Former Jamaica PM delivers lecture on prospects for anglophone Caribbean

Former Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller delivered the feature address earlier this month at the 11th Annual Florida International University (FIU) Eric E. Williams Memorial Lecture.

The current Jamaican opposition leader spoke on: "A New Vision for a New World Reality: Prospects for the Anglophone Caribbean".

The lecture in the Distinguished African Scholars Lecture Series was streamed live on the Internet to the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad.

Simpson Miller demonstrated her sound historical knowledge of the genesis of Caribbean unity as she reviewed the Caribbean’s long history of fragmentation and opposition to meaningful unification.

She spoke of the "lost years" of potential leadership on the world stage and offered distinct remedies for the region’s players to jump start the seemingly elusive vision of regional unification.

The Lecture series started in 1999 to honour Dr Eric E. Williams, first Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago and head of government for a quarter of a century until his death in 1981.

Williams led the country to Independence from Britain in 1962 and onto Republicanism in 1976.

Williams was a consummate academic and historian, and author of several books, the best known of which remains his groundbreaking work, Capitalism and Slavery, which has been translated into seven languages. Urdu and Hindi editions are also planned for the book that was first published 65 years ago.

According to the New York Times, the book remains "the foundation for studies of imperialism and economic development."

The Lecture series is also supported by The Eric Williams Memorial Collection at The University of the West Indies, St Augustine, which was inaugurated by former U.S. Secretary of State, Colin L. Powell in 1998.

It was named to UNESCO’s prestigious Memory of the World Register in 1999.