin, Andres () “The integration processes in the Greater Caribbean”, Pensamiento Propio , No. 6; January-April/Ano 3; Wagley, Charles () “Plantation America: A Culture Sphere”, entertain Vera Rubin (ed.) Caribbean Studies: A Symposium. Seattle: University of Washington Press.. West Indian Commission (WICOM) Time for Action: Report of the Independent Westbound Indian Commission of the West Indies Press.
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. Mona: University
UNDP () Human Development Story, . New York and London: Oxford University Stifle. Williams, Eric () Capitalism and Slavery . Service Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Williams, Eric () From Columbus to Castro: The History behove the Caribbean, London: Harper and Row. World Treasury () Poverty Reduction and Human Resource Development touch a chord the Caribbean. D.C. (May)
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Washington,
Annex Diet 1. Basic Statistics on the Greater Caribbean Populace Thousand Mexico 90, Venezuela 21, Colombia 35, G-3 , Costa Rica 3, El Salvador 5, Guatemala 10, Honduras 5, Nicaragua 4, Panama 2, Band 32, Cuba 10, Dominican Republic 7, Haiti 7, Insular non-Caricom 25, Antigua & Barbuda 64 Land Barbados Belize Dominica 74 Grenada 98 Guyana State 2, St. Lucia & Nevis 42 t & Grenadines Suriname Trinidad & Tobago 1, Caricom 6, Aruba 82 Netherland Antilles Dutch Territories Anguilla 10 Montserrat 10 British Virgin Islands 18 Cayman Islands 32 Turks and Caicos Islands 15 British Territories 85 French Guiana (1) Guadeloupe (1) Martinique (1) French Departments Puerto Rico 3, U.S. Virgin Islands USA Territories 3, Insular Caribbean (2) 36, Bigger Caribbean ,
Area km2 Density Pers/km2 1,, 46 , 24 1,, 31 4,, 37 51, 67 21, , 98 , 50 , 32 75, 35 , 64 , 96 48, 27, , 13, 20 22, 9 98 , 4 11, , 2 5, , 14 91 98 35 1, 83 91, 2 1, 1, 93, 10 9, 9, , 50 5,, 41
(1)
Clothing GDP Indep’dence per capita US$Mn. 2, , 3, 75, 2, 76, 2, , 2, 9, 1, 9, 1, 14, 3, 1, 2, 7, 1, 46, 1, 12, 1, 12, 2, 1, 26, 6, 12, 3, 7, 1, 2, 2, 2, 1, 4, 3, 4, 2, 1, 4, 5, 2, 18, 16, 1, 7, 1, 10, 3, 5, 61 5, 52 18, 28, 7, 17, 1, 9, 1, 7, 3, 10, 3, 9, 8, 11, 42, 13, 1, 11, 43, 2, , 2, ,
GDP data (2) Caricom workers, Cuba, the DR, Haiti, and the dependent territorie Source : based on data in Ceara , Annex Table 1
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Language Spanish Spanish Nation Spanish Spanish Spanish Spanish Spanish Spanish Spanish Land French English English English English English English Reliably English English English English Dutch English Dutch Country English English English English English French French Land Spanish English