To a Prosperous CSME New Year!

As that magical date of 1 st January 2005 approaches, the heralding in of the CSME, seems too low profiled and BANGO is encouraging Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) to get on board and take it with the seriousness it deserves.

From that date forward business in Barbados will definitely not be the same. Let us therefore take a brief look at some of what is coming and what is yet to come that will change the outlook of both our Barbadian society and economy.

For example we will see a lot more Caribbean people coming to and passing through Barbados than ever before. Of course this will be reciprocal in the sense that a lot more Barbadians will also be leaving these shores to seek out CARICOM opportunities.

This will be especially true for businessmen who will realise that we no longer have a market of 260,000 Barbadians but a Caribbean market of approximately 15 million people that we have to find a way to reach. Even the small contractor may land a contract or contracts in several different places.

What implications does this have for the Arts? What does it have for the small entrepreneur? What does it have for the big entrepreneur and how will all this impact on us as a people?

We are now journeying to the time when musicians will sell, not a thousand, but 100,000 CDs. The time will soon come that when a drama group puts together a production they will not only perform in Barbados but at the best venues in fourteen other CARICOM countries.

It will then make no sense for a production to be seen in Barbados alone. Touring will become a natural part of the life of the performing artistes as they seek to exploit the full benefit of their work.

Cultural companies will spring up in every CARICOM state to coordinate cultural events coming through the Caribbean ; the Crop-Overs, the Carnivals and other festivals will have a truly Caribbean presence and flavour.

More and more people will invest in boats and small planes instead of or along with motor cars. People will find themselves residing in more than one place at a time. The big companies will probably invest in large barges to start plying the Caribbean Sea moving equipment, cars, goods and families as we get smart and realise that our options have increased one hundred fold.

In terms of education, boarding schools may spring up again as parents seek to send their children to the best schools across the Caribbean . More and more, branches of Barbadian businesses will be found across the Caribbean and so will more Caribbean businesses be located in Barbados .

The companies that now hire one or two employees will find that they have to hire ten to twenty employees as business spread throughout the Caribbean . Job seekers will find themselves applying for jobs all over the Caribbean and as more international businesses set up in the Caribbean more jobs will available to all Caribbean people.

Your radio, TV and classified sections of our newspapers will be advertising goods, services and job opportunities throughout the Caribbean . Even the obituaries will change as people try to reach their friends and families wherever they are across the Caribbean . So if your Sunday paper is 50 pages now it will be a hundred pages by 2007.

As we make strides to bridge the digital divide, our friends will be an e-mail away; split seconds to wherever they are in the Caribbean or the world for that matter. No longer will it be an excuse to say that a person is out of the island and that one has to wait until he/she gets back to discuss a matter or make a decision.

Nothing will be the same and as new generations arrive they will be known as Caribbean citizens and will not know life in the insular way that we know it now.

All of this needs some revelry and ceremony to ring it in. January 1 st 2005 will not only be a new year, it will be the beginning of a new time; a new Caribbean ; a new CARICOM under CSME. There really can be no turning back.

National Volunteer Week from 5 th - 11 th December, 2004, will also be different. This year the week will be dedicated to the people of Barbados . CSME cannot happen without the people being able to take advantage of the opportunities and reap the benefits thrown up by the CSME.

This is only the beginning for Civil Society and the CSME. Our work is certainly cut out. We have contributions to make as it relates to things like Public Sector Reform, Citizens Rights, HIV/AIDS, Political Rights, Rights of the Elderly, Rights of the Disabled, Children's Rights, consumer education and enforcing consumer rights; all within a CARICOM context.

There is still the matter of bridging the digital divide to make cell phones, landlines, internet available to the poorest persons. Education and training must prepare the Barbadian Citizen to become a "Competitive Caribbean Citizen".

Civil Society will see the need to create information flows that will inform citizens of affairs in every state on a daily basis that will make them aware of opportunities and benefits as they arise and widen their options.

We will also act as the monitors and barometers for measuring change and affecting change by pointing out the loopholes and advocating for the empowerment of our citizens.

Our CSOs will become a safety net not only for Barbadians but for all the people of the Caribbean as we move to synchronise our efforts with our counterparts across CARICOM to better utilise our scarce resources and avoid duplication.

Our playing field will not simply stretch from St. Lucy to Bridgetown and St. James to St. Joseph but from the Bahamas to Guyana and from Belize to Barbados . The time will come when we may have to lobby Governments to subsidise plane fares as they do bus fares in order to eliminate the inequalities of traveling from one state to another at opposite ends.

In order to take advantage of opportunities and not to disadvantage states, access to every state must be on demand in the same way that we can go into the bus stand and take a bus to any part of Barbados and not be stranded to return.

We will find ourselves not only lobbying our government but supporting our counterparts as they lobby theirs. We will find ourselves interacting closely with the Civil Service of the other islands (as much as we interact with ours) to assist our people with taking advantage of the opportunities and benefits under the CSME.

This calls for some activity that will mark the "rights of passage" from one dispensation to another; from insular to Caribbean . The coming of the CSME will cause people to sit up and those who are asleep to wake up as the wave of the CSME comes through. We either run or surf the wave and our choice for the latter is preferable.

This year the basket of goodies for Christmas and the New Year will be stamped Caribbean and it will be a pleasure to say to fellow Barbadians and our CARICOM comrades, "Happy Xmas and a Prosperous CSME New Year".

Roosevelt O. King
Secretary General - BANGO
admin@bango.org.bb