November 2014 \ Diaspora News \ Indian Diaspora in Guyana
Glimpses of a Global Life

Sir Shridath "Sonny" Ramphal has lived a long and global life. A lawyer and international diplomat, he rose from humble origins to become a key Advisor to Queen Elizabeth II as Head of the Commonwealth. Leaders from every continent engaged with him as the longest serving Secretary-General of the Commonwealth (1975–1990) and as the only person who served on all the Independent International Commissions that grappled with the world's major issues. His book, Glimpses of a Global Life, involves a cast of the world's leading characters and the central role Ramphal played alongside them in issues such as ending the apartheid in South Africa; laying the foundations for global concerns about the environment; the reform of global governance, and the resolution of conflicts. It is an analysis of major problems and challenges that dominated the twentieth century and which continue to shape the contours of the twenty-first

By Sir Shridath Ramphal

In his presentation, Shridath Ramphal said that "there is so much I could have written about, so many others who shared my global journeys that I should have written of. Alas, it would take another book to do so; it must suffice to plead that these are ‘glimpses’ only and to hope that in their own way they conjure up, especially for those who shared them."

Integration efforts in the Caribbean occupied much of his memoirs, explained the former Foreign Minister of Guyana and said that his book evokes the ambivalence and the steps in the formation of the West Indies Federation, its collapse, and the work of the West Indian Commission in charting the course for the region’s integral development. His presentation included quotes related to such events and to the efforts to promote the community of nations in the Caribbean as an entity with a global relevance.




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