St Lucia\u2019s Prime Minister Dr Kenny Anthony says that there is a grave economic crisis gnawing away at Caribbean countries and \u201cgovernments are busy looking inward – each busy with their own agenda rather than pursuing a Caribbean solution to the economic crisis\u201d. \u00a0Not for the first time Dr Anthony has dared to tred where many other Caribbean leaders have shied away.<\/p>\n
Describing it as a \u201ctragedy of the times\u201d, he charged that governments are \u201cengaged in one form or another of self-denial\u201d while the Caribbean is \u201cin the throes of a major crisis like it has never ever experienced before\u201d.<\/p>\n
Dr Anthony did not say something not previously said by regional commentators, foreign aid agencies and multilateral institutions. \u00a0But now it has come from a Prime Minister who was previously Legal Counsel to the Secretariat of the 15-nation Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) and, earlier, a lecturer at the University of the West Indies deeply immersed in the many challenges and limited prospects of small States. \u00a0His remarks, therefore, come with a special authority and should be a reality jolt for all Caribbean leaders in government, opposition political parties, the private sector and the labour movement.<\/p>\n
Dr Anthony\u2019s comments are of greater significance because they were a spontaneous response to a question after a lecture he delivered on \u201cEducation in the Caribbean\u201d at the Barbados campus of the University of the West Indies on 29 October. \u00a0In this context, his observations have to be regarded as coming from that inner place in the soul that confronts reality when all other options have been exhausted.<\/p>\n