Caribbean And the Brave New World

The Caribbean Is One Nation.

                                                    The Caribbean And The brave New World

       

The Late Keith Smith..he understood the
rhythm of Caribbean culture and politics.

Imagine a Caribbean nation with mature leaders who don’t disdain their culture; who believe that we are greater than  what portends, at this critical crossroad in our development, as we journey towards true nationhood. We can only hope that it is not “just beyond our imagination”, as is stated in a popular vacation advertisement, by one of our islands tourist boards.

We at the MCG (Mahogany Coconut Group) have been accused of following a totally collapsed dream; we have been warned that our mission to unify the Caribbean, is nothing more than a romantic relic of the 60’s. They usually reference the failure of the Grenada Revolution  and caution us that should be a potent reminder, of the poison that dreamers consume.

The youth, using the now rampant street lingo of their counterparts in the USA, will refer to such detractors as “haters”. According to the youth, haters dread success because the success of others, reveal their stark failures. We at MCG do not hate the haters because retribution is not in our DNA. We relentlessly pursue the dream of Caribbean unity because we are carrying daily in our bosoms, our children who deserve a better future than what appears to be on the horizon.

We believe that our small geographical space, coupled with our resilience remain our most precious asset. We have no wars or rumors of war in our land, sea our airspace. There are two commodities that never lose shelf life or suffer reduction in value: peace and love. We have plenty of both to offer the world. Within this geo-political space, we can better manage our resources in order to deliver healthy economies and societies for our people.

Our current leaders lack vision but most of all they lack guts. We are not here to be Shakespearian; we prefer to emulate writers such as the late Keith Smith of the Trinidad Express, who understood the rhythms of our culture and politics. We strive for the clarity of thought and purpose of the late Lloyd Best, who spoke about the Caribbean Civilization. While we respect our intellectuals, we honestly believe they have failed the region and will continue to do so if they remain secluded in rickety ivory towers.

The Caribbean is more than sun, sea, sex, white sands and water colored by blue skies. Our future will not be  determined by exotic tropical cocktails and it cannot  be solely reliant on iron birds opening their bowels. We will not bludgeon our readers with statistics and MCG does not pour over contributions looking for flaws in the Queen’s English!

What we do is pressure our leaders to grab the brave new world and exploit it in the interest of our people.  We understand the fancy European attire and the cocktail circuit because we know it is very difficult to avoid mimicking our former colonial masters. We don’t hate the haters- we simply ask them to have guts. Be brave!