7 Responses to “Is the West Indies West Indian? Sir Shridath Ramphal”

• Rose-Marie Antoine on February 1st, 2011 at 9:47 pm

  Powerful words indeed. Whether it is the fragmentation of the UWI, the recolonisation of our tertiary education by headhunting, 3rd rate foreign universities and online predators, the ‘rethinking’ of the CCJ, CSME, 2020 cricket, the decline of the Afro, natural hair and dasheen, the challenges to LIAT, etc. we seem to be getting more and more isolated and forgetful of ourselves. And these days we can’t even drown our sorrows on the beach - locals are blocked in a myriad of ways. The essence of our being and our capacity to recognize each other and embrace each other in our one-ness, is being threatened from every corner.

• norman on February 2nd, 2011 at 9:34 am

  Yes. Sir Shridath also set me thinkng. If Jamaica and T&T set up their own final courts, the CCJ probably dies. So do the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas and the CSME–without the CCJ they cannot function. That would mean the end of CARICOM. This is not an improbable scenario. I am old enough to remember when Bustamante announced he would not contest a Federal by-election because he was against Federation. Norman Manley promptly announced a Referendum. Bustamante won, Jamaica withdrew, followed by T&T, the Federation collapsed, and the remaining eight, in spite of Arthur Lewis’s anguished efforts, never happened. A single event that triggered a whole series of subsequent events leading to a final catstrophic result that no one anticipated, or wanted. Never believe that “it can’t happen again”. Given the seeming incapacity of regional leaders to arrest the drift, it can.

  Can someone launch a “Save the CCJ, Save Regionalism” campaign?

• Havelock R Brewster on February 2nd, 2011 at 1:10 pm

  A few days ago here in Jamaica a video was shown on one the TV stations full of exaggerated praise for the CCJ- no mention of the perilous situation with respect to the appellate function!Can the CCJ-at least in its present form- be justified only , more or less, on its original jurisdiction

• Havelock R Brewster on February 2nd, 2011 at 1:45 pm

  In the Jamaican Sunday Gleaner of January 30, 2011 there appears an article entitled ” Judges want on-the-job “justice’ “. This article details the dreadful- indeed primitive- unbelievable, physical environment and conditions of work in the Jamaican judiciary functions. not the least of which is the “the mammoth task to reduce the huge backlog of cases plaguing the justice system”. In the Sunday Gleaner of January 16, 2011 an attorney, David Batts wrote an article entitled “The Politics of Justice’ Mr Batts gave a number of reasons why Jamaica “should embrace” the CCJ. and remove itself from the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. before advancing these reason Mr. Batts enumerated some of the awful, primitive conditions of the Jamaican Judiciary. One may well have serious doubts given these conditions about the cedibility of any proposal in Jamaica to set up an effectively functioning court of final appeal. This is what he reported-compounding the mess reported in the Sunday Gleaner of January 30, 2011> ” The courthouse across the island are woefully inadequate, and, in many instances run-down. Our Supreme Court judges have no dedicated personal assistants, most do not have their own offices………Our Supreme Court library depends heavily on donations as funding for new acquisitions is inadequate. Jamaica has no publicly funded system of law reporting, although up-to-date and accurate reporting and indexing is a prerequisite for any common law systemof justice to function effectively. The backlogs, delays, and inefficiencieswhich, therefore characterize justice in Jamaica should surprise no one.
  Given this state of affairs< Jamaican should be wary about any proposal advanced to replace the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council with a final appellate court here in jamaica. “

• norman on February 2nd, 2011 at 2:23 pm

  Thanks Havelock–perhaps someone can explain why, in the face of these conditions, the Jamaican Government could be seriously considering setting up its own appelate court–it just doesn’t seem to make any sense.
  The following editorial in the Nation Barbados, is of interest:

  NATION EDITORIAL:A welcome CCJ stand by Thomas

  Wednesday, 02 February 2011 06:46
  Barbados Nation
  Hits: 16

  *
  PRIME MINISTER Tillman Thomas’ public disagreement on the weekend with Jamaica over its expressed intention to set up its own final appellate court would have come as a surprise to many. The surprise would be that it is a departure from the norm among heads of Government of the Caribbean Community. But the Grenadian leader’s stand would be applauded as welcome support of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ).

  http://caricomnewsnetwork.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2056:nation-editoriala-welcome-ccj-stand-by-thomas&catid=83:editorials&Itemid=457

• margaret d. Kawamuinyo Gill on February 5th, 2011 at 3:58 am

  Dear Norman:

  Perhaps the answer to your question as to why the Jamaica government could seriously be considering their own appellate court despite the abysmal state of it judicial context has to do with the state of primary and secondary education in Jamaica and the level of literacy of the Jamaican people. Maybe that explains Bustamante’s success in 1962 as well.

  Margaret Kawamuinyo

• margaret d. Kawamuinyo Gill on February 7th, 2011 at 12:51 pm

  I read with particular delight, Rosemarie Antoine’s response to Sir Shridath because of Rosemarie herself. She is one of the key figures in the forefront of the creation of recent Caribbean (Westindian) jurisprudence with regards offshore financial dealings - a key concern for 21st century Caribbean. And her work is influencing work in this sphere internationally. However, who beyond her close colleagues know this?

  Therefore, while I enjoyed the depth and passion of Sir Shridath’s lecture on regionalism recently given in Grenada, as another committed regionalist, I wish to contend with some of his ideas. He speaks as though the critical Caribbean regionalism is primarily (though for him, not simply) economic and juridical.

  While important, the constructs of the law and economy are at present masculinist and masculine-driven and would be best rethought. The pictures which accompany his lecture speak volumes to me, Immediate Past Chairperson of CAFRA (Caribbean Association for Feminist Research and Action). And that is where I bring in Antoine, Rosemarie.

  There is a missing gap of generations, not “lost” as he says, but simply missing from consideration though in very much action. This group/gap comprises mainly, though not only, women of my and Rose Marie’s age group. We in:
  - the CARIFESTA movement,
  -the Caribbean Nurses movements,
  -Caribbean Congress of Labour,
  -CARIWA (longest living active women’s movement of the West Indies),
  -BIM-Arts for the 21st Century,
  -POUI (Journal of the Department of language Linguistics and Literature which follows on the Caribbean Writers Workshops of University of Miami initiated by Jamaican/American Sandra Pachet Pouquet), and even more entrenched,
  -the Caribbean Writers Journal (University of the Virgin islands),
  -the various journals of the UWI,and
  -the NGO Caribbean Policy Development Centre, the latter initially headed by Joan French and now by Cecelia Babb.

  I am probably missing many more beside the well-talked about cricket and faltering UWI. But what is the core problem or challenge or blessing being described in denoting these missing in action and contrasting them with the CARICOM and its Secretariat?

  Someone once told me “if CAFRA has to die, it will, and maybe we should let it.” I rejected that with every fractal unit of my body. but perhaps fractal is what we should be looking to for example and hope. For this concept of fractal I urge all ones to see an introductory note on quantum physics as I was forced to do since that discipline kept falling into my course on Fundamentals of Written English at Cave Hill, brought to me mostly by the students who now are all (except Humanities students for obvious reasons) are forced to do the UWI course, Caribbean Civilisation. I was led me to the book “Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World” (Berrett-koehler P 1999) by Margaret J. Wheatley, which explores and applies quantum physics to management constructs.

  The vital but never sufficiently considered units I list above are the fractals of regionalism - they repeat regionalism in ever-dispensing filaments (my poetic description of a fractal), though not without danger of individual loss.

  Therefore, perhaps we do not fail the non-aligned movement(s) by signing on to EPA as Sir Shridath considers. Perhaps we fail them only if we do not critique that signing by mis-aligned leaders. But that critique is vigourous as I know from participation and friendship with CPDC and Norman Girvan website.

  It is in our persistant challenge of/to democracy that perhaps best defines us as WESTINDIANCARIBBEAN. I certainly feel that way when in Haiti. And the world we inhabit when we meet the globals and the non-aligns, perhaps they know this? Don’t they know this, Sir Shridath?

  I want a world where we consider other disciplines and spheres more important than economics and the law, because as Egypt shows, that world underlies all worlds. It can be described and honoured long before we take to streets with our stomachs bared and raised to the weapons of our cousins, or place unsuccessful bids for sexual justice against Prime Ministers.

  I do not imply that Sir Shridath in this and other speeches do not consider them important, but that he sidelines them in preference to the law and economics.

  For that last point I want you to note that here in the Caribbean, two years before the Federation was inaugurated in 1958, the Caribbean Association of nurses was formed. They then met in Conference as the first regional act of the Federal Government- not sub-West Indian but Caribbean Regional with French and Spanish an ting . I document this history in my chapter on Dame Nita Barrow, ‘Nursing Politics and Social Change’ in a chapter in the book “Stronger, Surer, Bolder” (UWI P2001) by Eudine Barriteau and Alan Cobley of the Caribbean Women Catylyst for Change project of the Institute for Gender and Development Studies (IGDS), Nita Barrow, Cave Hill unit.

  Hey, I forget the IGDS as one key WestIndian collaborator, connector with units within the three campuses.

  Maybe we should start looking wider, deeper for our regionalism(s) than lawyers and economists and leaders (hey, lawyers and economists…) I offer an essay called “What the Waves Say”, which was presented in an earlier version to the International Writers’ Workshop of Hong Kong Baptist University (IWW) in November 2008. It proposes another view of our regionalism failures and possibilities that even dares to envision the tourist as a friend (sorry Rosemarie). I hope that you can carry it. [Note: this item is posted at http://www.normangirvan.info/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/gill-what-the-waves-say.pdf.

  Guidance,
  Margaret D. (Kawamuinyo) Gill