The month of November has been a remarkable one for those of us who love knowledge, information, learning and truth. My head is still full and running over with the buzz that began with the NBA National Development Conference, the mind expanding experience of the Choosing Life lecture by Wayne Chandler and the sizzle of Professor Dr. Eudine Barriteau’s lecture on the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of All Forms of Violence Against Women.

Ijahnya Christian

On November 28th and 29th under the auspices of CARIFORUM (CARICOM plus Cuba and the Dominican Republic) and the EU (European Union), I represented the regional agency CAFRA (Caribbean Association for Feminist Research and Action) at a meeting in Trinidad to examine the challenges of implementing the Caribbean Single Market and Economy and more so, its impact on women. I was asked to address the topic, “Grassroots Women and the CSME: The challenge to poor women.” Coming from Anguilla where there has not been any public education on CSME, and where the official line seems to be ‘just say no’, I thought that I did not know enough about CSME. Furthermore, the request came too late for me to do any research but some thoughts began to circulate in my head and, not being one to run away from a challenge, I decided to take the plunge and share them at the meeting. The fact that consideration of gender analysis as an aspect of development was missing from the discourse at the Conference says that the mainstreaming of gender in development in Anguilla remains in the realm of intention. However, by the next conference, that one participant’s thought should be regionalized, Anguilla would have become sufficiently serious about this and we will be able to discuss how our development processes recognise the different ways in which men and women experience life. Life, however, is not just about Anguilla.

Brother Chandler’s lecture revealed a hunger and thirst for the information shared on that long lecture night when Lena Gumbs set the tone with a poem delivered in her indomitable style. I am not a night person and had to leave the room to wash my face lest I fell off the chair but even in that state, I was riveted. A few other persons left as the hour grew later and those who stayed were tired but listened intently nonetheless. And at the end, they bought up the books and CVs on the lecture and we did not leave the auditorium till almost midnight. I am still amazed. Essentially, Brother Chandler’s lecture and slide presentation exposed us to the heights of civilization introduced to ancient India and China by African people. The foundation of the cultures by which those countries are identified today had their roots in ancient Egypt (Kmet) and the faces of ancestors depicted in their sculpture and religious icons from that era look like mine. He went on to explain that Africa’s greatest achievements were made by cultures that honored and revered women. In short, when we knew God to be an African woman was when we contributed our greatest and best to human civilization. He introduced some of the roots of a negative patriarchy which changed all that and showed how the suppression of female energy has reduced us to using a very small percentage of our brain power. According to the Ancients’ knowledge of the relationship that exists between all things created, the universe has been thrown out of balance by the downpression of women and planet Earth will continue to be destroyed until we reverse the tide to restore the balance. Since African people still have the memory of greatness encoded in our DNA, it can and must be done.

Professor Barriteau brought the reasoning from the universal to the social, to the personal, and was helpful in clarifying the distinction to be made between sex and gender. She strongly advocated that while we must continue to respond to domestic violence by creating appropriate legislation, building shelters for battered women and so on, this constituted an instrumental approach which has led to the improvement of women materially. However, women would continue to be the main victims of domestic violence, and sometimes fatally so, until we achieved an ideological shift that helped everyone (men, women, children, the government, the church etc.) to understand and behave as if they understood, that women are equal and not inferior to men. Women and men are different but equal. It is the spiritual, personal, social, economic, political, cultural, mental, psychological, physical, official and unofficial recognition of the equality of women that will empower us all. And don’t bother to come tell me anything different for I know with great certainty that it is man, in departure from the will of the Most High, who has led us to this disastrous place.

CSME is a trading bloc established to enable the Caribbean to compete in a context of liberalized global trade as we lose preferential markets for goods like bananas and sugar. I have been supporting it because if Anguilla is going to be flooded with people and cheap goods, I’d rather have Caribbean people and be part of a Caribbean Single Market and Economy than anything else on offer. The smaller islands should determine what numbers of people our islands can accommodate to maximize economic benefits without sacrificing the social and environmental fabric. The ideology of female inferiority is evident in how we devalue female labour and the CSME has an elitist overtone that can have a disastrous impact on poor women like our higglers who have been trading in mainly agricultural produce. Already, we are seeing the importation of women for prostitution though this is not acknowledged just so, and if female labour becomes even cheaper, the remittances will not flow as they are doing now and more female drug mules will be imprisoned. Additionally, if provision is not made for women to move with their families, social disintegration can be expected to worsen. I believe that the wider CSME pool of women can be helped to organize their resources differently so that women are not automatically synonymous with small and micro-enterprise, so that we can establish our own institutions to have better access to credit, so that we can develop our regional companies based on our pool of skills and so that we can add our collective mites to the investment pool. And if we need our own political parties to achieve these ends, we can do that too and we don’t want to leave our men behind, just that old, tired ideology of female inferiority. So if you can make the CSME work in favour of women and poor women especially, it will be to your benefit too.

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