Time for the Caribbean to stand up
Dear Editor,
During The 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly this past September, one of the Caribbean’s own, a political heavyweight from Barbados, spoke to approximately 200 national representatives in New York.
Prime Minister Mia Mottley’s presence at the podium was intended to energise this group of diplomats with the hope that the super powers of this world would take the plight of smaller nations seriously, especially during this time of global crisis.
The Caribbean has benefited from the assistance of developed nations, in particular the US, which has supplied over 40 million doses to many of the Caribbean and Latin American countries.
China has offered approximately one million doses to specific governments friendly to the Chinese.
Many of the island nations, such as Antigua and Barbuda, St Kitts and Nevis, Dominica, Barbados, and the Dominican Republic, have done well vaccinating their populations.
Other nations, such as Jamaica, Grenada, and St Lucia, not so well.
The nations of this world who have are typically willing to share with those who don’t – except, apparently, when a global health crisis exists. Nationalism has raised its ugly head and the leaders of the First World have sought to protect their own by amassing surplus amounts of vaccines, thereby limiting availability to Third World countries.
Prime Minister Mia
Mottley called upon the powerful members of United Nations to not forget the “little guy”. The Barbadian prime minister used strong imagery and language to direct everyone’s attention to her part of the world and other smaller nations who are in need of vaccines.
I hope Prime Minister Mottley’s attention-grabber was as forceful and effective as Nikita Khrushchev’s — first secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the 1960s — historic shoe-slapping incident.
As we move out of this novel coronavirus pandemic, the great powers will once again ignore the plight and needs of the smaller nations of the world. It is only natural for them to do so.
Perhaps it is time that Caribbean leaders and those of smaller nations realise that, only through unity and collective action can the little guys’ needs be met. The powerful nations of the world cared for their own first, and then shared the leftovers.
The Caribbean must unite like it has never done before by meeting all of the islands’ selfish needs through strict community planning and management and establishing an economic and political alliance with Canada, a large nation with a small population.
Like Prime Minister Mottley, it is time to think outside the box. It is the only way the Caribbean can develop into a self-sufficient region.
Steven Kaszab Bradford, Ontario skaszab@yahoo.ca