Many questions are being asked as we seek success with our current tools. Is it time to publicly reaffirm commitment to the values and principles of the old social contract in order to assist with the regional social management of COVID over the next five years? Would such an ideological mobilization of our mentality facilitate the higher level of public discipline the region will require? Whatever the answers, what is certain is that solidarity with the regional leadership of CARICOM is the vehicle on which we must all travel to transcend the COVID test. The ‘One Caribbean’ approach is about SOLIDARITY, SUSTAINABILITY, and respect for the role of SCIENCE. We shall win this viral war. Our history tells us why. Let us keep our distance, and strengthen our resolve.
specific matters to be researched and fixed for the future in order to build the resilience required to hold and uphold the spirit of our people. Maybe The UWI Social Sciences and Humanities can carry this forward. Then there is the issue of the public capacity for compliance with the social distancing policy that is the key to our survival. There is a tendency to confuse the capacity to comply with a lack of discipline. From what I have observed in many impoverished regional communities, the universal desire to comply with public policy is breached by the material pressures to survive. Here is a learning moment in which the victim should not be blamed but appropriately resourced in order to comply. But the search for an appropriate level of public discipline as a necessary practice to achieve policy efficiency might also require, at this time, the reaffirmation of the ‘social contract’ on which our post- independent societies are built. Between the 1948 Montego Bay Conference, when a ‘just democracy’ model was declared as the vision, and 1962 when Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago led the way and paved the road to sovereignty, the approved social contract promised equality and equity for all. It was also understood that this ideal construction would be an inter-generational project with no shortcuts. Maybe the COVID calamity is calling for a rekindling of the regional vision.
The creation of competitive economic sectors and industries in the Caribbean has been a Herculean entrepreneurial task, and the global elimination of our customary edge can be swift. With this in mind, the urge to retain our edge must be encouraged, tempered only by the restraints of science. A Triple “S” strategy could therefore guide our regional resolve. Foregrounding as we are the SCIENCE of the situation; insisting upon regional SOLIDARITY as the best policy framework; and keeping a laser-like focus on the SUSTAINABILITY of our sovereignty is an effective way to proceed. COVID-19 has torn the roof off our Caribbean home. It has revealed the weaknesses of its internal structures and the inequalities of its domesticity. For 60 years, inhabitants have laboured to build our independence. Now, sadly, once again, we see how the fruits of freedom have eluded the marginalized; many in such a way that threatens the foundations of the just democracy we still crave. This we know is part of the legacy of plantation America, from Toronto to New York, through the Caribbean, into Brazil and beyond. The poor are the most vulnerable, and the most death has descended upon their vicinities. Prime Ministers may wish to consider the establishment of a CARICOM Commission of Enquiry into the Corona Corrosion of the Caribbean community. There are some
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