YOU might think your Caricom Heads of Government conferences were, at best, a complete waste of time - since  no territories (apart from Barbados, which ’has a thing’ about following rules) ever pass the necessary domestic legislation to make the highfalutin ’international’ treaties work - or, at worst, expensive demonstrations of pure hypocrisy - since after ’making as eef’ with one another in a five-star hotel for a week, the heads invariably return home and do the 180-degree opposite of whatever they pretended to agree to - as any poor schmuck trying to get his CSME-skilled national status recognised in another territory could tell you - but you probably don’t realise that the Heads of Government do make historic breakthroughs; how else would you characterise a document as magnificent as, ’The Ideal Caribbean Person’, an electronic copy of which arrived in my email inbox this week.

The little intro to the document - which emerged from the 18th Summit meeting and must have been written by dozens of hardworking civil servants, flown from all over the region and put up at a fancy hotel for the purpose of writing it, who must have had many breakfast, lunch & dinner meetings over its wording - states that it ’provides a useful lens through which to apprehend the ultimate desirable outcome of the education system’.

Doesn’t your inner Ideal Caribbean Personhood purr with contentment at that? What would we have done without a useful lens through which we might apprehend the ultimate desirable outcome of the education system? The inclusion of the words ’ultimate’’ and ’desirable’ is crucial: no unfinished, unwanted outcomes of the education system to be apprehended through useless lenses at our summit meetings. You find yourself hoping no pedantic administrative officer left behind in the home territory disallows the expense account claim for the bottle of after-dinner cognac which, no doubt, must have provided the inspiration for such clear thinking.

The document itself (find it at www.caricom.org/jsp/communications) is of a piece with its introduction. The Ideal Caribbean Person, it declares, ’is imbued with a respect for human life since it is the foundation on which all other desired values must rest; is emotionally secure with a high level of self-confidence and self-esteem’ - good to know the framers appreciate the distinction between self-confidence and self-esteem - ’sees ethnic, religious and other diversity as a source of potential strength and richness; is aware of the importance of living in harmony with the environment, has a strong appreciation of family and kinship values, community cohesion, and moral issues including responsibility for and accountability to self and community’.

Six other bullet points detailing such Ideal Caribbean Personal Traits as nourishing ’in him/herself and in others, the fullest development of each person’s potential without gender stereotyping’ are set out in the document; all of them are of the same calibre. An Ideal Caribbean Person, e.g., ’has developed the capacity to create and take advantage of opportunities to control, improve, maintain and promote physical, mental, social and spiritual well-being’.

And to think the English could only come up with Magna Carta, the United Nations with the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, the French Revolution with, ’Liberté, Equalité et Fraternité", the New York Times with ’All the News that’s Fit to Print’ and David Rudder with, ’Rally ’Round the West Indies’. No Aspiring Ideal Caribbean Person could be inspired by such trifling, wannabe catchphrases when he/she, accounting to him/herself and the community in accordance with point three of the Ideal Caribbean Person document, compared the heights he/she might achieve if only he/she ’values and displays the creative imagination in its various manifestations and nurtures its development in the economic and entrepreneurial spheres in all other areas of life’!

Now the Unpatriotic Caribbean Pedant might sneer  at this kind of document.  That Non-Ideal Caribbean Person or Obviously European Apologist might suggest that it is precisely this kind of empty pappyshowing of real achievement that holds back all Caribbean persons, Ideal or Not. The Non-Ideal Caribbean Person - who, you can be sure, never gets an invitation to take part in the framing of such documents as the Ideal Caribbean Person or the meal ticket that goes with it - might insinuate that public money is simply wasted on this kind of rubbish and that any other use to which it might be put - such as the just-concluded, largely-ignored Carifesta X in Georgetown - would be an immediate improvement.

The Despicable Caribbean Traitor might even be so bold as to wonder whether, following the reasoning of the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur in the law of negligence - the thing speaks for itself - the mere production of such a document were not itself proof of corruption in public office, and suggest that anyone who participated in such a plain misappropriation of public monies should be jailed.

But the Ideal Caribbean Person - who tags along with the Ideal Caribbean Head of Government and derives all his perks from said Ideal H O G - understands that what is at hand in the modern Caribbean is not a people locating itself in its own place as the first step towards loving and working for itself - but a continuation of the abuse of the last 500 years of occupation of these islands: the taking, by a small group, of vast privileges at the expense of everyone else; which is not to be questioned by mere slaves or those who do not ’demonstrate multiple literacies [sic], independence and critical thinking’; the Ideal Caribbean Person, then, is a Good Negro who agrees with whatever comes out of the Great House.

BC Pires is an Ideal Caribbean Layabout. Email your  positive G-string ethics to him at bcmaverick@tstt.net.tt.