Mutual incomprehension perhaps best sums up the way in which the anglophone Caribbean and the Dominican Republic presently regard one another. Although in recent months the focus has been on the complex concerns surrounding Haitian migration and residence, the regional divide has much deeper origins.
As someone who has had the privilege for more than 25 years to work with the anglophone and hispanic Caribbean and knows many in politics, government, academia and business in both, it is clear that the pre-existing gap between perception and reality has widened over the last eighteen months.
At the heart of the matter, is the failure by both parties to understand how to relate to size: the Dominican Republic is large and diverse, and has a population of nearly 10 million compared to the fragmented 5.5 million living in the whole anglophone Caribbean. However and perhaps more importantly, there is an absence of any deep or emotional understanding of the history of the other.
