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Obstacles to integration

The linguistic differences are obviously an important obstacle, but divisions also exist within the linguistic zones, which leads to believe that other factors must play a part. Beyond the culture of the Caribbean�s and their particular relation with time, beyond fears of regional competition, there are other elements that make common actions difficult. It is considerable, for example, that the press organs of each of countries do not allow any particular importance to the regional news, most countries being turned exclusively toward one of the industrial countries that have been part of their colonial history. The mutual knowledge of cultural, scientific and technical activity is limited 1 and eventually, the actors of science and culture move rather little inside the region.

The main gate to overcome resistances and the first obstacle to the regional integration process could be therefore the weakness of an organized communication, at the regional level, between the economic, cultural, scientific and social partners.

It is from a shared information and a fluid communication that integrationist mental diagrams auspicious to the conception of actions in the different interested sectors, will be able to be constructed.

Yet, unlike other regions the nature of the region hardly makes the concept of a border applicable 2, preventing thus the natural mechanism that allows the neighboring countries to create, from the border trade, a culture of exchanges.

It is besides significant that means of air and sea transportation generally have a star-shaped topology, which makes that the distance between two islands is equal to the diameter of the circle (with the exception of the tourist cruises where the tourist can appreciate the duality/diversity/common points more quickly than the local inhabitants of this region).

Therefore, the diagnosis is clear: an infrastructure of transportation is missing! Of course, the good approach is not to build bridges, nor necessarily to reshape the air or sea transportation system. It would deal of course with information superhighways or inforoutes 3. A first level of diagnosis shows indeed that causes are not in infrastructures but rather in "infostructures" 4.

The construction of information and communication systems with a regional vision should have a considerable effect on its development and should even end up contributing to the improvement of the transportation systems between the countries.

The new information and communication technologies bring a unique opportunity to create or tighten ties between the peoples of the Caribbean region, to have them feel sensitive to their own cultural common identity and to increase incitements to common actions.

1 Jamaican University of West Indies is a notable exception, with a campus based in Trinidad and in Barbados, and with distance education programs on the regional level [back to text]
2 With the obvious exeption of that between Haiti and Dominican Republic [back to text]
3 It´s important not to mistake: the Internet that exists in the Caribbean today is that of passive consumer, and a mere facade over the tourism of the countries in the region. The values of the academic Internet, as well as its developmental conception, have had almost no effect in this region with significant delay of Internet development compared to the rest of the Latin America. [back to text]
4 With the exception of Haiti, the countries of the region generaly have a good telecommunication infrastructure and Internet is highly present in all the countries, at least in its commercial version.
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