EDITORIAL

Next Editorial: Obama: A bearer of love, compassion, and hope for the Caribbean Published on Monday, April 20, 2009 Email To Friend    Print Version By Desmond Seales, MBE Publisher and Editor in Chief Caribbean Net News Email: desmond@caribbeannetnews.com   We take the opportunity of United States President Barack Obama’s visit to the region to state our position and vision as the Caribbean’s independent voice of reason and the news source of choice for many, many thousands of readers and observers, not only in the region but across the world. Desmond Seales, Publisher and Editor in Chief of the Net News Group. For far too long, previous US administrations have been treating the Caribbean as their “backyard”. However, we want to be partners and, to use the words of President Obama, not just junior partners. We want to be “just like the brochure”, which shows the beauty of our people, the infrastructure, where beauty abounds in the lay of our land and below our seas, and our industrious people, with so much creative talent in industry, commerce and culture. Thank goodness there is today a US president who is down to earth, who easily makes friends wherever he goes and offers to be part of the solution for the entire world instead of part of the problem. He certainly is welcome, with his administration, to be in partnership with us, as we share the same coastlines and seas; history; heritage, particularly that of slavery of our forefathers. He is in fact an islander himself -- one of us. Witness the boldness of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, and of Barack Obama himself, who was the first to break the ice at the Trinidad Summit by reaching out to Chavez and going over to him and shaking hands. And then by Chavez going over to Obama and making a presentation of a book on Latin America. This was reminiscent of then US Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev engaging in their spur of the moment, so-called Kitchen Debate in 1959, at the height of the Cold War. It was also President Nixon who broke the diplomatic ice with his historic visit to Communist China in 1972, following the “ping pong diplomacy” of the previous year. Indeed, the Caribbean is all about demonstrating love and compassion for one another... not about wars and jealousies. The world and, in particular, the people Caribbean want to trust America again, not for the aid it has provided in the past, but as partners. Although we are a collection of separate and diverse states and territories, we share similar cultures, just as America has done with millions of immigrants from all over the world, including the Caribbean itself. US President Barack Obama speaks during the opening ceremony at the Fifth Summit of the Americas. AFP PHOTO And just as the strength of America was born out of a revolution, when the people of the then colony of North America rebelled against paying onerous taxes to Britain, so was Venezuela with Simon Bolivar, and Haiti -- the original depot and dumping ground for slaves brought over from Africa -- with Toussaint L’Ouverture, to modern day Cuba, just 50 years ago with Dr Fidel Castro. How many more revolutions must we have so that all the people of the Caribbean and Latin America may enjoy democracy, an appreciation of their rights as humans, and a free press to tell their stories and to report and share without fear or favour the news of the day, unvarnished and without recriminations? The world is beginning to relate to President Obama and perhaps he is indeed the Messiah this planet has been waiting for. Now that he is here, it is incumbent on all of us, along with our government and private sector leaders, and religious leaders too -- regardless of their denomination, culture and traditions -- to accept that we now all have an opportunity to share and be part of the new world order that has been empowered to us through President Barack Hussein Obama.   Reads : 2413   Next