People regard this Caribbean island civilisation as one that is born handicapped. The most prestigious of the experts and social scientists take it for granted that it is a kind of crime to be small and open. We even harbour the illusion this is the reason we ve been systematically messing up. Invariably the authorised version locates us as object, never subject. Our whole negotiating posture assumes an entitlement to special treatment.
Governments announce policies indispensable to independence and viability.
They then make action conditional on funding from or participation by the coloniser or by agencies set up to supervise developing countries. For Action was said to have been the most critical report ever on the future of Caricom, but to pay for the studies we looked to CIDA, EU, IDB or from UNDP, indeed to every conceivable source. And so it goes on. Some such psychology endures. It seems to me, however, that this stance is being systematically undermined by the challenge.