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Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley says regional leaders must ensure the Caribbean remains a zone of peace, and has announced plans to establish a Caribbean Institute for Democracy and Political Governance at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, saying it is critical to safeguard the region’s values.
Speaking during a CARIFESTA panel titled “The Big Talk Conversation: The Idea of Caribbean Civilisation”, Mottley said governments across the region must confront the risks posed by shrinking avenues for shaping public values.
“What we need to do is to recognise that the state is at risk and why? If the only place you can start to shape values in a society now becomes a school because the people who used to watch the common television station ain’t doing so no more… what does that mean? That there is a risk and a temptation that the state will want to strengthen itself to control the society by power rather than by influence,” she said.
Mottley said Barbados would work with the UWI Vice-Chancellor to set up the new institute.
“The government of Barbados feels so strongly about this that we want to work with the University of the West Indies to establish here at Cave Hill the Caribbean Institute for Democracy and Political Governance,” she said.
She argued that the Caribbean has long provided the world with examples of unity and coexistence, and must now institutionalise those lessons.
“Our Caribbean civilisation has played a marked role in helping to identify the battles of the world that have been oppressive and tyrannical and trying to fight against it and at the same time giving the world an example of how people of different races and religions can live together, relatively speaking, in the same common space without massive bloodshed,” she said.
The Barbados PM linked the call to wider concerns about conflict in the region.
“We need to give the world that very example at the time when the world needs it more than ever in this madness of geopolitical strife, in this madness of conflict in almost every area,” she stated.
“It is against that backdrop that we hope that the gathering of ships in the southern Caribbean will not mean that this is a foreteller of conflict in this region,” PM Mottley observed, “because we are adamant about one thing across all Caribbean states—that the Caribbean must remain a zone of peace, having been a theatre of conflict and iniquity for far too long.”
PM Mottley added that respect and compassion must be part of regional development.
“If we do not teach each other to respect each other, to care for each other—the golden rule, do unto others as you would have them do unto you—the ability to disagree without being disagreeable in small spaces … If these things are not part and parcel of small group development all across the region, then you’re going to get the dissonance that leads to the conflict, that leads to the violence,” she said.
She added: “And in the days where automatic guns are easier to catch than a two by three piece of wood, then you’re going to have the reality of persons being the victims of that automatic gun violence across our societies.”
The Barbados PM pointed to control of technology and information as a new frontier of vulnerability.
“The reality is that that is why as recent as the heads of government meeting, I called for us to start to take control over how information is generated and how it is disseminated,” she pointed out.
“The day that we don’t control the technology that allows that to happen,” she warned, “is the day that we become subject to the wills of other people. So that you have a smart city, you have smart grids, you have all of these smart things that can become ignorant with the turning of a switch. And one man owning all of this—whether through Starlink or Linkstar, whatever you want to call it—can immediately change the condition. Not that I’m imputing bad motive to him because I’m not … but I’m imputing … I’m stating the vulnerability of us. And if we are truly to be sovereign nations, the first thing we must recognise is that the armada is not coming. The flotillas are not coming.”
Yesterday, PM Mottley announced that her government purchased the historical records of Banyan archives from Trinidad and Tobago, which captures the digital archives of the last 40 years of the Caribbean. She committed to making it accessible to everyone in the region. She said the archives will give young people the opportunity to build and create more as a people.
The CARIFESTA panel also included St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves, UWI Vice-Chancellor Sir Hilary Beckles, and Ambassador Dr June Soomer. It was moderated by CARICOM Secretary-General Dr Carla Barnett.
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