Cur­rent glob­al de­vel­op­ments are to­day con­tribut­ing to an un­der­stand­ing of how our re­spec­tive Caribbean coun­tries are oblig­ed to nav­i­gate in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions like few oth­er oc­ca­sions in re­cent his­to­ry.

We can spend for­ev­er ex­am­in­ing the in­ter­nal dy­nam­ics that have spurred alarm­ing­ly di­verse views, even over here, on the sit­u­a­tions in Ukraine, Gaza, and even Haiti.

“Alarm­ing”, per­haps be­cause in to­day’s world there are count­less av­enues for the ac­cess­ing of au­thor­i­ta­tive in­for­ma­tion and opin­ion on glob­al af­fairs, even while we are ex­posed to an abun­dance of dog­ma and ide­o­log­i­cal shib­bo­leth.

On oth­er oc­ca­sions, we can have a clos­er look at these three sit­u­a­tions that have elicit­ed quite an in­ter­est­ing, if not dis­turb­ing, va­ri­ety of per­spec­tives with­in our re­spec­tive Caribbean coun­tries, even in the face of gen­er­al con­sis­ten­cy at of­fi­cial na­tion­al lev­els.

We have a uni­ver­si­ty that owes us much more on such ques­tions than has been ex­tend­ed both in­side and out­side its hal­lowed, tra­di­tion­al­ly for­ti­fied halls. Prin­ci­pal Rose-Marie Belle An­toine has urged the low­er­ing of the draw­bridges. For, this in­sti­tu­tion is a sin­gu­lar­ly im­por­tant por­tal to greater pub­lic un­der­stand­ing of com­plex is­sues.

It al­so re­mains im­por­tant to keep our gaze fixed firm­ly on our own ge­o­graph­i­cal neigh­bour­hood. For in­stance, the ab­sence of an in­formed, en­light­ened Hait­ian so­lu­tion per­sists and this will con­tin­ue to be the case. In­va­sion by in­vi­ta­tion, of all va­ri­eties, ap­pears in­ad­vis­able.

But now, and just as ur­gent­ly … and yet again … Venezuela’s long­stand­ing ex­pan­sion­ary am­bi­tions with spe­cial em­pha­sis on Guyana’s place in the scheme of things have re­cent­ly and dra­mat­i­cal­ly re-emerged.

It has al­ways in­ter­est­ed me that even in the face of in­tense, pro­tract­ed, mur­der­ous in­ternecine con­flict, Venezue­lan politi­cians have so fre­quent­ly oc­cu­pied bi­par­ti­san space on the trou­ble­some Es­se­qui­bo ques­tion.

It is hard to find, even among those be­ing wel­comed here, adult Venezue­lan na­tion­als who do not be­lieve that the land space com­pris­ing two-thirds of Guyanese ter­ri­to­ry is theirs. It’s taught along­side the al­pha­bet at school. There is no ar­gu­ment be­tween com­pet­ing po­lit­i­cal par­ties save for oc­ca­sion­al as­ser­tions of trea­so­nous com­pro­mise.

This must cer­tain­ly con­cern re­gion­al, con­flict­ed, ‘Chav­is­tas’ who have been in­clined to glee­ful­ly toe the Cara­cas line on vir­tu­al­ly every­thing, in­clud­ing the out­right vi­o­lent op­pres­sion and ne­glect that have led to un­par­al­leled mi­gra­tion chal­lenges in our part of the world. They do this even as they em­brace a no­tion of Guyanese fra­ter­ni­ty, and tout Cari­com am­bi­tions.

Had these peo­ple been vig­i­lant on the sub­ject of the Es­se­qui­bo chal­lenge in the face of Guyana’s so­cial and eco­nom­ic trans­for­ma­tion, their un­re­pen­tant de­vo­tion to fake egal­i­tar­i­an rev­o­lu­tion might have tak­en a de­served turn for the worst much ear­li­er than is cur­rent­ly the case.

Even so, there has been no un­equiv­o­cal pos­tur­ing on the sub­ject from the red berets.

That a “Guayana Es­e­qui­ba” ref­er­en­dum in Venezuela should now be de­ployed as part of a process of po­lit­i­cal re­cov­ery in the face of elec­toral threats and brit­tle po­lit­i­cal cir­cum­stance, tells us a sto­ry we should have all been fa­mil­iar with long be­fore now. Makes me won­der about the state of Caribbean ‘Chav­is­mo’. They must all cer­tain­ly be in some form of dole­ful con­fu­sion and con­tem­pla­tion.

This, you see, is not about be­ing “left” or “right” or any­where in the mid­dle. The In­ter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice will hope­ful­ly soon­er rather than lat­er de­ter­mine it as a mat­ter of ju­ridi­cal “right” and “wrong.” Though, even so, Venezuela seems afraid to en­gage the process.

It is al­so, sig­nif­i­cant­ly, a rare point of po­lit­i­cal co­he­sion in Guyana. Two po­lit­i­cal or­gan­i­sa­tions that have been trad­ing bru­tal rhetor­i­cal punch­es at each oth­er have met and agreed, as has been the case in the past, that the chal­lenge to Es­se­qui­bo is a na­tion­al is­sue re­quir­ing all hands on deck.

Sad­ly, such a pre­dis­po­si­tion is not al­ways ap­par­ent in our case in T&T. There have been some sig­nif­i­cant lows. In­com­pre­hen­si­ble Op­po­si­tion for­eign pol­i­cy ‘whistle­blow­ing’ and the ab­sur­di­ty of pro­posed se­lec­tive, per­son­alised ‘sanc­tions’ slipped through the cracks of in­formed pub­lic com­men­tary in the age of COVID-19.

Mean­while, in George­town, Aubrey Nor­ton and Ir­faan Ali, in an ex­treme­ly rare dis­play of sol­i­dar­i­ty, shook hands and met, and what­ev­er the smirks across the ta­ble, par­ti­san weapons were left out­side just for that time. In Port-of-Spain, there are peo­ple who craved sanc­tions in 2020. There has been lit­tle shoul­der­ing of arms. In­stead, there is the con­tin­ued emp­ty­ing of clips even as vi­o­lence and mur­der stalk the land.

There are, clear­ly, lessons to be learned from Es­se­qui­bo.