Exercising foreign policy, no easy matter

Before I get into the subject matter, permit me some brief comments to follow up some issues I had raised in this column following the unfortunate abortion of the parliamentary debate on the 2024 Budget. The futility of that decision, for which both sides of the House must take blame, was demonstrated this past week with Ministers of Government and the Opposition Leader taking to the airwaves and social media to either explain issues or to raise criticism of government policy.

The reality is that none of the platforms utilized provide the reach that a high-profile Budget Debate offers. In addition, the Parliamentary Debate with its cut-and-thrust nature, offers the opportunity for challenges and probes, not just a one-sided offering. When are we going to place national interests above partisan ones? The number of important issues which have resurfaced since the Budget again highlights the missed opportunity.

But to get to the gist of this column, which focuses on foreign policy issues, a vital but much misunderstood aspect of national policy. It is unfortunate that over the years foreign policy has been relegated in the minds of too many of our citizens to mean foreign travel and begging for international assistance. To be fair, P.M. Gonsalves and to a lesser extent the late Sir James Mitchell, by reaching beyond the traditional outreach to western powers, have given the matter a higher profile.

Yet many of our people, I dare to say most, still do not have a realistic grasp of the importance of foreign policy to a small developing nation like ours. The spectacular achievements in this sphere in recent years which took this tiny nation right into the hallowed compound of the United Nations Security Council, have helped a great deal, but there is much more work to be done.

Our Prime Minister has just completed yet another of his exhaustive travels which included the recent meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM)- not the local cultural organization NAM headed by “Blazer” Williams. That meeting was held in Uganda. Now there are people of my generation still alive who would remember when the international NAM had real meaning and influence.

It was formed in Indonesia at a time when the struggle for national independence was reaching its zenith. Indonesia, the large Pacific equivalent of the West Indies, often called the

East Indies, was in the forefront of the anti-colonial struggle then. The Non-Aligned Movement, formed by countries who wanted to emphasize their independence from the two major power blocs, NATO in the west, and the Warsaw Pact nations of eastern Europe, played a crucial role in helping to propel the independence march for colonial nations. Later it was greatly strengthened by the active presence of Cuba, fresh from its revolutionary successes and eager to demonstrate what real solidarity could and should be.

Much water has flowed under the NAM bridge since then and has frankly eroded some of the pillars of that solidarity. It is one thing to rant and rave about “imperialism” and “colonialism”, quite another to understand their workings and to be able to survive their relentless onslaught. Many of the leaders of the NAM did not appear to understand this nor to educate their people in this regard. Over time, they were either removed from power or their anti-imperialist stance turned into mere rhetoric. Today, even progressive people scoff at the NAM as being a mere “talk shop”.

It is true that the revived NAM of today is a far cry from the militant NAM of the sixties, but the world has changed a great deal since then. We have to be able to adopt new strategies, creative ways of expressing our solidarity. Crucial to this is educating our people. Foreign Policy is not a very sexy topic, but it is a necessary art in a rapidly developing world.

It is not, as some believe, just for diplomats or Foreign Affairs Ministries weighed down under protocols and catering to foreign guests or organizing foreign trips. We have to find ways of educating our people and ensuring that our Foreign Ministries are properly oriented to the tasks at hand. Take CELAC for instance, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States. SVG has been elevated to the Presidency of this hemispheric organization and is in fact about to end its term at the end of February. How many of our people have now a better understanding of CELAC than a year ago?

We cannot ignore the role of continuous education, not just of officials but of ordinary people. How many ordinary members of both political parties can explain what CELAC is and what it means to us? There is no short cut to political education and if we believe that our advances can be sustained without the conscious education of our people, we only have to look at NAM today and the attempts to rebuild it as a warning. The fight against foreign domination cannot be maintained without people and their political education.

• Renwick Rose is a community activist and social commentator.