Sudden realizations

As much as we talk about “the region” in one context or another, as a kind of given, and as much as some of our political leaders – Forbes Burnham, Owen Arthur, Ralph Gonsalves, etc. – have trumpeted the idea of political and economic union, the concept remains moribund.  One can reach this reality by doing extensive research, by reading the various Caribbean pundits in the press and elsewhere, by compiling data, or by simply taking the pulse of the man in the street.  That process, probably entailing months or years of application, is one road.

However, there is another process, sometimes lasting only seconds, that produces in that short time a clear picture of where we are on the regional integration aspiration.  One such occurred to me last week. I received a note from an avid Caribbean reader of this column who suggested that some of the pieces would have regional appeal, and that I should explore writing for that wider audience. In my reply, I pointed out to him, that that type of distribution is impossible in the Caribbean – we have no mechanism for that.

In less than the time I am taking to write this, the reality hit me like a slap in the face: the fact that after 60 years of talking about “the region,” the fact that there is no platform in “the region” that