What exactly is a Caribbean Community? Well for one it is a group of nations who are connected by a common cause.
As with Europe, the first of its kind its mission was to form greater economic ties thus the European Economic Community. Some may take exception to the EEC being the first after all there was a West Indian Federation, however it lasted all of three years, and failed when Jamaica withdrew.
With the coming of the World Trade Organization (W.T.O.) to the region the need has come to examine the benefits of such a cooperative.
We as Bahamians have been fortunate in that we have never experienced the desperate financial times as the rest of the Caribbean.
Indeed we do not think of ourselves as West Indian, but rather we see ourselves as being superior. I was fortunate of experiencing this first hand and I must tell you that whilst we enjoy economic advantages superiority is far from the truth.
If we look at the educational arena it forms a Microcosm of the whole. The average Bahamian strives for mediocrity whilst studying, I myself have been guilty of that at times and I have seen it over and over with fellow Bahamian students.
It seems as though once a grade ‘C’ is achieved then all is well. On the other hand the average Jamaican, Barbadian of Trinidadian is not pleased unless they are at the top of the class.
One thing that always disturbed me, I can remember on a few occasions sitting with friends whilst studying in London, of both African and West Indian descent, and the subject of how to best describe each other would always come up. Without fail Bahamians were described as FUN, a fun set of people, never studious of industrious but fun.
This situation has permeated through the whole society. How many of us have jobs which we attend most of the time but don’t do any work. I’m sure every employer can point out at least twenty-five per cent of their work force who fit this mould. This is a sad indictment on our society. And then we wonder why it is that the illegal immigrants come here and succeed so rapidly. Take a look at the Haitians, within a short time of being here they own a car, not the type most Bahamians would drive, and in most instances its an old jalopy, but one that gets them from point A to point B. This they use as a tool of economic empowerment. Yet we as Bahamians routinely laugh at them because of the menial tasks they are willing to perform.
Additionally have you noticed that the Haitian-Bahamians are the best performing students in the public school system, a system which we decry as being inept, and at the same time the Bahamians are languishing. Walking through the malls in Florida, the other day I noticed that most of the employees of the month were of Haitian descent.
It seems as though the days that Bahamians were in the top echelons are long gone.
How many people know that it was Bahamians who are primarily responsible for setting up the agricultural system in Florida when they went over on contract.
My late grandfather was one such person as were other members of my extended family.For a community to be prosperous and worthwhile from our perspective we need to clean up our act. We have to want to be the BEST.
I remember when in sporting circles The Bahamas was just beginning to make headway.
I am speaking of the post Tommy Robinson era. I can vividly remember Kendal Nottage the then Minister of Youth Sports & Community Affairs talking about the Bahamas being number one in CARIFTA as well as the packed Q.E. Sports Center cheering on our athletes. The feeling of euphoria was contagious. We need to seek to spread that feeling into our everyday lives.
As a country we have the unique opportunity to take a leading role in the community. There will be drawbacks of course. A Community on the scale of the EEC will allow for the free movement of capital, goods and labor. This idea scares the average Bahamian.
What we need to look at though is that as a leading country in the community we will benefit from the ‘brain drain’ that is because our economy is in better shape than the others we will attract the brains of the other countries. What scares Bahamians most is that these talented people will come in and take the jobs or as we like to say “our’ jobs. Well this is where the mediocrity that we cherish so much comes back to bite us.
The jobs will go to the best qualified persons and in the majority of cases it won’t be Bahamians.
Therefore we are left with two options stay secluded, or the option I prefer and that is to change our way of thinking and our national mindset. Choosing this option will mean that Bahamians will have to fight, get better educated and most of all strive to be ‘numero uno’.
There are ways to soften the impact of the free movement of labor, goods and capital.
We can institute a quota system to allow for the slow integration of foreign workers and capital over a period of five years.
At the end of this period however we as Bahamians will have had to have caught up.
The relative benefits of a community is that it will allow for us to be able to speak as a region, with one voice and this will allow us to be taken more seriously and hopefully avoid the divide and conquer tactics as was employed by the OECD in the black listing crisis. Also as a community we can better negotiate the terms upon which we want to enter the F.T.A.A. But ‘ the time to act is now before we lose what little room there is left for negotiation. Think about it!
Editorial, The Nassau Guardian
