Caribbean Cornucopia's Blog
Passionate about all things Caribbean!Archive for Geo politics
Caribbean thinkers welcomed.
It has been a while.
I’ve moved to the Med with my family and loving life here. There’s a beauty all around, not just in the stunning Mediterranean seas but in a rich cultural heritage which runs deeps and which feeds my soul. So I am enjoying this part of the world on may levels, despite missing the buzz of London and the intimacy of the Caribbean. I am not complaining. But I do have a gripe.
A lovely old Maltese scholar, a professor I met recently over coffee at the University of Malta told me he’s organising a major conference on small island states growth and development in Valletta and lamented that his staff are struggling to find scholars to invite from the Caribbean. There’s no shortage of government ministers he says. No shortage of politicians with all the right titled portfolios – environment, economics, sustainable development, alternative energy. But he is hard pressed to find good old-fashioned scholars to invite to deliver papers, to dialogue and discuss, and could I help him with some names? Of course I said! There are dozens of bright, learned, forward thinking minds all over the Caribbean. Give me a day. I have since asked for the week.
The larger English speaking Caribbean countries have a case. Sir Ellis Clarke, the first post independence President of Trinidad and Tobago and an astute legal mind and constitutional expert of repute comes to mind. Some would argue that Barbados has scholars in its former Prime Minister Owen Arthur and Dame Billie Miller (also a former politician), and Jamaica is full of energetic minds at the Michael Manley Institute. Other well known thinkers still courting readership of their work include Sir Shridath Ramphal and Sir Dwight Venner, Governor of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank.
Dr Ralph Gonsalves Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines.
Despite the claims of a deep brain drain in the region, which I accept is real, there is no shortage of talented people and indeed, talent in the Caribbean.
And it must be said too that the entire region is pretty vibrant, if not rampant, with aggressive, vigilant journalists, columnists, talk show hosts and to a lesser extent bloggers.
But when I think about it, who is out there? Who in the region is considered to be a leading thinker in what we can loosely call “Caribbean affairs and geo politics”?
The irony for me is that in the fields literature and entertainment we continue to hold our own. Caribbean writers and creative folks are still busy producing good works – books, poetry, art as well as making a name for themselves on the world music stage.
But where are the independent researchers and scholars whose work is being produced and harnessed for the overall benefit of our Caribbean civilisation?Who are the influencers? Where are the think tank contributors? The Caribbean men and women whose minds – their main asset with a body of work which aims to boost the social and economic welfare, security and sanity of everyday life in the Caribbean?
And what of the Spanish, Dutch and French-speaking Caribbean?
