Deciphering the Bajan Mystery

By Kevin Baldeosingh

Rihanna

Barbados is the best-run country in the Caribbean; indeed, it might even be said that Barbados is the best-run country in the world with a black government. In human development, the Caribbean island is in the top 40 of 177 nations. And this empirical fact poses a serious problem for ideologues who believe that slavery, racism, colonialism and capitalism are at the root of every social ill in the Caribbean.
Barbadians, for instance, have never rejected their colonial past, and take pride in being called “Little England”.  According to the ideologues, that should play havoc with Bajans’ sense of identity, which in turn should translate to social disorder. Yet this hasn’t happened. Even by the more ephemeral measure of cultural expression, Bajans have over the past 20 years produced some of the more outstanding party calypso, with Allison Hinds And Square One being best known in this genre. And the first Caribbean singer to achieve real international stardom is a Bajan, Rihanna, who is more famous and wealthier than Sparrow, David Rudder, and Machel Montano. But this glaring reality is overlooked because Rihanna achieved success through R&B.
Barbados is also a tourist economy. Not only should this exacerbate the identity crisis, according to the ideologues, but it should also ensure material deprivation. Yet, among 108 developing countries, Barbados has the best achievements in the Human Poverty Index (measured by a long and healthy life, decent standard of living, and education). Economists Jeffrey Sachs and Andrew Warner, in a 1995 study, compared nations which had always had open trade policies and those which had not. Barbados was among the eight nations in the first group, which in 2006 all had a higher per capita GDP than historically closed countries such as the Dominican Republic and Haiti.
The enslavement of Africans, however, has always been the core explanation for all the defects of Caribbean society. As historian Bridget Brereton points out in her essay, Contesting The Past: Narratives Of Trinidad & Tobago History, the “Afrocentric narrative…sees slavery as the formative experience of the nation’s past, and stresses the brutality of the institution and the massive damage it wrought on the descendants of the enslaved up to the present…Partly through deliberate efforts by the imperial and local authorities, partly because of the massive psychological damage wrought by slavery, the narrative continues, Afro-Trinidadians entered the twentieth century still largely impoverished, landless and barely educated.”
But is slavery an adequate explanation for the woes of Afro-Caribbean people? The historical data in Table 1 suggests that, on the contrary, there is no clear correlation between slavery and the Caribbean’s present state of under-development.

 TABLE 1

 Country    Duration of slavery   Enslaved population
     % at start and end 
 
 Barbados   1643-1834             24-81 

 Jamaica   1658-1834             24-82 

 Trinidad   1797-1834             56-50 

 Haiti   1681-1789             35-89 

Barbados and Jamaica, for example, had slavery for nearly two centuries, and the system was formally ended with both islands having just over 80 percent of the populace being former slaves. Yet Jamaica ranks 101st in the HDI to Barbados’s 31st in the UN’s 2008 report, and Jamaica has a murder rate of 50 per 100,000 compared to Barbados’ 9 per 100,000. At the other extreme, Trinidad had a mere 37 years of slavery and only half the population experienced it. Yet Trinidad ranks 59th in the HDI, has a murder rate of 40 per 100,000 and is 11 spots below first-placed Barbados on the HPI (and even that relatively high ranking is due mostly to energy dollar rents). Of course, it could be argued that these differences can be explained by land mass and population size related to history: but anyone who does that is invoking demography ,not slavery, as the causative factor.
Slavery is also used to explain the unstable family patterns of African-descended groups in the New World. Sociologists John Stuart MacDonald and Leatrice D. MacDonald, in their 1973 paper Transformation of African and Indian Family Traditions in the Southern Caribbean, write: “Around the Caribbean, it is commonly believed that slavery and the plantation system have been responsible for the prevalence of short-term consensual unions, matrifocal households and children out of wedlock who grow up without the authority and support of a father or definite father surrogate. This explanation is accepted as often by social scientists as by public opinion.”
The MacDonalds compared plantations types in various countries with data on family structure in particular areas. They found little or no correlation. “In other countries, the striking character of the Negro domestic group is explained as the result of misery and oppression,” they write. “But, by international standards, the villagers of Barbados, Grenada and Trinidad have not suffered extreme poverty or brutal degradation in the present century. Black Americans have suffered and still suffer greater humiliation and insecurity, but, paradoxically, there are fewer matrifocal households and fewer consensual unions among Negroes in the rural Deep South of the United States than in the southern Caribbean. Trinidad has had the highest level of living in the West Indies for at least 50 years and Negroes benefited more than East Indians from the prosperity brought by petroleum since 191l . By migration, the Negroes of Barbados and Grenada shared some of this prosperity. So it cannot be said that their family households are products of a culture of poverty or a culture of crisis.”
It is also interesting to note that, of the 20 countries in the world with the highest rates of polygyny, only two are outside of sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean. Indeed, in the top 10, six are Caribbean and four African. This is a more significant indicator than you might think, because monogamy in a particular society correlates with greater equality between men and more equity for women, which also correlates with lower rates of violence, greater democracy, and economic stability. Or, put negatively, high rates of polygyny correlate with the opposite of all these things: even Barbados, which is on the top-10 polygyny list, still has a murder rate of 9 per 100,000 persons (compared to less than1 per 100,000 in all developed nations except the United States whose rate is 6 per 100,000).
So culture may be the real explanation for present-day social problems in the Caribbean. Scholar Lawrence E. Harrison, in his book The Central Liberal Truth, points to the differences in key indicators between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and the similarities between Haiti and Benin, which is in the Dahomey region of Africa from which most of the slaves were brought to what was then called Hispaniola. His indicators are reproduced in Table 2.

  Table 2

  Indicator   Benin   Haiti  Dominican Rep. 
 
  Per capita GDP  US$380   US$410       US$1,770 
  Child malnutrition  29%   28%        6% 
  Child mortality  149 per 1000  125 per 1000   47 per 1000 
  Life expectancy  53.5   53.5        71   
  Illiteracy   60%   55%        18% 
  Sanitation access  60%   43%        89%  

                                                             Source: World Bank Report 1999/2000

Note how Haiti and the DR, which share the same geography and history, are significantly different, while Haiti and Benin, separated by seas and centuries, are so alike. Harrison acknowledges that factors such as the heavy indemnity extracted by the French in 1825, the decades of ostracism by European nations after the revolution, and the attitude of the mulatto upper class may help explain Haiti’s failures.
But, he says, “none of them, even collectively, is adequate to the task of explaining the unending dysfunction of Haitian society. What CAN explain Haiti’s predicament is a set of cultural values, beliefs, and attitudes, rooted in African culture and the slavery experience, that resist progress.”
And the Afrocentrists can hardly argue otherwise since, as Brereton points out, their narrative insists on “the relentless effort of the colonial authorities to suppress African cultural and religious forms, and the equally relentless (and ultimately successful) resistance by the people in the 19th and 20th centuries.”
All this is not merely of academic interest. If slavery is not the core cause of Afro-Caribbean dysfunction, then policy measures aimed at compensating for historical wrongs, either psychologically or materially, will make little or no difference.
Moreover, the slavery shibboleth is invariably linked to other ideologies, such as opposition to all forms of market capitalism, attributing blame to other ethnic groups, and rejection of Western values.
Yet, even if chattel slavery was the true cause of Caribbean backwardness, the most effective solutions may well lie in embracing free trade, liberal and secular values, and cultural openness. But how many Caribbean people would be willing to follow the Bajan lead?

ASHFORD JACKMAN looks beyond South Africa

If, as I expect, Trinidad and Tobago defeats El Salvador in Port of Spain on August 12th, there will likely be a number of uncomfortable local football officials leaving the Hasely Crawford Stadium. I say this, not in the least doubting their collective desire for the national team to make a second successive appearance at the World Cup Finals, but rather because they do not really believe (and neither do I) that the current squad can garner, from their remaining fixtures, the points necessary to get into the Concacaf top three. Full points from El Salvador would only reopen the door to the mathematical posturing that embarrassed officials have been using to save face, upon defeat after defeat in this final round- points that would ironically put those very authorities in the awkward position of having to back earlier promises of support that might now prove to have been just robber talk.
Until recently, our campaign in this final phase has borne striking resemblance to its immediate predecessor in 2005; the team has performed woefully, and yet TTFF Special Advisor Jack Warner has maintained his bluff that it will go on to qualify. That was until two weeks ago, when Mr. Warner announced that he could no longer bear the financial burden of carrying (my word) the squad on his own, simultaneously cancelling a planned European warm-up tour, even as he switched loyalty to the youth squad preparing for the World Under-20 Finals in Egypt next month. It was surely a frank admission that the senior team’s cause was lost; and it flew in the face of his earlier statements to the contrary.
The two campaigns (2005 and the present) may appear similar; but as I noted last year, there are significant differences. For one, the nucleus of the squad has deteriorated further; if one now accepts my arguments back in 2005 that the key players were an ageing lot, add four years to each of Yorke, Latapy, Andrews, Lawrence, John (Stern) and Ince, and you will understand this writer’s prolonged silence on the current campaign. You will understand why the only surprising result for me this year was the opening draw in San Salvador- a game I felt sure we would win. But then, Brazil sacrificed their title chances in Germany 2006 by favouring Ronaldo in his bid to eclipse Gerd Mueller’s 14-goal record; why not, when two-up away to our weakest opponents, give a ‘bligh’ to Stern John- out of form, lacking in confidence, practically out of contract- and blow the only win we were odds-on to achieve, given the pedigrees of our other North and Central American adversaries in this final phase? 
Which raises the other major difference in 2009: the ‘back door’ through we slipped last time around is no longer blocked by plodding Oceania teams like Bahrain. And if the U.S., Costa Rica and Mexico struggle against the South American teams, what chance Trinidad and Tobago?
On the evidence, then, Mr. Warner’s belated assessment of the situation is dead on the money; it is the context in which this about-turn has come, and the action he has initiated (there have been no public contradictions from the esteemed TTFF executive) that troubles me.
The world judges a country’s football by the success, or lack of it, of its teams in international competition. Trinidad and Tobago was the Caribbean’s lone representative at the last World Cup, yet it was beaten in the two most recent Digicel Caribbean Championships, was badly mauled at the 2007 Gold Cup, and failed even to qualify for the latest edition, just recently claimed by Mexico.  
There can be no consistency of success in our football until the powers-that-be put a structure in place to facilitate such. The switch of attention from the seniors to the Under-20s appears to be a continuation of the old habit of jumping on the back of whatever is doing well- a reaction policy rather than a strategy. Simply put, the senior Warriors have fallen out of the running in the race for South Africa; jump on the Under-20 bandwagon, whose place in Egypt is already booked. Someone in the TTFF believes that in less than a month, all the weaknesses of the junior squad can be resolved with an injection of money. That would spark a resurgence in T&T’s football. Yeah, right! In the past, I have, among many others, clamoured for a development plan; if the TTFF and its advisors cannot see that far ahead, if they cannot wait so long, then the least they can do is plan the medium term development of a competitive senior national squad.
What would it take to develop a cadre of players and a coaching staff that would hold their own in future Caribbean and Concacaf competitions; one that would give the U.S., Mexico and Costa Rica a run for their money?
Actually, the timing and the resources could hardly be better. For one, the very Under-20s have shown sufficient potential to be groomed as the replacements for our ancient warriors. Such a ploy has worked in the past to create a great team, though many may not have recognised it. Back in the 1980s, Jack Warner himself had convinced the Concacaf to let T&T host a number of youth tournaments. One year after the opening of the West Port of Spain Regional Park (now the Hasely Crawford Stadium), the 1983 Concacaf Under-16 Championship was played in Trinidad and Tobago. Out of that tournament emerged Russel Latapy, Marvin Faustin, Clint Marcelle, Colin Rocke, Todd Willis, Ainsley Weeks, Anthony Clarke and Ross Russell, among others. The following year, hosting the Concacaf Under-19 Championship yielded further gains- Kurt Barrington, Hutson Charles, Leonsen Lewis, Dexter Sandy, Linley Prince and Andrew Ali, to name a few. And in 1986, Latapy and company returned as Under-19s when T&T hosted its third such tournament in four years.
Most of the aforementioned, as we all know, went on to form the great ‘Strike Squad’ that came within one point of going to Italy 1990. For the record, the exceptions included Kerry Jamerson, the Arima Senior Comprehensive defender who was too old for the 1983 squad, and overlooked in ’84. Kerry was nonetheless part of an explosion of talent prompted by the excitement and interest generated by these tournaments, and he was later converted by ‘Gally’ Cummings into a very reliable defensive midfielder. Ditto Dwight Yorke, considered too young for both the ’83 and ’86 teams, as well as Philbert Jones and Dexter Skeene- two untried young men who made the leap straight into the senior ranks.
When the Cummings/Neville Chance partnership took over the senior squad in 1987, the young standouts were combined with the incumbents who were performing and in their prime. These included Clayton Morris, Earl Carter, Michael Maurice, Dexter Francis (converted from left to centre-back), Brian Williams, Kelvin Jones, Maurice Alibey and Richard Chinapoo.  In two years, this squad had the football world watching and wagering as to whether a combination of part-timers- soldiers, policemen and tradesmen, could beat a world superpower to the last berth in Italia ’90. There was no godfather on the FIFA executive, no third place qualification, let alone a fourth-place escape hatch. Above all, there was no foreign coach picked up at the eleventh hour.
Significantly, in the present scenario, most of the players who warrant retention, based on age and performance, are either home-based or just starting out with foreign teams. They include goalkeepers Cleon John and Marvin Phillip, and defenders Osei Telesford, Radanfah Abu Bakr and Makan Hislop. The most populous group is the midfielders- including Carlos Edwards, Densil Theobald, Keon Daniel, Kevon Neaves, Julius James, Khaleem Hyland and Hayden Tinto; and among the forwards, Cornel Glen, Kerry Baptiste and Kenwyne Jones. 
From the Under-20s, there is goalie Glenroy Samuel; defenders abound in the likes of Sheldon Bateau, Ronald Primus and Uriah Bentick; Leston Paul stands out among the midfielders and forwards Jamal Gay, Shahdon Winchester, Trent Lougheed and Daniel Joseph are showing their worth. Additionally, there are several young and untried players in the TT Pro League who merit inclusion- such as Devon Jamerson, Lester Peltier, Elton John and Micah Lewis.
Finally, all support should be given to Russell Latapy as head coach, not on a trial basis, as he finds himself at present. Though the current squad continues its losing streak in qualifying, ‘Latas’ has already shown, starting at the deep end, that he has the vision and the ideas to mould such a collection of talent into a cohesive and productive force in the Concacaf. His selection of Abu Bakr and Tinto, and their performances under pressure and without previous exposure at the highest level, suggest that the little man could be one of those rare individuals who do as well at coaching as they have in their playing days. There have been suggestions already that he should be given the sack; that playing ‘a good brand’ means nothing if the team continues to lose. My take is that you cannot deposit Lewis Hamilton into a Nissan Sunny and expect a Formula One performance; neither can you expect to hand over a beaten bunch of ageing heroes to a new manager and expect a dramatic turnaround in the space of a couple of weeks.
Latapy has shown that he is willing to look beyond the muscle-bound, one-paced prima donnas who believe that having a professional contract in some lower English division club certifies them above the capabilities of the local talent. Under him, the Soca Warriors have begun to play in attack with purpose and sting, as did national teams of the pre-foreign based era. But that topic merits a separate examination.  As for the results, for me, Latapy has lost two of two mainly because the team’s defence is too slow, and quickly spent- and that includes his central midfielder, long time partner and team leader, Dwight Yorke. It was last year when I warned of the dearth of young and promising defenders in T&T, pointing out that most of the Pro League’s leading performers were imported from our Caricom neighbours. As I predicted then, Abu Bakr has been drafted in, but belatedly, as neither Francisco Maturana nor his advisors had the vision. Defence will continue to be T&T’s Achilles heel in the foreseeable future, and the answers must come, in the main, from the Under-20s.
It is too late to iron out their problems on the eve of the FIFA Youth Championship, too late to rescue a South Africa campaign that was doomed from the outset, due to a dismal lack of planning. But the time is right to begin preparation for 2014, using the Caribbean and Concacaf championships as the training grounds for the greater objective.

Reginald Dumas  delivered the following at the service for Frank Barsotti  at St Theresa’s Church in Woodbrook on Wednesday, July 8, 2009.

The years between 1946 and 1952 produced a stellar roll of personalities that I suspect was unprecedented in the history of Queen’s Royal College. It has certainly not been matched since.
I’m sure you will easily recognise names like William Demas, Eugenio Moore, Emmanuel Carter, Rawle Douglin, Errol Mahabir, Leo Martin, John Spence, Max Richards, “Bunny” Padmore, Lloyd Best, Denis Solomon, Frank Solomon, Karl Hudson-Phillips and Vidia Naipaul. There were many others including Frank Andral Barsotti.

Reginald Dumas, right, greets people at the funeral service for Frank Barsotti.

The name “Barsotti” is Italian, as you know. But you probably do not know that the ceiling of the hall of the main building of QRC was installed by a master craftsman from Italy called Giulio (or Julius) Barsotti.
Giulo was Frank’s grandfather. It was he who also installed the ceilings in the Red House and in the Holy Name Convent chapel facing Memorial Square. The particular style of decorative work he used is called gesso.
Frank started his life of paid work as a 2nd class clerk at the Registrar-General’s Department, at that time in the Red House. He spent a few years in the Public Service at levels that cannot reasonably be considered exalted, then proceeded to Cambridge, where he read economics.
On his return home, he entered the private sector and was the first Secretary of the then Trinidad Manufacturers Association. He subsequently entered the Public Service, joining the Economic Planning Division of the Prime Minister’s Office under Willie Demas with whom he shared a QRC and Cambridge background.
Always a hard and conscientious worker, Frank was to rise rapidly in the Service: Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture; Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Planning and Development; and, at age 45, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Finance, a post he would hold until his early retirement 11 years later.
Hard work was not constant, however. He had married Barbara McVorran in 1963 and the union produced one child Natasha. Nor did work stop him from playing mas’—indeed, playing mas’ helped a great deal to relieve tensions caused by hard work and by those who would often make mas’.
He was, in both the public and private sectors, a member of several boards: Central Bank, Trintoc, Caroni, Readymix, Premier Consolidated, and so on, and for nearly 15 years, Chairman of Republic Bank. He was a member of the QRC Old Boys’ Association and was once its President. He was also a respected academic, lecturing for 12 years at the Institute of International Relations at the UWI, St Augustine and acting twice as its Director.
For this massive output in the service of Trinidad and Tobago over the years, Frank received two national awards, the Medal of Merit (gold) and the Chaconia (gold). But it is not possible adequately to appreciate the nature of his contribution to nation and region without an understanding of the historical environment in which he was formed and in which he operated.

Our generation of the 1950s was the first in Trinidad and Tobago to go to university on any significant scale, abroad to the USA, mostly to Howard, to the United Kingdom and Ireland, and to the University College of the West Indies in Jamaica. Ours was also the generation that began the break with the traditional emphasis on medicine and the law. An independent West Indian nation seemed imminent, with the concomitant challenges of social and economic development. A new focus was needed, and the way had been led by the incomparable William Demas, for a brief period one of my teachers at QRC.
Those of us, like Frank, who studied outside the Caribbean, particularly in Europe, were much exposed to, and influenced by, the anti-colonial ferment of the day. Where Tubal Uriah “Buzz” Butler, as Bridget Brereton tells us, “believed in the essential goodness of the British government”, we had seen the British up close, and were appalled at what we saw. It was time, more than time, to put into practice the new focus to which I just referred.
We not only wanted independence, we wanted a coming together of the English-speaking West Indian islands and what was then British Guiana. It all seemed very logical. But we underestimated the negative force of the dividing sea, and the cultures of separatism it spawned. To be together as West Indians in England or America was one thing; to be back home in our island solitudes was quite another. And we also underestimated—indeed, we had naively not even considered—the outsized egos and insular obsessions of too many Caribbean politicians.
Our generation wanted something else as well: the preservation and strengthening of the institutional pillars and standards of society, both national and regional. Public servants like Frank Barsotti, Frank Rampersad and Dodderidge Alleyne understood clearly that a country without viable institutions is a country not worth the name. They gave the best advice they could, not advice that they thought others might want to hear. They anticipated and prepared for the future.
Every year, for instance, Frank Barsotti would write the Prime Minister (Eric Williams or George Chambers, as they case might be) a lengthy paper setting out the issues and recommending strategies for the coming 12 months. He couldn’t do all that by himself, naturally. He had equally dedicated support staff-  people like Harold Atwell, Joyce Alcantara, Ainsworth Harewood, Richardson Andrews, Val Latino, Basil Cozier, and so on. Grace Garcia was a tower of secretarial strength.  There was mutual respect between these public servants, who always put public service before self, and government ministers. I make no comment on what I hear is happening today.
Frank Barsotti was one of the finest public servants this country has ever had and, I believe, will ever have. He worked honestly and hard for Trinidad and Tobago and the region. He would give of his time and patience to explain obscure economic concepts to the public. He was a quiet, unpretentious man from Hermitage Road in Belmont who never forgot his roots and who played mas’ with Burrokeets. He was without guile, modest almost to a fault, devoted to family, no great humorist himself but well able to appreciate humour with his very distinctive cackle of a laugh.
Now he has surely gone to meet Barbara. She will surely fuss over him again and insist he take his medication. He will sigh and take it. And then he will go off and resume his preparations for mas’ next years.
May they rest together in peace.

EARL BEST comments on the Bangladesh fiasco

West Indies Players Association (WIPA) President Dinanath Ramnarine, left, shakes hand with West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) President Julian Hunte during a meeting convened by the Chairman of Caricom, Guyana’s President Bharrat Jagdeo, centre, on July 21, 2009 in Georgetown, Guyana. —Photo: AFP

The part cannot be greater than the whole. Reacting to a suggestion that Barbados might consider applying for Test-playing status, Sir Frank Worrell is reputed to have debunked the idea with that terse reminder—or words to that effect. That was half a century ago but things have not changed that much since the 1960’s, at least not so far as the laws of mathematics are concerned. Some things are, however, different enough to raise concern about other possible changes. Might it not be true, for instance, that it is over?  Might it not be that any chance the West Indies may have had of avoiding the ignominy of relegation to Class Two or Group B or however the lesser lights are designated when the time comes, has now disappeared? How could it be otherwise, given the recent display?
The display to which I refer, mind you, is not the goings-on within the boundary in the just completed Test and ODI series against Bangladesh, the on the whole irrelevant outcome of that faceoff; no commentator worth his salt is going to take that seriously. To my mind, the real embarrassment was caused by the events beyond the boundary, the externalisation, if you will, of the cancer that has been eating away at the core of West Indies cricket for many years now. For me the fingers point not at Chris Gayle and his first-call troops or at Floyd Reifer and his merry bunch of second-call boys but at Julian Hunte and Dinanath Ramnarine and all those who are ultimately responsible for the psychological and other well-being of the players who habitually don the West Indian cricket uniform. And make no mistake about it, they have repeatedly shown themselves to be a bunch of bunglers.
The sins of commission by the West Indies Cricket Board may be said to date from the last decade but they were preceded, the record shows, by enduring sins of omission. When for almost a decade and a half Clive Lloyd’s and Vivian Richards’ West Indian sides stood head and shoulders above the rest of the world, the WICB did nothing to safeguard the legacy by carefully arranging the succession.
Things were left to take care of themselves and predictably they did not. Ask Richie Richardson, Courtney Walsh and Brian Lara. From the pinnacle of world cricket, the decline to its nadir was steep and steady. Ask the ICC CEO and the Bangladeshi captain. And what is painful is that those directly responsible have largely been allowed to soldier blithely on in the administration.
What’s new about the latest problem that has embarrassed the region in the eyes of the world? Nothing, right? What really is the source of the problem? Well, the response depends on the person(s) to whom the question is addressed. Those on the Board side finger the players and their intransigent representatives; those on the players’ side say that the WICB is entirely culpable. Those who come closest to the truth, in my view, are those who say that the situation is destined to remain a lose/lose one for both the West Indies Cricket Board and the West Indies Players’ Association unless and until there is an injection of really new blood—and therefore new thinking – on both sides. At the moment the vested interests are large, although perhaps not quite as large as the blinkers.…
It seems to me that if you are genuinely interested in the welfare of West Indies cricket the adage that “the game must go on” becomes your motto.  But I am not convinced that genuine allegiance to the cause of West Indies cricket will allow you to believe that the game must go on…even with a pick-up side. Although there is precedent for it—the 1977 Alvin Kallicharan side that replaced the Kerry Packer “strikers” - for me, that is simply not an option. So in my view the Board erred in sending the Reifer-led side into the fray.
And is about to err again by bypassing the striking players and sending their replacements to the Champions Trophy tournament in September/October. I do not buy the argument that once Ramnarine and WIPA dug their heels in and refused to budge, the Board was left with no realistic options. If what was important was that the standards not be seen to drop, could they not realistically have sent Masharafe Mortaza and his men back home without a ball being bowled and let the chips fall where they might? If ‘the game must go on’ imperative was driving the thing, could they not have made the concessions necessary to make WIPA play ball? My response to both questions is an emphatic yes. Because, in the final analysis, are we not in the same leaky boat now that we have exercised the option that we chose? I have heard few people express satisfaction with what they have seen on display, at least in the first two-Test phase of the series.
In the Sunday Express of July 19, former opener Wavell Hinds notes that there is “a great deal of misinformation in the public domain” and goes on to say that he is “flabbergasted” when he sees the positions taken by the WICB in public. For those who do not quite get the message Hinds does not leave it to chance. “The public knows,” he says, “how the WICB has conducted its affairs and should be in a position to judge if and when all the facts are available to them.” In the Express of the  following day, Cozier compares former West Indies players Lance Gibbs, Jeffrey Dujon and Ian Bishop to “heart-broken men waiting for the demise of a close, revered but seriously ill relative.”
That description seems to epitomise the reaction of the region’s cricketers to the latest example of WICB ineptitude.   Significantly, none of the commentators, including former Board President Ken Gordon, have come out unequivocally in defence of the WICB. Whether on the radio or in the newspapers, those who have discussed the issue seem to have been largely unsympathetic to the Board.
Which is not to say that WIPA in general and Ramnarine in particular have not come in for their fair share of blows. Without, for instance, naming anyone, Michael Holding asks whether people involved with WIPA are “carrying chips on their shoulders or grouses with the Board from their playing days?” Lloyd for his part fumes that players enjoy special privileges and implies that that should be reflected in their performance as well as behaviour. “There are players who are being paid $500,000 or more,” he complains, “and they do not pay a cent in any tax.”

So what is the way forward? The issues that provoked the last impasse are not all that thorny so I have little doubt that the redoubtable Shridath Ramphal will have wrung consensus out of the two sides by the time you get around to reading this. However, for me, the danger lies in the likelihood that resolution of the current conflict will be taken to mean that the real issues have been resolved. That is clearly not the case.
We have been down that road before, treating symptoms and leaving causes wholly untouched. Frankly, I cannot see how durable progress can be made without mass resignations and subsequent restructuring as recommended by so many in the last few weeks. I cannot see how we can extricate ourselves from our dire situation without some focus on the structural problems of administration. If the same issues recur time and again despite the changes in personnel, is it not obvious that the problem—and therefore any workable solution —has to be systemic?
And what is certain is that we are not going to make the situation any better by digging our heels in wherever we now stand. Or by foolish insular talk about each of the islands going its own Test way.

By Mickey Matthews

I received two pieces of e-mails relating to the commemoration of the life of Michael Jackson. One carried an address by Jackson at Oxford University in which he made his peace with his father. The other the treatment by Associate Professor of Afro-American studies Melissa Harris—Lacewell of the memorial held for MJ at the AIG in Los Angeles. Both were sent by friends to whom I have intimated that I had cried uncontrollably as I sat looking at the live telecast of that memorial and that my tears were not only for the music icon but also for that celebration of his life which to my mind turned out to be an historic occasion for the African Diaspora and for the Afro-American civilisation they have created.
My friends obviously felt that the esteem in which I held MJ transcended superstar adulation and must have concluded that reading these pieces would help make sense of my emotion. They are right on both accounts. I was in the USA when the Thriller album was released and has held the view since then though not with much conviction. I held it in suspension so to speak. 
MJ was too enigmatic, his surgical alterations of his phenotype too troubling for anything else. Though I always felt that they were deliberately strategic, the better to ascend the throne of Popdom as “he sang and danced around prejudice”. I also felt that I should take lead from his own compatriots who understand the American cultural milieu. But they, too, appeared disinclined to an early declaration.
 It is this search for MJ’s location in culture of the tribe called forth by the fact that he  was gone “from our finger tips like a puff of summer wind” which had me bound to cable television’s looping coverage of  his remembrance which, too often, did not remember him at his best. Al Sharpton’s and Jesse Jackson’s eulogies were helpful but limited by their casting as radicals. It needed something presidential, not in the sense that the President delivered it but in the sense that it spoke for the entire American culture.  In the event, what came from the White House was bland with President Obama not willing to risk political capital which, later, he would briefly appear so eager to wager on Professor Gates. It took Maya Angelou with the poem penned as a special tribute to MJ to provide the requirement and open the flood gates of my heart. 
One of America’s treasured poets staked her reputation on its most tortured genius. From the moment I heard Queen Latifah’s superb rendering of her ode my tears began to flow incessantly. And since I was at it, I wept for my other losses as well—for my long departed mother and father and for the late Lloyd Best who to me was much more than sociological father.
 Quite rightly, much has been said about the performances that followed but I don’t think they would have achieved such excellence without the Angelou /Latifah overture. The performers too needed some definitive confirmation of what they felt in their hearts.
 
When Larry King of CNN said that the ceremony exceeded expectation he unwittingly touched on the key to an understanding of its significance. Africans in what Columbus described as the New World won their freedom by performing beyond expectations and consequently forcing concessions from institutions which deny them their humanity. Cable television’s talking heads charged that the Jackson family was too dysfunctional to organize a final rite befitting “the King”.
The family proved them wrong many times over. The requiem they presented scaled the Everest of culture from where it beckoned all to a common humanity.

We Had Him

By Maya Angelou
Beloveds, now we know that we know nothing,
now that our bright and shining star can slip away from our fingertips
like a puff of summer wind. Without notice, our dear love can escape our doting embrace.
Sing our songs among the stars and walk our dances across the face of the moon.
In the instant that Michael is gone, we know nothing. No clocks can tell time.
No oceans can rush our tides with the abrupt absence of our treasure.
Though we are many, each of us is achingly alone, piercingly alone.
Only when we confess our confusion can we remember
that he was a gift to us and we did have him.
He came to us from the creator, trailing creativity in abundance.
Despite the anguish, his life was sheathed in mother love, family love,
and survived and did more than that.
He thrived with passion and compassion, humor and style.
We had him whether we know who he was or did not know,
he was ours and we were his.
We had him, beautiful, delighting our eyes.
His hat, aslant over his brow, and took a pose on his toes for all of us.
And we laughed and stomped our feet for him.
We were enchanted with his passion because he held nothing.
He gave us all he had been given.
Today in Tokyo, beneath the Eiffel Tower, in Ghana’s Black Star Square.
In Johannesburg and Pittsburgh, in Birmingham, Alabama, and Birmingham, England
We are missing Michael.
But we do know we had him, and we are the world.

By GREGORY McGUIRE

Ewart Williams

The debate is over. Official data show that, consistent with the generally accepted definition, the Trinidad and Tobago economy has been in recession since the end of first quarter 2009.    In a report titled “Summary of Economic Indicators Bulletin” (SEIB) the Central Bank data confirm that the economy had declined   in two consecutive quarters—by—1.1 % in the 4th Qtr 2008 and a much larger -3.3% in the 1st Qtr 2009. It is indeed very strange that the SEIB was uploaded on the Central Bank website on July 24th, without the usual press conference and or news release that would usually accompany the Central Bank’s Monetary Policy Report or Repo rate announcements. 
While we compliment the Central Bank  for responding to the call for more current economic data, we are concerned that at a time when the citizenry yearns for independent, responsible institutions and professionals to deliver cogent analyses of  our economic and social conditions, the Governor has chosen the euphemism “a deep slowdown” to describe the current conditions.   Suspicious minds are inclined to wonder whether a gag order has been placed on the Central Bank and its governor- or whether the Bank itself is not adopting the Manning administration’s general practice of ostrich economics. 
More importantly however, it is clear that this news must have been known to the Prime Minister- which perhaps explains his rather illogical and mind-boggling diversions into talk about death threats, media oppression, the end of the hard times, and loosening of belts!! As an experienced politician Mr. Manning should know that rallying the population to respond to harsh economic realities requires open and transparent dialogue, not distraction and division.
Details of the Report stand in stark contrast to the pronouncements of the Prime Minister, his Ministers of Finance  and  Governor Williams who has adopted the euphemistic “deep slowdown” in preference to calling the spade by its name. While official GDP data are unavailable for the second quarter, the key indicators suggest that the decline trend would have continued.  In the energy sector, economic activity fell by 4.3 per cent in the 4th Qtr and a further 2.2 in the first qtr of 2009.  For the first five months of the year crude oil production was running 4.1 per cent below last year’s output while natural gas was only 3.3 per cent higher.  In the non-energy sector, output declined by a whopping 5.4 per cent in the first quarter of the year following on a 1.1 per cent growth in the last quarter of 2008.
The report notes that within the Non-Energy group, Manufacturing, Distribution and Construction subsectors declined by 11.7 per cent, 3.7 per cent and 2.7 per cent respectively.  The Manufacturing sector which slumped by 8.8 per cent in 4th Qtr 2008, is feeling the impact  of shrinking  export markets in the Caricom, while construction has been hurt primarily by the cutbacks in Government infrastructure projects.  Not surprising, the decline in output of the core non-energy sectors has had repercussions in the labour market where unemployment moved up to 5.0 per cent in the quarter ending March 2009 from 3.9 per cent three months earlier.  The Central Bank is projecting GDP growth of between 0 to - 1.1 per cent for the full year 2009—which, on the basis of the available evidence, could turn out to be rather optimistic.
The decline in the real sector has been transmitted to the monetary sector. In May, commercial bank credit to the private sector slowed to 3.0 per cent on a year-on-year basis, a decline from 9.7 per cent in February 2009, possibly reflecting lower levels of investments. 
Retail sales,  widely regarded as an indicator of  public confidence in the economy,  contracted by 7.8 per cent in the first quarter compared to the corresponding period of 2008, with steepest declines in dry goods, motor vehicles and construction and hardware supplies. The crunch has also hit the Mortgage market, where new real estate mortgage loans approved and disbursed fell in the first quarter 2009 by 28.3 per cent and 13.2 per cent respectively compared to the previous quarter.
Perhaps the only good news in the economy is that inflation is coming down- primarily as a result of the fall in global commodity prices and lower domestic demand. In June, inflation measured 8.4 per cent the first single digit increase in twelve months. However, food inflation continued to increase, measuring 19 per cent in May 2009.
The impact of the collapse of commodity prices on the external account is perhaps best reflected on developments in the foreign exchange market.  As the value and, in some cases, volume of exports fell from July 2008, purchases of foreign exchange from the private sector by the commercial banks declined  by 38 per cent as at June 2009.
Over the same period however, the demand for foreign exchange dropped by only 13 per cent,   requiring the Central Bank to make up the deficit.  As at June 2009, sales of foreign exchange by the Central Bank to the commercial banks amounted to US$ 927.9 million, some 141 per cent more than the previous year.
 As a result,  the net foreign exchange reserves in June stood at US$8.7 billion, 10.6 per cent lower  than  six months earlier, while the US dollar selling rate slipped to TT $ 6.36, in July,  its highest level on record.
 Following an enforced cut in the original budget from TT$49.4 billion to TT$ 42.4 billion, the Government has reneged on its promise to provide citizens with a mid-year report on the state of its finances and the economy in general.  Unfortunately, the Central Bank report could shed no light on the full impact of the economic meltdown on Government’s fiscal position.   As the principal driver of economic growth in the country, the Government‘s fiscal accounts will be, arguably, the most important factor in terms of impact on the state of the economy in the coming year.
The Prime Minister seems to be pinning hopes for a recovery on the mooted turnaround of the US economy.  Mr. Manning should be aware, however, that a turnaround in the US economy does not automatically translate into improved economic fortunes for Trinidad and Tobago.  In fact it is quite possible for the US economy to recover while T&T wallows in recession. Our fortunes are tied inextricably to the revenue and foreign exchange earned from energy sector exports.  The most important factor then is not the US economy, but the extent to which the US economy will impact positively on prices of our export commodities, particularly oil and LNG.
At a recent presentation, Dr. Mark Henstridge—BP Director of Group Economics gave a detailed analysis of   the current state and short term outlook for energy markets.  While not making any definitive forecast—(BP never makes public forecasts of prices), Henstridge highlighted factors which supported the emerging consensus that over the next year oil will remain in the US$50-70 dollar/bbl range.
On the other hand, a record increase in LNG capacity and trade within the next year, coupled with growth in US shale gas production, are likely to keep US natural gas prices below US$5.00/mmbtu over the next 12 to 18 months. A Henry Hub price of US$5.00 per mmbtu will yield a net back to the well head in Trinidad of less than $2.75/mmbtu, compared with a revised Budget price of US$3.25/mmbtu.   The outlook for the main revenue earners suggests that the Government is likely to face a very tight revenue situation in the next fiscal year.
  Given the above context, the 2009-10 Budget will be one of special significance.  It will be the first budget exercise with a known revenue constraint to be faced by this Manning administration. Since 2002, the national budget has been formulated in an environment of plenty – characterised by an expanding energy sector, positive economic growth and   robust commodity prices. The Government increased its expenditure commitments annually, confident that it would realize the projected revenues from ongoing energy investments.
However, the fall in commodity prices coupled with the absence of any new plants in the energy sector will ensure that revenue growth from energy will at best remain flat, if not decline.   It would be interesting therefore to see how Government approaches the task of fiscal management in the absence of revenue windfall.  On the last two occasions in which a PNM Government was placed under such constraints, it buckled under pressure and lost the subsequent elections.
Is Mr. Manning willing to test history this time?
Research on the political economy of resource booms in commodity-producing democracies suggests that the choice made by the ruling party in distributing resource rents between saving and spending depends on the relative risk of political uncertainty and economic volatility.
Where the risk of economic volatility is sufficiently high relative to political uncertainty, the Government is likely to over save and over tax. Whenever economic volatility is high politicians are less likely to consume rents today and more likely to consume in the future since this simultaneously protects the economy while providing them with potential rents in the event of a boom while they are in power. 
In contrast, when the risk of economic volatility is low relative to political uncertainty the incumbent Government is likely overspend and over borrow, if necessary, thereby ignoring inter-temporal revenue smoothing considerations.
 This theoretical construct provides some clues to the likely behaviour of the Manning administration in the current situation.
The convulsions experienced in commodity markets since July 2008, are more or less over.  Commodity markets are settling down to a lower equilibrium aligned to their long run average prices. 
Similarly, the Trinidad and Tobago economy will need to adjustment to lower levels of revenues, even against the backdrop of inelastic expenditure.  In short, the risk of further economic volatility has faded, at least in the short to medium term.  On the other hand, the political situation can become highly volatile, depending on developments among opposition forces.
  Given the high risk of political uncertainty, the Government is likely to return to its expansionary fiscal stance. 
Contrary to sound economic logic, I expect the Government to run an overall fiscal deficit in 2009-10 in order to maintain expenditure levels in the range of $45-50 billion. In the expected scenario, the deficit would be financed mainly through domestic borrowing, thereby increasing the debt burden on future generations.
  I expect no declaration of savings in the HSF for fiscal 2009 or 2010.
 What I do expect is a September to remember.

By IAN McDONALD

Brian Lara in white, a thing of beauty

West Indies can, and they do, compete at the very highest level in international One Day and Twenty/20 cricket. In these shortened versions of the game we have the talent, the firepower, the energy and the inventiveness to equal any team in the world. No One Day or Twenty/20 series or tournament is beyond us winning. Gayle, Wayne Bravo, Chanderpaul, and a fit and fiery Fidel Edwards would be in anyone’s ODI or Twenty/20 team – and Sarwan also if and when he recaptures his form of a year or two ago as a ‘finisher’ par excellence. If we raised the level of our fitness, fielding and catching just one notch higher consistently we would be perennial favourites in these games.
Let us feel good about our prowess and success in One Day and Twenty/20 cricket. In the general gloom, constant controversy, frequent chaos and occasional farce which surrounds West Indies cricket, it is right to recall that we are among the best in the version of the great game designed specifically for our frantic age. After all, it is no small thing to be in the company of the leaders in the most popular versions of the game, the sort of cricket which has captured the imagination of millions and consistently fills the biggest stadiums; the game which, let us face it, fills the coffers with the most money – the game which may well be what in future excites the United States, China, South America and the wide world beyond the current core cricket countries. In other words, to mix kitchen metaphors, might it not be much better for us to be at the cutting edge rather than on the back burner?
But West Indies in Test cricket, to continue the kitchen metaphor, are a different kettle of fish – sardines indeed swimming with the sharks. We are near the bottom of the league and, despite a very narrow victory over England recently in the West Indies – thanks to two desperate tail-end stands – we seem stuck near the bottom. There are murmurings that Test cricket may be divided into two divisions and in such an event West Indies would certainly find themselves humiliated by demotion to the second division – a development hard and bitter to contemplate.
As a dyed-in-the-white-flannels traditionalist, I am immensely saddened by the decline in our Test cricket status. For me Test cricket is the game at its enduring best and most beautiful. The champions of Test cricket are the true champions of the greatest game in the world. What is more, I wonder whether it might not be true that cricketers need nurturing and exposure in Test cricket before they can emerge as stars in the shorter versions of the game. It is too early to say whether this is true, but I have a gut feeling that the concentration, consistency and discipline needed in Test cricket are attributes which players in One Day and Twenty/20 internationals must also cultivate to be remembered among the greatest. In any case, as things stand at present, winning at Test cricket is still the ultimate aim of the nations and the huge majority of players. So it fills me with despair that the West Indies are currently so bad at it.
Why is this so? Why this glaring discrepancy between prowess in the short versions and generally abject failure in Test cricket? I am anxious to hear an explanation. Does the explanation lie in the lamentable administration of the game in the region or does it lie in the psyche of the players themselves?
I am not myself able to offer an expert opinion on this issue. But, reading an article recently about the early 19th century English writer, William Hazlitt, I came across a passage in one of his sharp and beautifully written essays which made me wonder if in it there was the hint of a reason why West Indies are no longer good at Test cricket. Hazlitt can lay claim to be the first great sportswriter. The passage is from his essay ‘On Great and Little Things,’ and he is writing about the game of Rackets:
“Rackets… is, like any other athletic game, very much a thing of skill and practice: but it is also a thing of opinion, ‘subject to all the skyey influences.’ If you think you can win, you can win. Faith is necessary to victory. If you hesitate in striking at the ball, it is ten to one but you miss it. If you are apprehensive of committing some particular error (such as striking the ball foul) you will be nearly sure to do it. While thinking of that which you are so earnestly bent upon avoiding, your hand mechanically follows the strongest idea, and obeys the imagination rather than the intention of the striker.”
Perhaps, in the end, our players cannot find the belief in themselves to win at Test cricket but they can and do when they take the field in One Day and Twenty/20 internationals. Faith is necessary to victory.

 Editorial of  the Stabroek News, Guyana, July, 13, 2009

If there was a single area in which Caricom could have partially shielded itself from the global onslaught of collapsing financial markets, depressed commodity prices, harsher terms of trade, spiralling budgetary deficits  and the ever diminishing pools of cheaper financing it was the diminution of its annual food import bill. At last count it was a staggering US$3b but probably higher considering the vast under-invoicing and smuggling in the regional market place.
Sadly, the vehicle for transforming regional agriculture – The Jagdeo Initiative – is stalled and the outcome of the recent Caricom Heads of Government conference did little to silence the twittering about the failure of the region to take decisive action to propel the sector. Despite the declaration on food security appended to the communiqué it was as if agriculture was still struggling to be placed at the centre of the region’s strategy to cut its food import bill, ease the financial squeeze, create jobs and draw the community members closer to each other by virtue of a massive, shared enterprise. The gravity of the food security problem clearly seized (last month’s) G-8 meeting to the extent that it shocked observers by pledging US$20b to help poor countries feed themselves.
Caricom has it within its ability to avoid being the recipient of such handouts though the signs are not reassuring. Dominica— even though benefiting from the Venezuelan largesse via ALBA—has made a formal request to the International Monetary Fund for US$5m under the Rapid-Access Component of the Exogenous Shocks Facility. St Lucia and St Vincent and the Grenadines have already made such requests. 
A statement from the Dominican Prime Minister’s office said “The resources from the Exogenous Shocks Facility would help meet the immediate foreign exchange needs stemming from the decline of export receipts and weaker capital account inflows resulting from the impact on the economy of the global economic and financial crisis”- exactly the kind of condition that the Jagdeo Initiative can address.
Prior to the conference of heads, Stabroek News spoke with Mr Sam Lawrence, Advisor to the Regional Transformation Programme for Agriculture and he said frankly “Our level of productivity has not gone anywhere near to meeting the needs of the population and where there is increased production, the cost is not commensurate and competitive to those of the imported products so people find an opportunity for importing to the region”.
He contended that the absence of a regional harmonisation of policies was hampering the progress of the agricultural initiative. What can be interpreted from his comment is that essentially each member was pulling in different directions and playing to their domestic audience – a metaphor for the general moribund state that the community finds itself in today.

This was patently evident in the nuts and bolts that should have converted the initiative into a throbbing dynamo—there was none or very little money and the planned Agricultural Modernisation Fund had been overtaken by the broader Regional Development Fund which will now have a window for agricultural finance. This is the state of the financial preparations for the initiative more than four and a half years after its launch. The region could not be really serious about slashing its import bill if this was the importance it attached to showing the money. Without money, the initiative will go nowhere as is evidenced by the tepid response by donors at a pledging conference and projects forum that were convened under the initiative.
While many of the 10 constraints to the initiative originally identified remain, in their communiqué the Heads were not inspirational.  They merely committed themselves to the provision of the necessary financial and other resources to ensure internationally competitive, market-led production, and the identification and effective employment of the appropriate policies and strategies which will bring about the desired improvements, including in the agri-business sector.  They called on development partners to assist in the efforts.

President of Guyana Bharrat Jagdeo

Given the crisis in confidence in this initiative there needed to be much more than these platitudes. There needed to be an absolute commitment in terms of the amount of money that would be immediately available from the RDF and a short-term, market-led plan for its expenditure. For example what are the three most imported food items that could be easily grown in the land mass countries of Guyana, Suriname and Belize? And how would the region immediately invest in these countries and others to ratchet up production of these items? That is the level of specificity, directness and urgency that the Jagdeo Initiative needs to survive. There is surely no need for another committee of Heads but there was no reason why President Jagdeo and Secretary General Carrington couldn’t have been deputed to oversee the immediate start of work. Unfortunately, if the conference had taken determined steps on the issue of a new governance mechanism this task could have been entrusted to it. It is left to be seen now what this feeble response to the initiative will produce.
And what is one to make of the Trinidadian decision to set up mega farms outside of the formal framework for the initiative and even though Guyana had offered to make land available here to Port-of-Spain for this purpose? It would seem that Trinidad has decided it needed to take care of its own food security needs and was moving ahead severally from its colleagues. The supreme irony was that Trinidad was able to mobilise a farmer from Guyana to plant one of their farms – most assuredly a sign that the conditions, incentives and returns in the twin-island republic were better than those here. That brings us back to Georgetown.
Being the home of the President behind the initiative, questions can legitimately be raised about the government’s own performance in boosting agricultural output, creating jobs, cutting the food import bill and expanding export earnings. Disaggregated and scatter-shot data won’t do. For the government to successfully make the case here that it has taken to heart the regional mission of its President it needs to show real results embedded within a plan. Are those results there?
Sugar and rice aside, can the government present verified and verifiable information on the impact its grow more food campaign has had on the economy and the lives of its people? Can it produce figures to show annual other-crops output from 2004 to 2009? Can it do the same for fish farms, livestock and poultry? Can it show how many new jobs have been created even though there is no sign of massive farming activity? Can it crystallise the growth in export earnings from these sectors? Can it explicate how the other-crops sector has been reoriented to take advantage of high value products? Can it link the grow more food drive with any modulations in the food import bill? Can it locate these changes within a blueprint for agriculture over the next decade or so that interweaves the now almost yearly risk of flooding, cultivation in the intermediate savannahs, bio-energy crops and the infrastructural links to Brazil?
It was heartening to hear that Neal and Massy and the local private sector may be working together in a drive to give real meaning to this initiative. It could be an important development in the local and regional agricultural sector and will test whether the government is prepared to give real meaning to the Jagdeo Initiative.

By DAVID CAVE

In the art history of Trinidad and Tobago, one name endures, continuing to inspire awe and wonder.  The art of Jean-Michel Cazabon are not emblazoned across the perimeter walls of the Queen’s Park Oval or the newly constructed financial complex on the Port of Spain waterfront, but they still stand tall in the consciousness of those with an appreciation for original Trinidadian art. 
The recent posting by UWI doctorate student Gregory O’ Young in Newsday (July 10th) was an enlightening addition to the discussion on the fate of a significant quantity of Cazabon’s work. In his article entitled “Cultural Artifacts and Our Past”, O’ Young goes into extensive detail in drawing parallels between the British Museum’s collection of the famous Elgin Marble sculptures, acquired by the plunder of artefacts from ancient Greece and several of Cazabon’s paintings which were “discovered” in the estate of Lord Harris in Faversham, Kent.  A further insult to injury, also observed by O’Young, is the fact that the works of Margaret Mann, a student of Cazabon, reside in the Bodleian Library in Oxford, England.
O’Young’s commentary conveyed the magnitude of the loss, even perhaps thievery, that has occurred in relation to the work of a national art icon like Jean-Michel Cazabon.  For us, the importance of recovering his paintings should be pursued no less rigorously than the Greeks’ relentless pursuit of the stolen art of Ancient Greece.
Although the works of Cazabon and Mann are less than two hundred years old, to a nation as young as ours, they are significant and poignant relics of the historical artistic and cultural heritage.
In other regard, however, one could take issue with aspects of  O’Young’s argument about Cazabon.  Unlike the artefacts of ancient Greece and the indigenous Taino pieces from Jamaica, Cazabon was significantly influenced by hegemonic England where many of his pieces have found their home.  After all, he received his initial training at St. Edmund’s College in Hertfordshire, England.  The influence of John Constable’s expansive landscape paintings, which predated Cazabon’s by about twenty to thirty years, is there to be seen, as in the subtle depiction of individuals engaged in manual labour in the background. 
It is equally true, however, that many of Cazabon’s pieces documented and asserted the Trinidadian identity through the island’s tropical vegetation and the dynamism of its landscape and scenery.

To this day, Cazabon remains an artistic pioneer in capturing the repetitive forms created by the local plant life while juxtaposing this greenery with the edifices of his time.  Furthermore, very few- if any other- local artists have managed to capture the local flora with the distinctive accuracy and finesse of Cazabon.
It is this affirmation by Cazabon of the local scenery that ultimately forces me to concur with O’Young in pursuing an argument of exploitation and displacement regarding the art of this pioneer native painter.  While it may have been true that several Cazabon paintings were sold to individuals poverseas, the fact that the National Library documents that Cazabon died “in relative poverty” suggests that he did not acquire the recognition and compensation truly deserved during his lifetime. 
Ultimately, the greatest homage to Cazabon’s legacy is that more than one hundred and twenty years after his death in 1888, his works are still keenly pursued and sought after in both the home and foreign art markets while a subtle but continuous debate over his rightful place in our pantheon of art continues to stir the air.

By CLAUDE ROBINSON

Bruce Golding

Prime Minister Bruce Golding and his finance minister, Audley Shaw, have made the case that there is no alternative to a new borrowing relationship with the International Monetary Fund; they are yet to convince a sceptical public that we will be better off any time soon.
The fallout from bauxite/alumina, remittances and tourism means that the revenue targets for 2009/10, which had been widely ridiculed as unrealistic when Mr Shaw presented the budget in May, will not be met. Now, according to the finance minister, the Government’s “passive” balance of payment projections point to a financing gap of US$600-US$800 million in this financial year.
Hence, the conclusion of a Stand-By Arrangement with the IMF by September, in which the Fund is expected to commit the equivalent of 300 per cent of quota (US$1,200 million) over two years, would provide Jamaica with much-needed foreign capital infusion.
The infusion will allow us to keep the lights on (balance of payments support, paying for energy and other needed imports). But it cannot be used to fix roads; pay teachers, nurses and the police; cover the cost of school lunch or stock pharmacies in government hospitals with blood pressure and diabetes medication.
So before the deal is signed in September the prime minister and the JLP administration must address the fundamental concerns of the ordinary Jamaican: How will I be affected? Will I lose my job? If I make a sacrifice now, will it pay off in the long run? And how long is the long run?
The prime minister and the finance minister have been downplaying conditionalities that may be attached to the IMF assistance, stressing that the Fund has changed since the 1970s; given the weak performance of the Jamaican economy over several decades there are some tough measures that must be taken with or without the IMF; and no major cuts in social spending or public sector job losses are being contemplated at this time.
On the matter of conditionalities, it is true that the harsh adjustment measures demanded by the Fund, as in the 1970s and 1980s when Michael Manley and Edward Seaga had to swallow the medicine, are no longer on the table.
This, of course, is not to say that the IMF, like any banker, will lend money without conditions. The borrower has to make a credible case that he has the wherewithal to pay back the loan and make a commitment to abide by the terms and conditions.
Rather than imposing ‘solutions’ that were not politically feasible, the Fund has adopted a softer approach suggesting that governments come up with measures they think they can live with, so long as they are realistic and the country shows evidence that it can meet its obligations.
Incidentally, a detailed review of nine recent agreements by Third World Network, an independent non-profit international network of organisations and individuals involved in issues relating to development, Third World and North-South affairs, showed that conditions are alive and well. The review related to Stand-by Arrangement (SBA) loans between September 2008, and May 2009 with Georgia, Ukraine, Hungary, Iceland, Latvia, Pakistan, Serbia, Belarus and El Salvador.
In his statement to Parliament Tuesday, Mr Shaw sketched out the IMF concerns about Jamaica:
 “There are three essential areas that the Fund would like to see strengthened as part of a foundation for medium-term sustainability: a consolidation of public enterprises, including divestments, mergers and improvements to governance to reduce financial losses; formulation of a debt strategy for the medium term to relieve the high debt service burden; and steps toward limiting the size of future deficits.”
That sort of bureaucratic double-speak must be translated and explained to the country in plain language.
Essentially, the Government will have to agree to reduce the debt burden from some public sector companies which are now off the books, lower debt and interest payments and bring government revenue and expenditure in line.
That’s the difficult part and will certainly involve political trade-offs - where do we make the cuts since revenues will not increase in the short run? This part is not too technical to be worked out by the technicians at the Ministry of Finance or the Bank of Jamaica. Ultimately that part is Mr Golding’s best judgement as to what is politically feasible (meaning it won’t force him from office) or socially feasible (meaning it won’t drive the people to take to the streets).
Let’s take the matter of the public enterprises. Government has been trying for sometime now to sell off some state enterprises, not just Air Jamaica and the sugar estates that are among the big ones on the table. But deadlines have come and gone.
Mr Golding hinted at the scale of the problem in the TVJ interview with Dionne Jackson Miller when he said that what the Government eventually gets from the sale of Air Jamaica will not be enough to meet the resulting redundancy payments and retire the mountain of debt that the airline has been carrying.
The 2009/10 budget had assumed that some $12 billion would flow into Government coffers this year from divestment. Some people familiar with the process say that is not going to happen so these assets will continue to be a burden on the budget in the short to medium term.
Then there is the matter of the “debt strategy” —how to reduce the cost of debt and lower interest rates.
The prime minister and Mr Shaw have been sending the expected signal that there will be no ‘restructuring’ of the debt, that is, Government will not renege on its debt obligations although the Government will be exploring ways of reducing interest payments as this will have a huge positive impact on the budget.
There was a glimmer of interest rate trending in the right direction Wednesday as the latest Treasury Bill yield was 20.60 per cent, down from 21.05 per cent in June. But even if the trend continues there can be no realistic expectation that the out-turn for interest rate in this fiscal year will be the 15 per cent Mr Shaw had in his ‘unrealistic’ budget.
The debate on a debt reduction strategy has been taking place in the context of calls by some commentators for Government to ask the holders of debt instruments to take a little less as a way of sharing the sacrifice that most Jamaicans are being called upon to make at this time.
The prime minister made it clear that Government is not going to pursue a restructuring route, pointing to the fact that Jamaica has had a history of honouring its debt obligation as specifically required under the Constitution.
Jamaica is probably the only country with a constitutional provision that debt repayment is the first call on public revenues. (Actually, that’s not technically true as the ‘upkeep of Her Majesty’s representative in Jamaica - the governor general - is the first call).
But experts in the financial sector point out that there are also practical reasons why ‘restructuring’ is a non-starter. Most of the public debt - whether in Jamaican or US dollars - is held by Jamaican and Jamaican institutions resident here. They include the major banks, insurance companies and large pension funds.
“Any decision by Government to change the interest rates [contracted with bond holders] would have profound effects on the balance sheets of some very big banks and insurance companies with consequences for the real sector”, commented a source familiar with the process. Such a situation would easily develop into ‘Finsac Two’, a reference to the meltdown of the financial sector in the 1990s.
Bringing revenue and expenditure in line may not be called conditionalities, but it is clear that Government has agreed or must agree to do this. Mr Golding must tell us which eggs he proposes to break in order to make the omelette.
kcr@cwjamaica.com
(Courtesy the Jamaica Observer of Sunday, July 26, 2009)