Decolonisation incomplete

Jul 13, 2019 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,

The 13 colonies (now the United States) was the first in the new world to remove the shackles of foreign rule of England in 1776. After World War 2, there was mass decolonisation from European powers. Korea was freed in 1945 by Japan’s defeat in the war. The U.S. released the Philippines in 1946. England freed India in 1947, Palestine in 1948, and Egypt in 1956; it relinquished Africa in the 1950s and ’60s, from various island protectorates in the 1970s and ’80s, and from Hong Kong in 1997. The French left Vietnam in 1954 and gave up its North African colonies by 1962. Portugal gave up its African colonies in the 1970s; Macau was returned to the Chinese in 1999.
The English speaking Caribbean was decolonised in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s from the United Kingdom. Our greatest accomplishment is Caricom because it’s anti-colonial. British colonialism is based on divide and rule and Caricom seeks unity. The modern colonialism main instrument is mainly financial. The global economic system comprises wealthy countries at the centre, and poor countries at the periphery. Economic neocolonialism extracts the human and natural resources of a poor country to flow to the economies of the wealthy countries. The poverty of the peripheral countries is the result of how they are integrated in the global economic system. Organisations such as the International Monetary Fund or World Bank give developing countries loans knowing a significant portion will be misappropriated. The fact that a part of the loan agreement is always structural adjustment which usually translate to increase taxes and loss of benefits to the populace and no required forensic audit indicate they only care about getting back their money and that the nation continue to be a source of income to the developed nations. China’s financing of other countries have a similar philosophy without the structural adjustment.
Singapore was in the 1960s a poor country and former British colony but tackled corruption as a priority. Its investment in education and industrialisation would not have been possible with massive corruption. In 2019, Singapore ranked 3rd in the least corrupt countries by Transparency International.
Eighteen out of 20 countries with the highest homicide rate in the world are located in Latin America and the Caribbean. The level of crime is commensurate to the level of corruption especially in government. Decolonization has 3 stages: 1. fight against external oppressor; 2. fight against internal oppressor and 3. Self-determination.
If enough citizen of a nation cannot live decently, there will be social upheaval expressed as crime, in particular homicides. The degree of inhumane condition people are living under correspond with the degree of social upheaval expressed as crime, usually violent crime.
All the policing in the world will not stop the extreme crime rate especially homicide because money that should be used to improve the quality of life of the people has been diverted elsewhere.
The fight against crime in the Caribbean has been punitive instead of corrective – aggressive policing, draconian legislation, etc.
The World Bank has recommended that the region increase prevention efforts, such as investing in education, behavioral and soft skills programmes, and well-targeted poverty reduction efforts.
The decolonisation process in Guyana and a lot of the world is incomplete.

Yours truly,
Brian E Plummer

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