Resident socio-political columnist, Dickson Igwe.
It is time for the Caribbean, and various regions of the world, to ditch the super powers as leading lights of global security and prosperity.
The Covid 19 Pandemic, trade wars, rapidly deteriorating race relations in the USA, and the rise of dictatorship and tyranny, are threats to mankind, driven by the failure of the present global order, and the march towards authoritarian and predatory governance.
The world post the 80 years of a world order driven by a USA victorious from World War 2, and Bretton Woods with the creation of solid institutions that have driven peace and security is back in the doldrums of instability and uncertainty.
Countries are looking inwards once again. There is an increasing xenophobia and insularity that has become ubiquitous. Race hate is spiraling out of control in these Americas, as a symptom of a world in self-contradiction, and turmoil.
The USA, once the leading light of freedom and democracy is today despised and disliked globally. The resurgence of the race hate of the Jim Crow era is driving angst in these majestic Americas. However, hate in the USA is not helped by migration patterns from Latin America into the USA, much of it illegal.
The soft power matrices of the USA are in the same place as China and Russia: countries that are predatory and insincere in their moral outlook.
Venezuela’s President Maduro with his guests at the Non-Aligned Movement Summit in 2016. Courtesy MIGUEL GUTIÉRREZ / EFE
The result is a world at the edge of a social and environmental precipice.
The answer is the return to the politics of non-alignment and respect for bilateral and multilateral agreements by all states powerful or not.
Superpower control of global affairs has been a disaster. The disrespect for less powerful countries, and international institutions and treaties, by super states, has led to global policy error and crisis after crisis.
The Caribbean, for one, must begin to look at the world through the lens of its regional interests first. Social and economic integration of Caribbean societies that share similar cultural matrices must be the driving force towards greater regional security, and prosperity.
Economic sufficiency, beginning with food sufficiency, must be the most pursued route to social prosperity by all Caribbean states, especially those of CARICOM.
Regional integration will begin with regional cooperation. Greater importance must be attached to bilateral and multilateral, social and economic links, within the Caribbean, than links to Washington DC, London, Brussels, Paris, or Beijing.
Social and economic policies must be driven by a new vision that places regionalization at the epicenter of political decision making. Caribbean people share a common cultural and social DNA that can no longer be ignored.
Overseas Territories of the UK must speak with one voice. How this will be done is up to policy makers. But regionalization means unity of purpose. Regionalization also means the harmonization of administrative, social, and economic policy that drives sustainability in tourism, and local market economies.
The present pandemic and economic crisis are an opportunity for these small islands in the Caribbean Sea to re-align regional relationships, and enforce the type of change that will foster greater security and prosperity- if appropriately managed – for decades to come.
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Dickson Igwe is an education official in the Virgin Islands. He is also a national sea safety instructor. He writes a national column across media and has authored a story book on the Caribbean: ‘The Adventures of a West Indian Villager’. Dickson is focused on economics articles, and he believes economics holds the answer to the full economic and social development of the Caribbean. He is of both West African and Caribbean heritage. Dickson is married with one son.
