COVID-19 has on our minds for the past fews weeks across the Caribbean. It is now a pandemic that has impacted our economies and will potentially have a negative impact on our mental health.
I have been pondering whether this will have any positive outcomes. One outcome that I hope will come out of the COVID-19 pandemic, is a closer Caribbean community. Not just in terms of economic or polilitcal closeness but socially.
For more that 50 years the Caribbean has been struggling to create a “community”. Caricom was a promise that in reality was never kept. In reality we never believed that we could move forward as a community. Tensions were always high between islands. I won’t relive those battles. Its time to move forward.
COVID-19 will definitely set us back, it will get worse before it gets better. Today as our governments ask us to adopt physical distancing to stop the spread of the virus, lets take time to think about how we be closer to those in our community. This might sound counter intuitive but by closeness, I mean showing more empathy for those around us.
When things return to normal, I hope that we will mindful of our neighbour, our sister islands and the wider diaspora. This will be the beginning of truly making us a Caribbean community connected not just through history or geography but through shared vision for the future.
