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Jun 14, 2009 News
By Jean H. Charles
Three countries of the Caribbean: Guyana, Haiti and St Vincent and the Grenadines share a common social thread of desperation that binds them together. Their citizens are leaving en masse to find better pastures abroad and their governments are blaming everybody and their fathers for this but themselves. Yet the root cause of the mass migration lies in the lack of hospitality at home. It is in the nature of the human soul to seek to ameliorate one’s fate as soon as the setting seems hostile.
There has lately been constant chatting in the news concerning the new policy of the government of Barbados seeking to deport most of the illegal Guyanese and St Vincentians. The president of Guyana, Bharrat Jagdeo, and the prime minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph Gonsalves, have expressed their opposition to these deportations, not only in public, but also in private CARICOM meetings. They consider these actions by the government of Barbados as actions of another brother country flouting the policy of free flow of labour and service throughout the region.
In fact, this unwelcome mat in Barbados has been spread for years against the citizens of Haiti, not only in Barbados, but also in the northern part of the Caribbean, for example, the Dominican Republican and the Bahamas. Recent reports from advocates on the field in Turks and Caicos indicate some Haitians are hiding in the trees to avoid being picked up by the immigration officers bent on getting rid of the illegal immigrants.
They accuse the governments of Haiti, Guyana and St Vincent and the Grenadines of subjecting their citizens to the most gross of humiliating conditions at home and abroad. Those countries have the natural resources to be as prosperous as any other nations of the region. In the case of Guyana, I have been chastised by East Indian Guyanese of not minding my own business; in fact, that everything is alright in Guyana. The truth of the matter is that mass migration has now also reached their ranks. The deteriorating condition has infected the whole population whether black or Indian. I will maintain my position as long as these governments do not take steps – macro and micro policy — to make life more bearable for the average citizen.
The government of St Vincent and the Grenadines, according to a learned observer, Lavern George, is all promises and promises, new roads, new prison, new stadium yet in the end the country is heading towards a failed state status. The culprit, according to the prime minister, is the western countries who failed to deliver on reparations for genocide and slavery!
Haiti has been suffering a political, social and economic trauma that now lasted fifty years. I was only seven years old, (I am now 62) the last time, I saw a minimum of good governance in Haiti. Two generations of people have waited outside and dreamt inside the country for the overdue arrival of an era of hospitable governance that would attract them home from the Diaspora and as well, keep inside the country, the millions of Haitians eager to build up their own country as they do for others — including that of Barbados — outside.
Yet my position in pointing the finger at the president of Haiti, the president of Guyana and the prime minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines does not absolve the prime minister and the government of Barbados for their hostility against fellow Caribbean peoples. Indeed, Barbados has the reputation of a brand name jewel in the Caribbean, the small London that has attracted, as London did, people from all over the world. The truth is cities like Carthage, Rome, Phoenicia in ancient times as well as New York, London and Toronto in our time have flourished because of their liberal immigration policies. The mixture of cultural assets of people from several nations produces wealth and excitement for all.
The chasing of Guyanese and Vincentians from Barbados indicates, in my opinion, the beginning of the decline of the prosperity of the island of Barbados. Uganda did just that under Idi Amin. It took that country 50 years to recover from that ill-conceived policy of deporting its East Indian population. Facilitating the integration of immigrants is a sure path to economic dominance and sustainability. The nurses of the Queens hospitals of New York were mostly idle until the big influx of Mexicans in the metropolitan area. This injection of new blood is today, the harbinger in the US, of the prosperous America of tomorrow.
We are observing a decline of the population in the industrialized nations foreseen as occurring around 2050. The major powers will resort to snatching people from the less developed countries to fill their schools, hospitals, supermarkets, et al. Taiwan has already more universities that it has students for. North and South Dakota need new blood badly to energize their economies.
I am surprised that the Barbadian prime minister, David Thompson, would resort to such a short-term policy, which could only hurt Barbados in the long run.
A nation has a government that it deserves. Coming the year 2011, the people of Guyana, Haiti and St Vincent and the Grenadines will go to the ballot box, each to elect a new government. They have the choice to follow the age-old and failed policy of the more things change more they remain the same, or they can choose leaders who will be committed to creating the conditions where hospitality for all is the rule. Leaving home to seek a better life abroad will be a nightmare of the past.
In the meantime, Barbados, Barbados, Barbados! The paradise that stretches a very long way wonderfully, and with an historic smile as wide as being hospitable can be, still does not deserve to be known as being the social crutch on which lean the broken and desperate of the Caribbean. I am confident the people and the government of Barbados will revise their policy and, as the Lady Liberty, she will continue to welcome the Guyanese and the St Vincentians (for at least in the next three years) as their people take steps to elect the government they merit, one that will make hospitality for all the hallmark of their next opportunity for new governance.
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