Let's 'map' Jamaica's Diaspora to achieve growth

 Diane Abbott

The Government attempt to map the talent in the diaspora is a good thing.   The question, however, is having identified these talents, what will the Jamaican Government do with it to better the country and its people at home and abroad?

I am pleased that the Jamaican Government has set up the "Mapping Jamaica's Diaspora" project.  It is potentially a brilliant idea.   I have long argued that Jamaica's overseas diaspora is its greatest untapped natural resource.

The project is being driven by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade and they are working with the International Organisation for Migration.

Its aim is to identify, through an online survey, what skills the diaspora has, and what they can contribute to the development of Jamaica.   The survey is also designed to shed some light on what those of us in the diaspora think are the main issues facing us in our country of settlement.

I have dutifully filled in the survey and will wait to see what happens.

But, in the meantime, I would humbly suggest that ministers consider how they can maximise the value of the survey.

First of all, it needs to be more widely promoted so that people know about it.   I know of very few Jamaicans in the UK who have actually heard of it.   Most members of the Jamaican diaspora are going to have to be guided to it.   So it cannot just be a question of merely putting it up online.

The Jamaican Government should work with churches and other grass roots organisations in order to get them to rally their members to fill it in.

There are at least 650,000 people of Jamaican heritage living in the UK — many more if you count the second and third generations.   Hundreds of thousands of those will be connected to one of the black-led churches.   They should be the go-to partners for any serious survey of Jamaica's diaspora.

I assume that the Government has sent details of the survey to the many different Jamaican organisations out there, whether they are national or linked to a particular town.

These organisations will be particularly valuable in targeting middle-aged Jamaicans who do not naturally spend a lot of time online.   Because there will be this group of Jamaicans who will not find the survey online, because they never go online, the survey must be supplemented by other forms of research and data collection.

The danger in a survey restricted to online users is that, with no other supporting activity, it will fall short in documenting the diaspora in a genuinely useful way.

The Jamaican Government should also organise market research-type "focus groups" in all the towns of cities of Britain where there are large Jamaican populations.

This would add qualitative information to the merely numerical. This would cost money.  But I suspect that the International Organisation for Migration is not working on this project for free.

So the same international organisations that are paying for that work could also pay to employ marketing and other experts to do a really thorough survey of Jamaicans and their descendants in the UK.

Then, once the survey is completed, the question is what will the Jamaican Government do with the information?

Having identified these talents, what will the Jamaican Government do with it to better the country and its people at home and abroad?

They have said they want to use the mapping exercise to support the development of a logistics hub, by identifying men and women with maritime industry, logistics, shipping and engineering experience.

Government has also intimated that it wants to advance the creative industries, such as animation and developing mobile apps.

If Government has these specific goals, in terms of identifying skills and talents, maybe they should also be approaching professional organisations and universities, encouraging them to identify people of Jamaican origin or affiliation within their ranks.

Professionals of Jamaican origin who have applied for jobs in the public sector back in Jamaica have sometimes felt unwelcome.

It would be a shame for the Government to go to all this trouble to identify skilled Jamaicans overseas yet still continue to recruit expatriates who are not obviously of Jamaican origin.  We wait and see.

But "Mapping Jamaica's Diaspora" is a great project and, with a little tweaking, can make an important contribution to Jamaica's economic development.

— Diane Abbott is the British Labour Party MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington www.dianeabbott.org.uk

August 03, 2014

Jamaica Observer

The independent Jamaican Diaspora

By Hugh Douse

THE word Diaspora gained prominence from its usage with regard to the scattered Jews.  The term relates to the people who identify with the nation of their forebears, and still attach themselves through culture in a way that affects their world view, and subsequently, their identity.

The Jewish Diaspora was impactful enough to represent an offence to Hitler, his Nazis, and countless others who begrudged their wealth, talent and success.   The events of the Holocaust is the by which all genocide is referenced.   This nation has more influence and impact on the world than its size would suggest.

And so does Jamaica.

The truth of Jamaica is that our greatness, our influence and, indeed, our destiny is to, as our pledge states, play our part in advancing the welfare of the whole human race.  We will have practised our greatness to phenomenal levels in many areas: the Arts, sports, academia, religion, entrepreneurship, and all the professions in-between.

Now that we are 51 we must confirm, build on and protect this legacy.   We must plan not only for the next three or four years as we are wont to do.   We must build for the next 15, 50 and 100 years.   I am sure that the practice of working hard for a promised land that may never be entered by the present nation is a mindset embraced by the Jews and other civilisations whose legacies seem to have been secured.

So, alongside the necessary rituals which mark Emancipation and Independence, we must reframe our thinking of ourselves as a nation to include more of whom we call, Professor Nettleford style, the Jamaican Diaspora.   With about 3 million Jamaicans within the Diasporas of the USA, The UK, Canada (including Maroon descendants at Nova Scotia), Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Cuba, Colombia, and all the continents and nations of the earth, it is time that the virtual, borderless nation of Jamaica begins to think of itself in larger terms.

There is nothing worse than a great person or nation “smalling up itself” to be accepted by those who he nor she sees as peers, or worse, as superiors.   It is neither profitable nor sensible to be less than you are to meet the low expectations of those whose opinions we esteem over our own.   I think we have done too much of that over the last 50 years.

This is why I am excited that the Earl Jarrett-led Jamaica National Building Society — through an initiative led by Paulette Simpson, senior manager, corporate affairs and public policy in the UK, and Dr O'Neal Mundle, lecturer at the UWI School of Education — have put on for the third year a Caribbean Cultural Awareness Camp for the children of the Jamaica Diaspora in the UK.   The project engages a team of eight Jamaican facilitators, who, through the performing arts, administer an arts-based curriculum with the aim of leading the children, ages eight to 18, into a deeper sense of identity through the engagement of their heritage.   Her Excellency Aloun N'dombet Assamba, Jamaican high commissioner to the UK and Jamaica Diaspora UK, led by Celia Grandison Markey are supportive partners without whom this project could not survive.

The amazing thing is that, at the end of this two-week intensive, the campers mount a full-length production in which they teach what they were taught to large audiences in London, Reading, Wales, and Birmingham.   Their parents and grandparents who were born in Britain are, through this production, taught their own heritage by their own children.   In this 65th anniversary of the arrival of the Empire Windrush which carried the first migrants to the UK, they have found clues for this great diasporic civilisation of six million that Jamaica has become.

Six million. Hmmmm.

Growing pains mean that we may have to go the road alone.   Interpret that however you wish, but none of the world’s powerfully successful nations are without a period in their narratives when they walked the road alone.   We must decide where this independence is going.

One thing’s for sure. It is good to be here. But we cannot stay here.

So in this year of celebration of our 175th anniversary of full freedom, may we remember and honour our ancestors, not just through monuments of words, but rather through deeds great and far-reaching. Let us create a new trajectory.

Up you mighty race. Accomplish.

hugh.douse@gmail.com

August 06, 2012

Jamaica Observer

Jamaica: ... History, shame and emancipendence

By Michael Burke

WHAT has shame or embarrassment to do with communicating history?  And what has this to do with our emancipendence celebrations, particularly in a year when we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of our Independence?  One of the unfortunate legacies of certain types of government and economic models is the class system.  It has created the misleading belief that some people are better than others.

The Roman Catholic Church teaches that the notion of superiority and inferiority based on class and colour is a sin against the great commandment of "Love thy neighbour as thyself".  The said church further teaches that with regard to race it cannot be proved either in scripture or in a science laboratory that any race is superior to the other.

But like any other religious institution, not all Roman Catholics have the same level of understanding.  So even within a church that abhors class prejudice, in its doctrine it exists within its borders.  And wherever it exists, there is usually a sense of shame on the part of the victims of such prejudice.

Many young people do not appreciate how far we have come since Independence, let alone slavery, because they were not taught what it was like before.  Many times their parents do not want to tell them what Jamaica was like as they are ashamed to admit the conditions under which they lived because they were looked down upon and ridiculed by others.

Fifty-two years ago in 1960 when I was six years old, my parents left me and my siblings in the care of our maternal grandmother while they went on tour of New York, USA, England and the European continent.  My father heard the following story in England and told us on his return.

A Jamaican living in England where he was courting an English girl (white-skinned, I believe), showed her a picture of Hope Gardens and told her that it was his backyard.  After the wedding she wanted to take a trip to Jamaica to see the place.  The man was ashamed to tell his wife the truth.  But how would his children learn to appreciate his efforts to improve their lives if he was ashamed to tell them where he grew up, even if on Spanish Town Road or Back-o-Wall?

In 1967 when I was 13 years old, I saw a photograph in the Star of a Jamaica Omnibus Service (JOS) bus driver who had received an award for good driving.  A cloth badge was sewn to his right shirt sleeve.  On several occasions while taking a JOS bus, I recognised him as the driver who won the award.  Fourteen years later in 1981, I saw him in Papine.  By this time he walked with a limp.

The JOS awardee told me that he was retired.  He sat on the stone wall by the Hope Aqueduct next to what was then CAST (now UTech) and told me of his struggles to give all his children a good education by sending them to some of Jamaica's best high schools. He also spoke about attaining the award from JOS.

During the conversation I learnt that the retired bus driver was a Roman Catholic like me and that he had seen me at church.  He surprised me by telling the names of his sons because I knew some of them from Roman Catholic circles of which he was very much aware and was the reason for telling me that he was Roman Catholic.  He was extremely proud of his eldest son, who by that time had become a senior accountant at a large company in Jamaica and who, I believe, became a chartered accountant.

That top-level accountant today is himself retired from the company where he was employed, although his youngest children are still of high school age.  He holds a prominent position in the Roman Catholic Church, particularly in the Archdiocese of Kingston.  His father, the retired bus driver, died some years ago.

Less than three weeks ago, I was at a Roman Catholic Church and saw one of the sons of the top-level accountant and grandson of the late retired bus driver.  In discussion with him, I told him that I knew his grandfather who had won an award as a JOS bus driver.  The boy, about 15 years old, looked at me and asked in a tone of disbelief, "A bus driver, Sir?"

The boy's father had clearly not told him that his grandfather had been a bus driver, which I suspect was for reasons of shame, although I would not say that to the boy.  I "polished it off" by telling him the teachings of our church on the dignity of labour.

I will not stand in judgement of this top-level accountant who has not revealed his humble beginnings as the son of a bus driver to his children.  How much ridicule - if any - did he endure from upper-class students at the prominent high school he attended?  I do not know, although I am aware that no one enjoys being ridiculed.

But how can the young people appreciate the struggles of the last 50 years of Independence, let alone the struggles before emancipation if we do not get over the shame that is totally unwarranted?  The only thing that anyone should be ashamed of is sin.

ekrubm765@yahoo.com

August 02, 2012

Jamaica Observer

Jamaica finally becoming a republic would represent a coming of age for the country

Jamaica a republic: Time has indeed come

By Diane Abbott

THE announcement by Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller that she wants to move forward to having a Jamaican head of state is very appropriate in the 50th year of Jamaican Independence.

It is important to stress that it will in no way threaten the strong political, economic, cultural and social links between Britain and Jamaica.

The first thing to bear in mind is that it will not mean Jamaica leaving the Commonwealth.  There are a number of republics that remain happily in the Commonwealth.  Notable amongst them are India, Dominica, Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago.  The fact that they are republics has in no way weakened their ties with Britain.  Most of the practical benefits to Jamaica from the British link come from membership of the Commonwealth.  This can continue.

The ties between Britain and its former colonies have remained largely because most of the first generation of Commonwealth leaders studied in Britain.  But this was a more important psychological link than whether or not the Queen was the head of state of those countries.
However, over the years, the ties have weakened mostly because of the inexorable tide of North American popular culture and the rise of alternate economic powers, notably China.

Of course, there remains a huge sentimental regard for the Queen amongst ordinary Jamaicans.  My own mother was typical in this regard.  Portia wisely reflected this when she made a point of saying how much she personally loved the Queen.

This affection for the Queen has some historical basis.  Jamaican slaves regularly appealed over the heads of their own planter class to the British monarchy for justice.  They saw the monarchy as their protectors against the harshest aspects of chattel slavery.

I became a member of the British Parliament in 1987.  My mother was obviously thrilled.  But I have no doubt that the highlight of that year for her was the opportunity to attend the State Opening of Parliament and see the Queen in person wearing her ceremonial robes and glittering crown.

Some Jamaicans might worry that the British will feel that it is a snub if Jamaica chooses to become a republic.  In fact, I suspect that if most British people were asked they would assume that Jamaica is already a republic.  Scotland is reaching the climax of a long campaign for its own independence.  If a country that forms part of the British Isles can contemplate becoming a republic, why not Jamaica?

Jamaica finally becoming a republic would represent a coming of age for the country.  Ideally it should be done on an all-party basis.  Admirers of Jamaica all over the world will wish Prime Minister Simpson Miller well in steering the Jamaican ship of state into the safe harbour of republic status.  The time has come.

Diane Abbott is the British Labour party's shadow public health minister

www.dianeabbott.org.uk

January 22, 2012

jamaicaobserver

Which political party is best for Jamaica... PNP or JLP?

Which party is best for Jamaica?

By Franklin JOHNSTON

The PNP is the natural party of the Jamaican people.  The first and only party to adumbrate a mantra for the disadvantaged and social institutions to give it effect.  This was attractive to the grandchildren of slaves who prized their freedoms.  Norman Manley was driven.  A soldier, athlete, Rhodes scholar, he knew political dogma - the strait-jacket of communism and capitalism.  He chose the middle ground which social democratic parties in Germany, UK, Italy, Greece, Scandinavian nations used to build world-class industry and great welfare systems.  Bustamante was not of this ilk.  He went to primary school, was a rolling stone - Cuba, Panama, America - policeman, hospital orderly, investor; changed his name on a whim and returned home in his 50s with some money.  He was an activist; joined a union, founded his own and used his talent to help workers with success.  He founded the JLP on "sibling rivalry" - a contest with his "educated cousin".  The JLP still reacts to the PNP.  We say to kids, "See Mr Manley, his life, study, law career, service in politics... copy him!" You can't tell kids to copy Bustamante's life!  The JLP's capitalist mantra lies between his "we are with the West" and Seaga's "haves and have-nots".  The JLP is mainly a spiritual vacuum, but the ascendancy of Adventist ethic in leadership in the last four years may change this.  The benign union of church and state and the clique of Adventist fundamentalist right-wingers in Cabinet is ominous. More anon!

The PNP is also the omni-directional creative, cultural and sporting home of the nation.  The vision of Norman Manley - world-class sportsman, lawyer, art connoisseur and bon vivant - is breathtaking.  An inspiration to Jamaicans here and abroad.  Bustamante's life was rambling and we have anecdotes often which he supplied, not facts. But the drama of what we know is compelling.  He loved his cousin, shared successes.  Manley outfoxed the British.  They trusted, respected him; he fought with them in war, studied with them at Oxford, held forth in their courts, they knew his commitment and performance and he knew them!

The PNP is the spiritual home of the nation.  Drumblair was the hub of artistic expression; the energy of our creative class.  Liberal jargon as freedom, economic independence, decolonisation, equality, class struggle, environment, self-reliance, Nkrumah, Lumumba, Africa are the legacy of PNP semanticists.  The UWI was said to be PNP just by being a place of intellect.  The spirit of craft, cottage industry, domestic work; gender equality, child equality, shade equality were nurtured by conscious people, many not PNP but classed as such.  The JLP went the other way. Bustamante was educated, but he used a folksy illiteracy which attracted poor people yet they retreated as it devalued education.  Some recidivism is still evident at meetings where there is a striving of educated JLP people to appear less so and diss education to curry favour with poor people - a paradox of politics! The PNP also got "street cred"; many "buttos" had free rein and principles suffered. Mr Seaga nurtured Kapo but the JLP never bought into his artistic genius.  The JLP as a capitalist party has never been of artistic or spiritual trenchancy.

The PNP is the spiritual home of the media.  Its leaders marched and demonstrated when media workers were disadvantaged and fired; meanwhile the JLP were banning speakers, books, writings and UWI lecturers.  I smuggled books, was interminably searched by customs and had my books confiscated.  Every journalist over 50 - not media owners - is a virtual PNP sleeper because of its track record on their behalf.  Early PNP leaders sacrificed; politics was not their best job; their families suffered.  After the PM's job they did public service - spoke globally and served the Commonwealth.  They lived in their pre-politics houses and died with less than when they started politics.  Their children's legacy was a good education, not money or a business.  Ex-JLP top brass expressed their capitalism in finance; new houses, business to capitalise on their years in politics.  No global speakers emerged.  People rightly worry about JLP corruption as they expect it, but they wrongly ignore PNP corruption because they think them high-minded - both are wrong.  If the PNP mantra also resonated with other ethnic groups, they came on contract, indenture, fleeing persecution and it was PNP social openness, not JLP restrictive capitalism, that attracted them. So where is this going?

The big question

Why is the PNP not more successful at the polls?  Given this love affair, how come they won only eight elections to the JLP's seven since 1944?  What are we missing?  What is the PNP doing wrong or the JLP doing right?

The answer?

The JLP is filler when people want to punish the PNP and sometimes it delivers the goods!  First, despite his work, Norman did not lead us to Independence.  Was the referendum principle or naivety?  No matter; he did not get the nod.  Second, Michael's self-reliance which makes Cuba the region's innovator in health industries, education and housing, even with two hands tied by a USA blockade, did not get the nod.  Third, Finsac is a metaphor for woes.  The USA used debt resolution with dozens of failed banks and building societies.  Here, true to its mantra, the PNP rescued hundreds of thousands of small savers.  The few thousand investors and bankers had to face the nightmare of all entrepreneurs who use poor people's savings to build themselves - grief!  Finally, the PNP has not explained how in 18 years of unbroken power when the world was prospering we could not even catch up with Barbados.  So has the PNP squandered our generosity?  Is the JLP stability just the usual calm after an IMF loan boosts our cash flows?  More to come. Stay conscious, my friend!

Coat of arms or jacket?

Last week arriving passengers were told by NMIA Immigration their completed forms were illegal.  The reason?  The coat of arms was wrong?  The crab louse was upside down or such?  Who printed them?  It did seem more jacket than coat!  The explanations were confusing. Tired tourists and locals were not amused.

Dr Franklin Johnston is an international project manager with Teape-Johnston Consultants currently on assignment in the UK.

franklinjohnstontoo@gmail.com

jamaicaobserver

Extradited Jamaican has case dismissed

Mark Beckford, Staff Reporter:


Another Jamaican has had his court case dismissed by a United States judge because of lack of evidence, after being extradited to that country on charges of trafficking of cocaine and money laundering.

Adrian Armstrong's case was dismissed on September 23 after being extradited to the US in 2006.   This was after spending two years in custody in Jamaica.

Armstrong's ordeal began when he was arrested on July 11, 2004 on a narcotics charge.

On July 13, 2006, he decided to discontinue his fight against the charges in the US after reportedly "losing faith" in the local justice system.

Armstrong's charges were based on evidence offered by a co-operating witness known as Duffis Alexander, who presented himself as a witness.

The witness purported to have taped and recorded telephone conversations between himself and Armstrong regarding cocaine trafficking and money laundering.   Neither the tape nor a transcript of the tape was supplied with the extradition request.

Applications to the resident magistrate and to the Supreme Court, as well as requests to the requesting state's representative for the tape, were unsuccessful.

In the US, these tapes were presented in court and subsequently examined by an expert on behalf of Armstrong, and two experts, on behalf of the government.

Examination of these tapes revealed there were several discrepancies.

These included stop-start features on the recording, a possibility that there was over-recording, anomalies which question its moral integrity and the possibility of tampering.

Evidence

Based on evidence, on December 30, 2008, the US judge ordered the suppression of the tape, but denied the motion to dismiss on the basis of outrageous government conduct.

The prosecution then offered Armstrong a plea to a lesser offence, which he refused.

Armstrong's lawyer persisted with the motion to dismiss, which was finally granted on the government's application on September 23.

Armstrong has not yet returned to the island, his lawyer Jacqueline Samuels-Brown told The Gleaner.

She said she was in contact with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as her client had no passport for travel.   She said he was in the process of gathering these documents to return home.

Picking up the pieces will not be so easy, Samuels-Brown said, as Armstrong has reportedly expressed disappointment at how he was treated.

"The way I would characterise him is that he is a patient person, a fighter, and his spirits remain strong.   He has reiterated his love and commitment to his country, but he is disappointed that his country did not afford him the facilities and the protection of the law," said Samuels-Brown.

December 16, 2009

mark.beckford@gleanerjm.com

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