Overcoming Insularity in Jamaica

Abstract

IN the long run it may yet transpire that the differences be tween stages of economic development as between various nations and regions of the world are a more important de terminant of history than differences in ideology or systems of government. Religious wars are contested with fervor at the time; so are wars to make the world safe for democracy. But sooner or later, the economic historian presents an alternative analysis which seems to put the hysteria of yesteryear in a more realistic frame. And so today, press, pulpit and politician would have us be lieve that a new ideological focus is at the heart of the uncer tainties, tensions and conflicts of the second half of the twentieth century. Once again, I suggest that tomorrow's historians will point out that behind the hysteria lay economics and that the real battleground was in that largely tropical territory which was first the object of colonial exploitation, second, the focus of non-Caucasian nationalism and more latterly known as the underdeveloped and the developing world as it sought euphe misms for its condition. It has now proclaimed itself the third world to mark its transition from an age of apology to one of assertiveness.