THE EDITOR, Sir:
YOUR TUESDAY, January 31 edition carried an interesting article entitled 'Political federation not an option'. In the article, Prime Minister hopeful, Dr. Peter Phillips, made some excuses as to why Jamaica is incapable of accepting political federation with their fellow Africans in the diaspora living in the Lesser Antilles.
The former UWI lecturer pointed to two critical factors: distance and related culture. While I do agree with Dr. Phillips that Jamaicans exhibit a different cultural psyche to that of our brothers and sisters living in the Lesser Antilles (e.g., Barbados, Trinidad, St. Lucia, etc.), the cultural psyche that tends to promote political disintegration seems to be more based on false pride, arrogance and ignorance than anything else. Let's look at the facts.
Large, successful countries like the U.S.A., Canada and Mexico, have managed to politically bind their relatively autonomous states and provinces via a flexible federal model of government. The Europeans, a people long accustomed to the political hindrance of the highly centralised/unitary model of government (one that retards the equitable accommodation of ethnic differences), have recently made the quantum (political) leap towards the federal model of governance, at a time when fierce international economic and military competition is demanding political cohesion in international decision-making thrusts. So what does all this mean for Jamaica and the former British colonies in the Caribbean?
CENTRIFUGAL FORCE
In all honesty, it could be argued that the underlying centrifugal force driving apart the various territories of the Caribbean is that of a colonial-based political culture - one that sees a need to commandeer and centralise spatially domineering political power in a single capital centre of relative affluence (as the British and French did towards the urban glory of imperial London and Paris respectively). Thus, no Caribbean leader wants his or her home country to give up indigenous political power, and thus lose both the opportunity for absolute individual power 'at home', or to see their home capital city (e.g., Kingston, Port-of-Spain or Bridgetown) lose the magnetic lustre that goes with being the ultimate capital city within the unitary political structure that governs their respective sovereign territories.
Proof that this line of reasoning has validity can be seen right here in Jamaica, where the Kingston-based central government is very reluctant to give up any real decision-making power and attendant fiscal resources to the various parishes under the auspices of local government reform (a move that ultimately benefits the urban economy of the capital city, Kingston). Further, even the Jamaican parish councils refuse (via myopic selfishness) to consider the significant economic benefits that could accrue from sharing certain administrative costs and revenues within a domestic federal model of regional county councils.
TIME ZONE DIFFERENCES
I would like to suggest that if the USA, Canada and the European Union can ignore time zone differences along with racial and ethnic differences to be found within their borders, all towards meaningful/beneficial political union, so can we in the Caribbean. The issue is one of educating the public on various forms of federal governmental structures that exist or can be proactively designed.
In essence, federal models of government, ones which promote appropriate degrees of autonomy and interdependence, can propel the Caribbean region towards increased economic strength and prosperity, provided that the region's leadership clearly understands the bigger (unselfish) picture in terms of regional developmental goals and objectives. We need to free ourselves from the 'mental slavery' wreaked on us by the political/governmental structures that we borrowed from mother England in 1962.
I am, etc.,
GARFIELD WHITTAKER
garfield.whittaker@csun.edu
Los Angeles
California
Via Go-Jamaica
