MOVIE BY BARBADIAN LOOKS AT CHALLENGES FOR REGIONAL INTEGRATION

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She must be commended for this most excellent effort to highlight some of the stumbling blocks still on the road as we strive towards the implementing of the much talked about Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME), especially its free movement of peoples component.
In the movie, there are some emotional moments as undocumented workers, their identity concealed, share their tribulations. There are views on immigration practices. There are evocative scenery shots, so lovingly done by photographer and Creative Director Omar Estrada of Cuba , on location in the three caricom countries. There is the underlying dream of unity.
The movie, screened at film festivals in places likeToronto, London and Trinidad, is in keeping with the tradition of film making about migrant workers. One only has to check out those done on Caesar Chavez's (largely Mexican) farm workers in the southern US and, earlier, the US movie Grapes of Wrath (from the novel by John Steinbeck) which deals with poor white working class Americans.
The movements of peoples worldwide, aided by "globalisation", has intensified from the early days of the more well known trek of Italians, Irish and others to the US in the 19th Century and of Caribbean peoples to the UK, Canada in the 1950s and 1960s.
Right wing nationalist political parties pandered to fears of longer established residents about the influx of often different looking and sounding people into these countries.There was the tightening up of entry requirements. Caribbean peoples looked to their better off island neighbours. In the Guyana case, we saw this really starting in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Political directorates (governments) in small Caribbean states, with concomitant small economies and notwithstanding stated committment to regional integration, were mindful of domestic concerns from their electorates. While these concerns may not stand the test of sober analysis and may have been influenced by opportunist politicians' anti-foreigner rhetoric, the fact remained that immigration measures became more "rationalised" and "efficient" including computerised fine tuning of work permit procedures.All the while, the numbers of "illegals" (undocumented is the better term) increased. Difficulties arise, including advantage taking of new comers by unscrupulous employers, parasitic and predatory "immigration consultants" and even some "smart" lawyers scrambling for a diminising work (see how many lawyers graduate every year !) and who look on these people as a niche opportunity, charging them exorbitant fees for unecessary work.
The essential conclusion which we have to draw out of this apparent lack of satisfactory intergration process is that politicians' work has to include the input and leadership of community and working peoples organisations such as trade unions, churches and genuine democratic political opinion including the left, all of whom should act in the time honoured democratic tradition of welcoming newcomers and working together to deepen shared interests regardless of race and other factors. Politicians who are genuine peoples representatives should have no fear of this.
The acknowledgement that peoples everywhere have basically the same interests, regardless of race and religion and other artifical differencs, is not raised sufficently in my view in Annalee's otherwise welcome effort. We hear in the movie of Bajans cmplaining but where are the numerous instances of them welcoming Guyanese into their homes and inter-marrying ? This should have been played up. More interviews could be done with the disciplined contract workers (on work permits mainly in agriculture and contruction sectors) and the often unrecognised home helpers and care givers in Barbadian homes rather than the less focused prostitutes for example. Only the unity of the people will cut across the nefarious, self serving ploys of the opportunist politician. We have to look at the present realities but we also have to take care of the future.
In fairness, there were limitations of length in ON THE MAP. Not everything could be included.There are plans for another follow up effort. Annalee e-mailed me a few days ago to get a list of trade unions so she can invite them along with Government and opposition personages to the movie's screening at CARIFESTA.
With due respect , I didn't like Guyana being referred to as a "failed state" as is bandied about in the movie's publicity. Guyanese are moving at this conjuncture, like other peoples including Bajans going to Canadian farms and US hotels, to work under contract in other lands because of better paying job opportunities in places such as Barbados and Trinidad . I say this not because I am a Guyana Honorary Consul but because the charge of failed state doesn't square with reality. Guyana, with its free and fair elctions since 1992, stable economy and democratic goverence among other positive featres, is not a failed state.
The movie, among other minor shortcomings, also quotes the late Guyanese historian Walter Rodney out of context (about the arrival of East Indians in Guyana).
ON THE MAP has a role to play in sensitising people about migrant work and the need for a truly regional society that could eventually take other island states with Hispanic and Dutch colonial histories.Annalee, who by the way a white Bajan woman, has done a fine job with this movie in highlighting the need of people's unity.
Let us support it. For those in Guyana for CARIFESTA , the screening will be at the International Conference Centre (next to the Caricom Secretariat) on Monday, 25 August starting at 7.30 p.m.

Note
Norman Faria is Guyana's Honorary Consul in Barbados