CARICOM Isn’t Just About Economies – It Is About Homogenization Of Cultures
And yes, I used the American spelling of “homogenisation” to make a point… some cultural blending impacts us very little – while other cultural differences have the potential to do significant harm to our qualifty of life and to our economy.
Some of the benefits of CARICOM include a pooling of resources, economies of scale in production and marketing and the primary reason which is to increase the political influence of smaller nations through banding together.
But along with all that comes an increase in the free movement of Caricom citizens between the member nations – each of whom brings the best and the worst of their respective cultures to other Caricom nations. And some of those other Caribbean cultures are incredibly violent.
Barbados is known as a safe vacation spot in the Caribbean – if not the safest. How will our tourism industry be impacted if an increasing percentage of our population originates from more violent cultures than ours?
We can’t afford to have too many more bus loads of tourists accosted at gun-toting gangs before we lose our reputation as a vacation destination with no worries about personal security.
Further Reading
The Economist: Sun, Sea & Murder
BFP: CARICOM Membership Fallout – High Crime In Other Caribbean Countries Hurts Barbados
30 Comments
February 9, 2008 at 7:54 pm
Barbados can continue to be “safe” as long as we fight crime effectively.
Criminals thrive when Government and Police allow them.
If you can build a stadium for a $100 million you can equip the police to deal with criminals.
Start by paying Policemen decent salaries and giving them the manpower and equipment to fight crime.
It does not matter where a criminal comes from.It matters how we deal with them.
We need Caricom and CSME but with a clear understanding that the Laws of each country apply to that country and everybody who enters it.
With regards to culture you have choice, take the best and leave the rest.
I will eat Roti but not Agouti.My choice.
February 9, 2008 at 8:07 pm
Hants, very well said and hear, hear!
February 9, 2008 at 9:02 pm
It’s time to decriminalise marijuana. Too much police and court time goes into controlling this drug, and these efforts at control are basically unsuccessful.
Not only should the possession of small amounts of the drug for personal consumption be decriminalised, government should grow the drug and sell it at a price that would put drug traffickers out of business. The money from the sale of the drug should be put into drug treatment facilities, urban renewal and creating opportunities within poor neighbourhoods.
At the same time, government should place greater control on the sale of alcohol including establishing drink driving laws and putting in place measures to curb its abuse. Alcohol causes far more harm and is more destructive to the social well being of Barbados than marijuana is.
February 9, 2008 at 11:54 pm
Bajanboy, I use to support your position re: marijuana. However, with old age and living in the urban (ghetto) areas of St.Michael, I am not so sure. There are more than a few mentally unwell people (young and not so young) around my neighbourhood as an apparent result of marijuana use. I suppose legalisation would NOT increase use as the drug is so easily available now.
My constant advice to MY children is to use very, very moderately or stay away from those things that I observe to only undermine the efforts of many a working man to get ahead and often (always?) bring unhappiness: these are alcohol (especially Guinness and beer), gambling, marijuana and other illicit substances, “bashment” music and behaviour (loud, aggressive, dishonest and vulgar interaction with others) and irrational adherence to religious beliefs and practices.
February 10, 2008 at 12:54 am
I think police would be hard pressed to negate the effect of an influx criminals from other Caribbean territories, no matter how “effective” the crime fighting. That said, Hants makes some very good points, but what we are seeing now (a far cry from the scenario that Hants presented), is the inability of the powers that be to stem the tide of illegal immigrants migrating to our small island, and the court pages seem to be littered with them. Not saying CSME can’t work, but we really need to get our act together.
February 10, 2008 at 1:42 am
It is time to pack Guyanese back home by the planeload.
February 10, 2008 at 2:06 am
http://zanz.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=7764
the people of zanz also think you’re an ass.
February 10, 2008 at 2:10 am
There may be a way to resolve our immigration challenges. The suggestion is to announce an immigration amnesty for all our visitors that have overstayed their time or are undocumented.
The incentive for illegals to come forward will be to have their status regularised and where possible allow them to stay legally.
Some people will feel that this is too charitable and that any and all illegals should be sent packing. If that is the case we will not see anyone come forward and we may never get a true picture or find a sane manner in which to deal with the current fears.
Let the illegal immigrants that come forward undertake a reasonable number of hours volunteer work in the areas, sites and services that would normally cost the tax payers (completion of the St. John Polyclinic, building resource centres; many immigrants are skilled artisans). This volunteer undertaking should last as long as it takes to process that persons status. If after 2 or 3 months the decision is to send that person back, this can be done in a decent and humane manner with no penalty held against the unsuccessful immigrant if they go home and choose to reapply.
Undocumented aliens and illegal immigration is also a problem because of the possibility for exploitation of the immigrant by employers, lawyers and immigration officers and a cycle of dependence by local employers on their ability to exploit both local employees and illegal immigrants. (They play one off against the other to pay the lowest wages) There is also the problem of illegal immigrants risking serious injury, illness and death through their fear of reporting crimes, sexual abuse, childbirth and disease as they cannot attend a clinic or the hospital without the fear of being reported to immigration and frog marched to the airport.
If we learn to substitute our fears with love and respect, we may yet develop solutions.
Peace
February 10, 2008 at 2:27 am
BFP……
Do you mean CARICOM or CSME?
February 10, 2008 at 2:36 am
After reading that article once again, it brings me back to a point I personally believe in…..Legalise it and place VAT on it.
We continue to spend lots more on the ‘fight’, when we could be making ten times that on the legal sale.
Bajanboy , I agree with you.
February 10, 2008 at 3:01 am
I found this quite interesting….but what is even more interesting to me is that if you speak to the average middle class, university educated Jamaican, you may find that CSME means very little to them. In fact…..it is the odd Jamaican (very odd) who has intentions of relocating south rather than north….heck…most Jamaicans don’t even care much for the rest of the region…however, i see your point…..you want to preserve the values which now obtain in Barbados and so more power to you……I found Bajans on a whole to be highly educated in comparison to most other islands….and usually countries/islands with high levels of education have low crime levels….so hey….how come nobody spoke about Jamaicans…or was the title of the article written so that we wouldn’t feel so badly…lol…smile!
February 10, 2008 at 3:52 am
Surely you mean CSME
February 10, 2008 at 3:55 am
A key point of the Economist article is that the drugs trade drives the crime (and murder) rate
In this case, the drug trade in Barbados could drive up crime to the levels of our caribbean neighbours without the aid of csme
February 10, 2008 at 4:44 am
typical bfp sensationalism. one of the major reasons for the rise in crime and specifically violent ’sophisticated” crime has been the influx of deportees from the us and canada/uk to a lesser extent. men who were taken to the us as babies and little boys, socialised in the us, learnt all their criminal skills in the us, have little or no connections to the caribbean. when they serve their time they are summarily deported to a country they know nothin of. but acknowledging this would mean being critical of the us and we all know bfp doesnt like to do that!
February 10, 2008 at 12:11 pm
yes but the deportee factor is slim…very slim. Recent studies have refelected that. My personal view of a major crime factor is the absence of socialisation agents. We all know that the basic agents are the family, church, school, mass media and peer groups…..somewhere along the line a few of these broke down (family and church) and a few of these were too strong (Mass Media and Peers). We have to go straight back to the family because too many people have been brought up by the TV and their peers…….just my sociological view.
February 10, 2008 at 3:48 pm
like jamaicangirl said the deportee factor is slim. in my mind th reasons for the explosion n violence is a general disenchantment with where are going in the caribbean as a society. the politcians are corrupt and the church elders speak with forked-tongues. the whole scale importation of foreign influences via tv and music also has it effect. the other problem is that we seem no to be able to tell our brother that their are wrong. the politiciand and the church leaders say nothing about the corruption of government leaders and the abuse of position of their own church leaders. we are unable to see the effects of loose behaviour, questionable ethics and a don’t carish attitude in the general society until its too late.
we see the maintenance of law and order as a vestige of the colonial system and the bashment of the police makes great sound-bites around election period.
all in all we are reaping what we have sowed.
February 10, 2008 at 4:18 pm
hi, in response to jamaican girl2007, i was amazed to find the amount of jamaicans working and living in trinidad when i returned after 5 years in europe.
In the petrol stations, in construction, as consultants.When i left trinidad you could not get any jamaican weed, but its there now, different grades too.
Go on the CSME!!
February 10, 2008 at 4:21 pm
O and by the way, you already got a hell of a lot of crime in barbados, just go down to the hospital on a saturday night. There seems to be a media blackout on reality in the newspapers here
February 10, 2008 at 5:40 pm
Messrs BFP … you said … “We can’t afford to have too many more bus loads of tourists accosted at gun-toting gangs before we lose our reputation as a vacation destination with no worries about personal security.” However you did not propose a solution!
NOTHING in this world comes alone. It ALWAYS has it’s shadow or opposite counterpart.
The will NEVER be the perfect anything!
So we have to decide if we want Caribbean integration … or not.
If we do, we have let the ‘positive aspects’ rule – and deal with the negatives when they surface i.e. keep them under control.
February 10, 2008 at 5:50 pm
dodgy lodger….there are 2.5 million people in Jamaica….I did not say you wouldn’t find ANY Jamaicans living in the other islands. I do not speak in absolute terms. I said, however, that if you speak to the average middle class, university educated (not everyone goes to UWI) Jamaican you will see that CSME means nothing to them. Personally, based on the lifestyle I have here in Jamaica, couldn’t see myself living in any other Caribbean island but Jamaica…and even Jamaica is a place I have come to outgrow. I have travelled to Barbados, Dominica, St. Lucia and Grenada, not counting the Cayman Islands, Turks and Caicos, Bahamas and Bermuda and nothing grabs me in the Eastern or Southern Caribbean. So please, as I said…..most persons in the bracket I described are heading north….not south, south east or anywhere below the equator….
February 10, 2008 at 8:58 pm
in reply to jamaicangirl.
was ignoring your central point at first but you seem to be pushing the issue of whether the larger caribbean is relevant to middle class jamaicans? i don’t get where you are going with that? the converse of course is whether the larger caribbean is bothered with jamaica or count it as relevant to caribbean integration or relevant at all to anything regionally? after it never was. jamaica has never seen itself as caribbean per se. remember the federation? i say one must do what one must do.
the world is your oyster, go for it, jamaica.
i have lived outside the region for decades. i have visited an number of caribbean islands, and except for africa all the other continents. i love europe but for the ease of living and familiarity i would say it is the caribbean for me. and because of where i am in life now i would prefer something close to nature like Dominica.
February 10, 2008 at 10:03 pm
jamaicagirl,
please visit antigua, or if your unable to, watch any Stanford 20/20 cricket match that the Jamaican team is playing.
Bear in mind the population of Antigua is 80 000. Or so they claim.
February 11, 2008 at 1:31 am
Jimbo I was making my point from the perspective that the discussion posits that Caricom means more murder for Barbados. Since Jamaica has a very high per capita murder/crime rate, I was really saying that I doubt highly that it would be us descending upon the rest of the region as “gun toting tourists”. Therefore, I was kinda preempting the discussion and wondered silently if the post was pointing to us. I also recall reading a letter from a Bajan in our local papers which more or less said Jamaicans were famous for jerk chicken, reggae and murder….and so I was simply voicing that I doubt you may get a lot of people here heading south to Barbados with that in mind. That was all…….like yourself, I have lived and travelled the world (not just the region).
February 11, 2008 at 1:46 am
i can’t speak much about the other islands but i find that my fellow Barbadian are an angry people.
I think this come from the fact that many of them cannot communicate well and understand each other view. Our children need to be equipped with analytical, planning and problem-solving skills and anger management skills to reduce the possiblities of them breeding criminal minds.
The reasons JIMBO spoke about are real and are a contributing factors to the crime levels we see here.
HANTS spoke of giving our law enforcement people more dollars and i agree. That along with improved technology and an enhance public relations effor would further cause a reduction in some types of crimes including traffic offences.
We need timely satistics on every type of crime commited in Barbados. For example…. if 4 instances of theft occurred yesterday and were all reported by today I as a citizen want to know where, what was stolen, time of incident etc….. This way I can put some measure in place to safeguard my interest as the theft could have occurred in my district. I think we live with this ‘it can’t happen to me’ to much and fail to be real about the things that go on around us.
If crime is to be reduce we need to know what is happening and through that awareness we can have the necessary input to the fight.
February 12, 2008 at 10:49 pm
jamaicangirl-
point taken.
how would you react if i said that wherever certain jamaicans go, there are eventually gangs and what that brings?
do you think that csme would benefit Jamaica?
February 13, 2008 at 12:37 am
BFP,
Is this what Barbados means for Caricom.?
Has anyone seen this site/speech. I do believe we have Barbados (Mia) to thank for this priviledge.
http://www.gov.mu/portal/site/mfasite/menuitem.c9368ae07c35fbc156ae474120c521ca/?content_id=d2e1cc25c8564110VgnVCM1000000a04a8c0RCRD
So in addition to brainstorming the most costly fiasco in the Caribbean, the Barbadians have added visa hassle travel to Europe for Caribbeans to their list of contributions to Caricom.
I cant blame the Bahamians for taking a pass on CSME.
February 18, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Read the story here. This will not be a good year for Guyana.
February 18, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Just read it here.
http://www.caribbean360.com/News/Caribbean/Stories/2008/02/18/NEWS0000005472.html
July 19, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Turks and Caicos is experiencing insane growth so it’ll be interesting to see how the safety holds up there too. I have a turks caicos vacation property and I always feel safe but you never know.
October 9, 2008 at 9:38 pm
You should be more worried about being inundated by East Indian racists from Trinidad and Guyana than about crime spreading from Jamaica.
Labour market integration and the CSME will deliver Barbados to the hell of Hindu domination, just as Trini blacks have been swamped in their homeland by the East Indian birth-rate.
It makes no sense for people who have just escaped centuries of European domination to construct policies that will force them into another form of subjugation.