We have noted with keen interest the signing of a new treaty by the heads of government of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) in the waning days of 2009.

The objective of the new treaty is to deepen political and economic integration among Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Montserrat, St Kitts and Nevis, Anguilla, and the British Virgin Islands.

The treaty comes at a time when the Eastern Caribbean sub-region is at a critical juncture. The OECS countries are among the smallest states in the world in population and land area and are among the most economically vulnerable. They have lost preferential treatment for bananas and are contending with declines in remittances and tourist arrivals due to the global financial crisis. They face the prospect of increasing susceptibility to the deleterious effects of climate change.

For these countries, integration is not an option, it is an imperative. It has been a vital part of their economic development. Judged by per capita income they are better off than the larger, more resource-rich Jamaica, Belize and Guyana.

We believe that their survival and development are due, first, to their remarkable people who were never bound by the parochialism that infects some small societies. St Lucia has produced two Nobel Laureates — Sir Arthur Lewis and Derek Walcott; Grenada has the Mighty Sparrow; Antigua gave us Sir Vivian Richards and Kim Collins is from St Kitts.

Second, their utilisation of integration demonstrates that resources, however limited in size and range, can be enhanced when they are pooled, combined and shared on a regional basis. They have accomplished goals which elude Caricom. They have established and maintained a stable common currency (before the EU) and a common judiciary.

Third, the OECS form a natural physical region (unlike Caricom) with a tradition of inter-island mingling. They have a genuine sense of community and the commonality of circumstances.

If the OECS has accomplished working integration, why has Caricom failed? one should ask. The answer is not political union or lack of quality people or not comprehending the benefits of integration or physical dispersal. The answer is egotistical nationalist pride which leads small non-OECS states to not yield some of what they do not possess, ie “sovereignty”.

The OECS contained nationalism within integration by establishing a unifying myth. The EU employed the threat of communism and NAFTA used the gains from free trade. The OECS made pandemic the belief that the rest of the world was unsympathetic to the disadvantages of small size. Declining aid and the dismantling of preferential trade are taken as proof of the global community’s wilful neglect of its obligation to help micro-states. Included in the unsympathetic “outsiders” are the so-called big countries of Caricom, in particular, Jamaica and Trinidad.

A clear example of the triumph of pride over pragmatism is Barbados not being a member state of the OECS. Pride alone stands between Barbados and the eminently sensible and long overdue decision to join with other small island states of similar physical size, economic structure and population and which share a geographic location. Such a step may be the catalyst for the CSME to build on the foundation of a “greater OECS”.

Failing a development of this kind, Caricom, if it is not to continue to stagnate, will have to invent a unifying myth and hope that it can galvanise actions which even the global economic crisis has failed to stimulate.