Caribbean countries must help in the wellbeing of their Diasporas

Jul 30, 2017 Consumer Concerns, Features / Columnists

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By PAT DIAL

At the time of writing, the Diaspora Conference of the University of Guyana is still in progress and the only report we have had so far of its proceedings is President Granger’s opening presentation. We have had no information of the titles or themes of the other presentations but from the statements made by public figures and academics in the past, the onus of the Conference will be to invite the Diaspora community to be involved in Guyana’s economic and social development.
We have always felt that Governments and Guyanese people at home should equally be concerned with the welfare and protection of the Diaspora community and there are several ways in which this could be achieved. With the limitation of space, we will broadly touch on two of those ways.
A few decades ago, we had done a paper on the push factors that caused Guyanese to emigrate abroad, especially to the Developed World. The main factors included finding employment, re-uniting families, medical and educational opportunities, political and racial discrimination, desiring to be immersed in Western Culture, imagining that one’s artistic and intellectual talents would have a greater opportunity to flourish, and above all, the very deep assumption that the Developed Countries were the nearest thing to Paradise on Earth and to settle there was a victorious achievement and a privilege.
From the historical perspective, Western countries are not now the Paradise immigrants imagined since the West has started on the downward slope of gradual decline.
Six hundred years ago, the Asiatic Heartland, especially India and China, produced most of the World’s product and enjoyed a level of wealth and civilization far above the West. In those times, whenever the West thought of wealth, they thought of Asia.
From about the 14th century, the societies of the Asiatic Heartland fell into a somnolence, ceased being productive and became weaker and poorer. Indian and Chinese civilizations did not disappear as the other contemporary ancient civilizations had done but remained in a debilitated and almost moribund state.
On the other hand, at the same time Europe was experiencing its Renaissance and in a few centuries, Western Man achieved the highest pinnacle of Human Civilization, wealth and power and by the 19th century had colonized the rest of the world. By 1900, Western Civilization and Power were unchallenged and appeared to be permanent and everlasting. Then the West began fighting its disastrous and suicidal civil wars culminating in World Wars 1 and 11.
The West lost its imperial control of the World and destroyed a great deal of its wealth and young and educated humanity. Western Civilization had almost destroyed itself.
Asia had begun to awaken from its long somnolence and in a few decades has come to have great economic and military power. And Asian economic power keeps growing and overtaking the West. This has resulted in Western Societies gradually becoming poorer. For example, free health services have begun to contract, unemployment is growing, wages are not increasing as fast as they once did and standards of living have begun to fall.
And our Diaspora finds itself permanently living in this slowly and almost imperceptibly but relentlessly declining society. The answer to this syndrome is for our Diaspora to have one leg in the declining Developed country and one leg in the Developing country with the possibility of enjoying the best of both worlds.
The Indian and Chinese Diasporas are adopting this formula and the Guyanese Diaspora could well do the same. The Government of Guyana could help in this process in several ways and should quickly take on the task.
The second overall way in which the Government of Guyana could be of help to the Diaspora is firstly by enlightening would-be immigrants of the kind of society they would be going to. This would help them to settle down more quickly and productively and to better gauge their future.
Next, the Guyanese and West Indian Diaspora communities in the Developed World have little or no understanding of the financial structures and investment opportunities in those countries. And despite the great advantage of speaking the same language, as in the USA and UK, having the same legal assumptions and the same Law and indeed having the same thought process, Caribbean people, though very hard-working and responsible, have never entered the lucrative world of Finance.
Asians, in contrast, because they know how the Stock Exchanges, Banks and other financial institutions and structures work, are able to take advantage of these and in a short time become wealthy. The Guyanese and West Indian High Commissions and Embassies in the Developed Countries must devise methods by which they could educate the West Indian Diasporas in the Stock Market and other financial structures.
Though Guyanese and West Indian Diasporas have done much better in securing higher education and the professions than they have been able to do in Finance, they have not been able to manifest their full potential, And this syndrome is largely because when Caribbean people emigrate to the Developed countries, they go to the cities.
Since they do not have enough money to live in the better areas, they are compelled to live in the poorer and working class areas.
Now, in the Developed World, the Environment creates the man so Guyanese and West Indian children born in the poorer districts of Western cities will become like their neighbours. They will speak like them, dress like them, think like them with ambitions to be no more than a wage-earner.
In the Caribbean, because of the full social mobility, the majority of the educated and professional classes derive from the poorer sections of society. Working through parents, the Diplomatic Missions and social workers could successfully launch more poorer West Indian young people into the universities and professions.
And finally, Caribbean Governments and their foreign missions must positively offer protection to their citizens wherever they are and in whatever circumstances. The model of Israel regarding protection of its citizens would be instructive. If such protection is proffered, Caribbean states will earn a new respectability and their citizens would be more closely affiliated to their homelands.

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