It is time for the Caribbean and various other regions of the world to ditch the superpowers as leading lights of global security and prosperity.

The Covid-19 pandemic, trade wars, rapidly deteriorating race relations in the United States, 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.

After 80 years of a world order driven by a US victorious from World War II and the Bretton Woods monetary system — with the creation of solid institutions that have driven peace and security — the world is back in the doldrums of instability and uncertainty.

Countries are looking inwards once again. Xenophobia and insularity have become ubiquitous. Race hate is spiralling out of control in these Americas as a symptom of a world in self-contradiction and turmoil.

 

US ‘despised’

The US, 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 US is not helped by migration patterns form Latin America into the US, much of which is illegal.

The soft power matrices of the US are in the same place as China and Russia: countries that are predatory and insincere in their moral outlook. 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.

 

In the Caribbean

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 the Caribbean Community.

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 regionalisation at the epicentre of political decision-making. Caribbean people share a common cultural and social DNA that can no longer be ignored.

 

In the OTs

Meanwhile, overseas territories of the United Kingdom must speak with one voice. How this will be done is up to policymakers. But regionalisation means unity of purpose.

Regionalisation also means the harmonisation 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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