One of the questions arising from the recent meeting of Caribbean heads of state and the Bush administration was whether there is a role for the Caribbean Diaspora, as a political force that can influence US government policy in support of CARICOM in its negotiations with Washington.

Many people believe that with the population of Caribbean people abroad exceeding that at home, they represent a resource that CARICOM should harness, in similar ways to other communities in the US; Israel, Ireland, Italy for example, all use their citizens to lobby on their behalf.

BBC Caribbean reporter, Tony Frazer, put the question to Luzette King, Diaspora Activist, who feels that the governments of CARICOM has no political will to engage with its citizens of the diaspora in this way. For example, despite the Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines’ 2001 manifesto declaration that his government would ‘encourage the involvement of the diaspora in every aspect of the country’s development’, nothing has happened as yet.

Ms. King feels that Caribbean leaders have been shortsighted and have taken for granted the valiant resource that is the Caribbean diaspora, being concerned mainly with the remittances they provide and nothing more. She spoke also of fragmentation among the people of the diaspora, claiming a ‘class’ and ‘bourgeoisie’ mentality among the Washington elite. However, Ms. King stressed, with at least one third of Caribbean people in the US being educated to Masters level, there is a lot of talent and expertise to be tapped and this is where CARICOM is being remiss.

Other commentators shared these views and additionally raised other serious concerns. As island people, we tend to be insular and somewhat clannish, preferring to sponsor or adopt a village or church in our own country. The challenge is how to overcome these tendencies and bring groups together under a ‘regional’ political focus to get resourceful people into leadership positions with the support of the splinter groups.

The ability and preparedness of CARICOM to motivate and organise the Diaspora in this way is also questioned. There is a lot of talk but little serious effort to put real mechanisms in place to engage the Diaspora in a meaningful, sustained, bipartisan way. Caribbean embassies have been found wanting; in some instances, they don’t even have a skills register and there is no meaningful interaction with nationals unless the PM is visiting or elections are on the horizon. The embassies need proper structure, a clear mandate and professional staff; some of the embassies are staffed with people with a high level of arrogance and expensive incompetence, and several are staffed with party hacks who put the party before the nation.

Some entities only want financial support from the diaspora yet resist getting them involved at policy or consultancy levels because of fear, jealousy or just a sense that those who left have done something ‘wrong’ and should not be able to influence how countries are being governed.

Do you think there is a viable political role for the Caribbean Diaspora? How can this be achieved? Email your views to editor@kittivisianlife.com.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 15th, 2007 at 7:26 pm and is filed under business & tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.