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Diasporan concerns: realities and myths

GeneralDiasporan concerns: realities and myths

In its 25th July, 2014 issue, the AMANDALA newspaper published a commentary by Major Lloyd Jones in which he made a case against Belizeans with dual nationalities running for electoral office. Jones’s argument was premised on two assumptions. The first being that there would be a conflict of interest; and, the second, that such people would abscond from Belize should life become dire.

The examples he provided for absconding were a Guatemalan invasion, a natural disaster and economic hardship. In his commentary, Jones singled out the Belizean Diaspora in the U.S., describing it as “disorganised… carry no political weight in the U.S. and collectively … have done nothing for Belize as a nation state…”

He also accused it of Americanising Belize and berated it for being indifferent to the numerous challenges facing the nation.

It is pertinent to understand that the Belizean Diaspora exists not only in the U.S., but in Canada, Britain, the Caribbean and in some African countries. Another fact, is that this Diaspora is neither monolithic or large, nor particularly wealthy. Belize has always been a sparsely populated nation relative to its Latin American and Caribbean neighbors, who have been regional and global immigrants for a longer period and in much greater numbers than Belizeans.

In fact, Belize, more than any of these nations, has served as a destination point and host to emigres from ALL OVER. And, that is why it is today a nation of immigrants, with its “original owners” swamped, and fast relegated to the current condition America’s and Australia’s indigenous people now experience – drug and alcohol dependency, illiteracy, crime, unemployment, poverty, hopelessness and possible extinction.

Regarding the debatable matter of absconding, there is need to highlight the example of Peru’s President Alberto Fujimori, who governed Peru from July 1990 to November 2000. Fujimori, the son of poor Japanese immigrants from Kumamoto in Southern Japan, was born in Peru in 1938. In other words, Fujimori was like the thousands of children born to immigrants in Belize, who are automatically and generously awarded Belizean citizenship and are eligible to participate in politics at all levels. When the wave of scandals involving bribery, money laundering, arms trafficking and human rights abuses began to engulf him and his administration, Fujimori fled to Japan.

And, it was from there that this son of Japanese immigrants to Peru faxed his resignation as President. Nonetheless, the Peruvian Congress rejected the resignation, and instead sacked the autocratic Fujimori as “morally unfit” to govern. While exiled in Japan, this absconder visited Chile, where Peru successfully sought his arrest and extradition to stand trial in that country.

In respect of a Guatemalan invasion and Belizeans with dual nationalities abandoning ship – what is Belize seeing today, if not a Guatemalan “invasion”? So, encroaching on Belizean land, building and occupying illegal settlements, harvesting Belizean wood and various natural assets, extending and changing the borders, and aggressively fishing in Belizean waters do not amount to an invasion, then one must suppose that Major Jones is merely awaiting further invasion by air. As at today, the International Court of Justice at the Hague route, to settle this matter once and for all, seems to have failed. And, the new road map for talks is wishfully part of “confidence building measures” between both countries.

However, there are three things in life that are of the highest value – Friendship, Sincerity and Peace. Belize would be deliberately delusional to assume it could enjoy friendship with Guatemala, when Guatemala is patently insincere.

Without sincerity, Belize cannot know peace. One need not interrogate here the history of demands, detours, road-blocks and revisionisms strewing the path of interaction with this nation of 15 million people, as against Belize’s 332,000. Our politicians need to be reminded that the philosophy and realisation of Lebenstraum in Belize is an irrevocable historical, economic and political Guatemalan goal. Guatemala needs the living space Belize now occupies with its low population density of just 14 people per square kilometre, in order to survive.

This can only be achieved through infiltration, occupation and eventual conquest, as “we talk” and engage in “confidence building measures”. Is this not reminiscent of Israeli policy to periodically negotiate for peace with the Palestinians, even as it continues to build Jewish settlements on Palestinian land?

Initially, I had some sympathy for the present administration as the problems in respect of Guatemala, migration, refugee-ism, illegal residency, citizenship, and the more predatory aspects of capitalism, were all inherited. But this government, instead of creatively challenging the status quo ante, has reinforced and extended its narrative. A couple cases in point are the Penner Problem, and the Qualified Retired Persons (QPR) incentive programme, in which expatriates in the QRP openly exploit its loopholes, and are the majority of those engaged in the real estate business in Belize, selling real estate to their compatriots and making astoundingly huge profits.

There is also the shameless marginalization of Mayan and Garifuna communities, in which this government is complicit, as foreign timber and oil companies encroach and exploit their ancestral lands. As I read with enraged disbelief the various court judgments, in which the law was literally made to stand on its head, my only reaction was: “Good God, deliver us!”

Without doubt, the problems facing Belize are myriad. But none includes that of “born Belizeans” or even “descent Belizeans” with dual nationalities wanting to participate in electoral politics. That is a red herring! Check out the Dominican Republic and the Gulf States. Not only do such citizens have the vote, but are voted for.

Indeed, a more pressing problem facing Belize is the mindless and dangerously naive laws it has concerning: “who becomes a Belizean resident and citizen”? Those among us who think things are “normal” and it is fantastic that Belize at Number Six is one of the TOP TEN DUAL CITIZENSHIP COUNTRIES IN THE WORLD, are like the man who on going out into the rain and not getting wet, thinks it is not raining.

All small states which are surrounded by quarrelsome and greedy neighbors, wisely protect their citizens and viability by placing the national security of the nation as Number One on the front burner. They prevent questionable immigration, and the granting of residency, naturalization and citizenship to all comers, to avoid being outnumbered and submerged. One example is the State of Israel. Those with small populations, like the Gulf State of Qatar, and regarded as attractive destinations by foreign migrant labor or refugees, warmly welcome every one of their Diasporan citizens back home, and adopt positive policies to ensure they remain. These states make a clear distinction between nationals and foreigners. Membership is severely limited, and there is little or no access to citizenship. Instead, the national goal is to build a virile national identity and common heritage .

Qatar, a small but efficient country, has an indigenous population of approximately 250,000, with foreigners numbering a little under two million. Foreigners are given no citizenship rights, no matter how long they reside in Qatar, but are tolerated in order to assist Qatar’s rapid development into a modern state.

Foreign workers consist of Westerners and a few African professionals who are engineers, medical doctors, managers of banks, insurance companies, hotels, airlines, etc. Next on the hierarchy scale are those from other Arab countries working in education, nursing, etc.

At the bottom are unskilled workers from India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and the Philippines. The right to allow accompanying family members is limited to workers only in managerial and professional occupations.

Marriage to nationals, and being born in Qatar, as well as in most Gulf States, do not necessarily provide foreigners with citizenship or residency rights. In Belize, residency costs for Guatemalans and Mexicans are cheap and even lower than those for CARICOM and Commonwealth citizens. In fact, other Commonwealth citizens pay exactly the same fees as Americans. A foreigner marrying a Belizean merely obtains a marriage license for a paltry fee from the relevant authorities, and after one year of marriage is eligible for Belizean citizenship. Very few Gulf States welcome refugees, even if from neighboring Arab and Muslim countries. The most they do is to donate generously to the UNHCR and various international NGOs which assist refugees, especially those from Islamic countries.

In the case of Israel, which is a little smaller than Belize, but with a population of eight million, and, unlike Belize, truly recognizes its security interests and does not trifle with them, citizenship is based primarily on jus sanguinis (the law of the blood).

But while Israeli law, in theory, permits naturalisation, the number of procedures applicants are subjected to makes naturalisation in practice extremely rare. What is instructive is that citizens of “enemy states” are excluded from residency and citizenship. The same applies for Palestinians from the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza, even if this involves reunification of families. Palestinians marrying Israelis cannot be granted either residency or Israeli citizenship.

Being born in Israel to foreign parents does not confer citizenship. Military service is also compulsory for both men and women, and is between two or three years and from the age of 18. Notable exceptions are Israeli Arabs – and the reason is obvious.

The state has a system of reservists, and reservist battalions constitute 70 per cent of Israeli’s combat forces, with regular trained reservists capable of being mobilized within 72 hours. All these help to protect the nation’s security. Then there are states like Australia which, even though it has no “enemy states”, have citizenship conditions that include being required to defend Australia should the need arise, or go to jail.

When immigration is uncontrolled and its effects are not properly thought out, it endangers and changes the political calculations of the host nation. Immigrants can and do establish their own political parties, and this is best exploited in a political system that has proportional representation. Immigrants, in sufficient numbers and possessing voting rights, can wield political influence, as was seen in the Netherlands and Germany respectively in their 2006 and 2008 municipal elections.

In the case of the Netherlands, both naturalized citizens and foreign residents in large numbers voted against the centre-right government’s anti-immigration policies, thus enabling the opposition Social Democratic Party (SDP) to win. In Germany, the Christian Democratic Party won by the slimmest majority because Turkish immigrants voted in large numbers against it.

Some foreign governments continue to influence their citizens who emigrate, as did King Hassan of Morocco , who in 1986 told Moroccans in the Netherlands to abstain from voting in municipal elections. This resulted in a low turn-out of Moroccan voters. Later, Hassan reversed his position, and advised Moroccan immigrants throughout Europe to use their votes “to change things”.

The People’s Republic of China, in its desire to increase the loyalty of overseas Chinese to Beijing, at one time instituted an Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission, and beamed daily broadcasts which ASEAN governments with Chinese communities regarded as dangerously subversive. Throughout South-East Asia, Chinese immigrant minorities have played a disproportionate role in the economies of their host states, thus eliciting suspicion and animosity from the indigenous people.

Vices such as gambling, said to be an addiction Chinese migrants carry everywhere they settle, have been hard to eradicate in these ASEAN countries, with the possible exception of Singapore (a nation of Chinese, Malays and Indians) which, under Lee Kuan Yew, managed to suppress, but not eradicate gambling, and succeeded mainly in eliminating the triads or secret societies and organised crime.

The US is host to many Diasporas, as such a large and long-established nation can afford to cultivate an Open Door policy. However, the Belizean Diaspora in America is relatively tiny in comparison to the Jewish, Irish, Italian, Polish, Chinese, Korean, Indian, Latino, West Indian, Nigerian, Ghanaian and Ethiopian Diasporas.

Take, for instance, the Jewish Diaspora. This group possesses a powerful lobby which is a diverse coalition of individuals and groups, both secular and religious, Jewish and non-Jewish, who influence and control America’s foreign policy in support of Israel. To this end, there are influential organisations, like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which influence U.S. public policy and opinion through education and on various university campuses, the media (seven Jewish-Americans control most of the U.S media), think tanks, political parties and American law-makers via campaign donations, voting power and Congress. Ably assisting the AIPAC is the Conference of Presidents of Major American-Jewish organisations, which is the arrowhead between the Jewish community and the executive branch of the American government.

Then there are various American evangelical groups, such as the one headed by Republican Tea Party advocate and preacher, John Hagee, whose organisation, Christians United for Israel, and that of Jewish Voice Ministries controlled by Jonathan Bernis, beam their pro-Israel broadcasts all over the world. Again, it is imperative to recognise that the Jewish lobby, the envy of most Diasporan groups in the U.S., did not originate with the birth of the State of Israel in 1948. As far back as 1844, the American evangelical movement vigorously spearheaded the right of the return of the Jewish people to Israel, elevating ALL JEWS to being “a link of communication between humanity and God”.

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It is therefore unfair and not particularly useful to denigrate Diasporan Belizeans in the U.S., many of whom survived by hustling two, three jobs, barely paying their way through school in order to meet the challenges inherent in the most capitalist and competitive society on earth.

True, some of them fell beneath the radar and became criminals and parasites. Others did not achieve much for various reasons, including their inability or reluctance to recognise, appreciate and exploit opportunities. Still, there are many who continue to maintain close ties to Belize and are at times better informed than those at home about the true situation there. They create microcosms of home, continue to speak Kriol and Garifuna, enjoy Belizean cuisine, music, and culture, and admirably sustain the families they left behind.

Remittances from the Diaspora, wherever it exists, are not just important to Belize’s GNP, but are a veritable buoy to the economy and society. Simply imagine the social, political and economic chaos that would result if the Diaspora stopped sending money and the barrels of items which feed, clothe and house Belizeans at home, and thus help to minimise hunger, crime, prostitution and insanity to manageable levels.

At least the situation at home is not as critical as in Guatemala, Honduras (the murder capital of the world) and El Salvador, where 57,000 unaccompanied children from these nations, some younger than six, since last October crossed America’s southern borders, without parents or papers. This unparalleled phenomenon forced Barack Obama to recently hold an emergency meeting at the White House with the presidents of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

Some in the Diaspora dedicate their lives to eventually returning to Belize. They, therefore, send money home to build the houses in which they will live, collecting everything from furniture to the vehicles they will need. Yet a number of them find on their return to Belize that it is difficult to adjust to the corruption, nepotism, crime, mismanagement and inefficiency, the cumbersome bureaucracy, and the petty nitpicking.

Instead of being utilised for their skills, they are at times regarded with hostility, suspicion and as objects to be exploited and eventually marginalised. Thus, disillusioned, they leave; or flit to and fro between home and “over there”.

A growing number of African countries, recognising that their Diasporas are a tremendous developmental resource into which they can tap, have established Diaspora committees within their legislatures. These confront issues specific to Diasporan communities, and assist the work of their embassies and consulates. They also establish campaigns to maintain cordial relations with their citizens abroad, even as they implement useful and creative ways to harness the professional, intellectual, economic and political contributions of Diasporan citizens.

Blaming the Americanisation of Belize solely on its American Diaspora is indicative of a less than nodding acquaintance with our nation’s history, geography and sociology. The Americanisation of Belize has been a gradual process which began well before the advent of a Belizean Diaspora in the U.S. Historically, there were three competing narratives. First was the Belizean, largely informed by the culture of the then dominant ethnic group, the Creole, with its admixture of African survivals, West Indian influences and British-settler derivative conventions. The second was that of the British: the colonial power – and the third, American. The third, due to proximity, superior technology and wealth, Hollywood, cable TV, and language, etc., seems to have won. Still, we need to recognise the central roles education and religion played, as both Britain and America put these two to good use in order to proselytise Belizeans.

Belize’s Protestant mission schools had academic texts published by both British and Caribbean writers. They employed local teachers, some of whom had been trained at Jamaica’s Mico Teachers’ College. The Ministry of Education had among its key staff Jamaican educators – the Franksons, the Palmers and the Daleys. In the Methodist school I attended, we were well grounded in the History of Belize from Primary 1 to Primary 6. Apparently, this was not the case in the Roman Catholic mission schools.
Later at Wesley College (the oldest secondary school in the country), I was taught in the first year of its four-year programme, World History; in the second year, Commonwealth History; and in the third and fourth years, West Indian History which, surprisingly was presented from a Caribbean, not British, perspective. Latin and Spanish were compulsory and we had to memorise large, poetic swathes of the Bible – the Psalms, St. Paul’s better known homilies, as well as Shakespere.

In Sixth Form, we did European History (1492–1945), British History (1688–1945) and the History of the Reformation. In most respects, this was classic British public school education of the time.

I can still recall that in Primary 5, we were weaned by Mr. Roy Leslie on a diet of John Milton (the “On His Blindness” sonnet), some Wordsworth, Tennyson, excerpts from Dickens and Shakespeare. It was only when we entered the Sixth Form to write “A” Level exams, which was an innovative combination of students from Wesley College and the now rested St. Michael’s and St. Hilda’s Colleges, that we met the formidable and erudite figure of Sir Colville Young ( then Mr. Young) who, while teaching us “A” Level English, knocked all the nonsense from our heads about summer, autumn, winter and spring, when we came across poems like the Keats’ ode “To Autumn”. He made us know, in no uncertain terms, that what we have in Belize are dry season, rainy season, hurricane season, high water and top-gallon flood – period.

And then there were the “patriotic” Belizean songs – generally badly written poetry, but stirringly nationalistic. All school children in the Protestant schools were taught these and the Loyal and Patriotic Order of the Baymen (L&POB) – a Creole organisation – had annual essay competitions for children focusing on Belizean History which, in retrospect was markedly colonial. “Until hyenas have their own historians, the hare will always be the winner,” an African proverb warns.

Meanwhile, those who attended Catholic mission schools run by American nuns and Jesuit priests, who were mostly Irish-American, German-American and Italian-American (and generally regarded as anti-British), read books with stories about white, sanitised, American children and written in American English.

A cousin of mine who attended St. Catherine Academy introduced me to the Pulitzer Prize novelist, Harper Lee, Edgar Allan Poe and H. W. Longfellow. Her school productions were American musicals such as “West Side Story”. But for the Cambridge University Overseas School Certificate syllabus and its “A” Level counterpart, which were the litmus tests of pre-university education in pre-Independence Belize, it is possible most Catholic educated students would have had just a fleeting knowledge of the British version of things. It was only logical then for most of these students to gravitate to the U.S. rather than to U.W.I. or British universities to further their education.

Then there were those who, unable to go to Sixth Form, wrote the London University or Associated Board “A” Level exams, relying on Britain’s Wolsey Hall Oxford and Rapid Results College tutorial manuals to pass.

The role of the ubiquitous Peace Corps was key in building on Jesuit foundation. British V.S.O. recruits, on a similar mission as America’s education foot-soldiers, and who taught in the Protestant secondary schools, were too few in number to counteract American educational influences. And the British Council had waned. USAID also assisted Belize in providing technical and vocational education. Nor should the Michigan Partners programmes be overlooked.

Since 1981, the U.S., not Britain, has provided the bulk of Belize’s educational needs. However, the line in the sand was finally drawn in 1986, when under a UDP government the nation’s first university was shown the American route to begin life as part of the relatively unknown Ferris State College of Big Rapids, Michigan

Belize has always been vulnerable to cross-cultural influences from the U.S. Belizeans like Dr. Selwyn Walford Young, who composed the music of our National Anthem, lived in the U.S. for many years. Mr. Edward A. Laing, Sr., a prominent Belizean intellectual, honed his journalism skills in the U.S. before returning to set up one of Belize’s earliest daily newspapers, The Clarion.

The only Black African movements of note in Belize, Marcus Garvey’s UNIA, and Evan X Hyde’s revolutionary UBAD, originated from Belizeans who had been radicalised in America. Though in the case of Samuel Haynes, who wrote our National Anthem, he had seen action in World War I, and as a result had become pro-nationalist, anti-British and a Garveyite. He was further radicalised when he was recruited by Garvey to work for him in America. Not to be ignored were the Belizean returnees from Panama, who had helped to build the Panama Canal. These men had contact with American influences and brought them to Belize.

Trade and business links between the U.S. and Belize existed from the nineteenth century. Belizean captains of industry such as my maternal grandfather, Crispin Arthur Gibson, born in 1872, had thriving businesses which extended all the way to New Orleans, and he sent my mother to a New Orleans finishing school, not one in Britain. Gibson was himself the son of an Anglo-American, Francis Adolphus Gibson, who had a half-Miskito Indian, half-British wife, Susan Alexandra Ferrel (“Ma Sue”).

My grandfather was the first son of the couple’s 13 children, and this large family, with roots both in the U.S. and Belize, actually organises reunions, and successfully documented every branch of the family wherever it exists in the world.

Belizeans as far back as 90 years ago used American words in daily speech: like “sidewalk” instead of the British “pavement”; “apartment” instead of “flat”. The ground-floor of a building has always been known in Belize as its “first storey”, which is American; and Britain’s “Father Christmas” is the American (and Belizean) “Santa Claus”. The word “tomato” was always pronounced “to-may-to”, rather than the British “to-maw-to”. Belizeans who attempted to emulate British accents or intonation were routinely ridiculed and nicknamed “English-teeth-and-grammar tongue” or “Speaky spokey.”

Yet another crucial contributor to the Americanisation process are the American evangelical churches. This began with the arrival first of the Baptists, the Seventh Day Adventists, the Nazarenes , the Assemblies of God and a deluge followed thereafter. They, and the steady influx of Americans who have “settled” in Belize, even as they prospect and prosper, would also encourage Thanksgiving.

As for the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) lobby, its agenda is national, regional and international.

In all this, we have the wife of the nation’s Prime Minister, consistently referred to as “First Lady”, notwithstanding the parliamentary system of government which Belize uses and makes neither reference nor provision for that role.

It is also a given that international drug trafficking, gang warfare, the proliferation of guns/arms and organised crime transcend all borders. Belize has the misfortune to be sandwiched between both the largest drug-producing and drug-consuming, as well as drug-trafficking countries in the entire world.

So, what can we expect? Utopia! The CARICOM and Latino nations are experiencing similar problems. Our world is interconnected, not isolated.

The Belizean–American Diaspora should not be the scapegoat for the distortions and ills within Belize. Those politicians who practise nepotism, favouritism, sell our birthright, mismanage, lie and steal, even as they cynically undermine the Rule of Law by deliberately appointing inexperienced, inept and venal judges, all have conflicted interests. Yet, they do not have dual nationalities.

At the end of the day, all Belizeans, wherever they may be, need to feel confident that their government will not harm and cheat them; and no matter how unpopular its policies are, they are not of corruption, nepotism, immorality and indifference to the national interest.

Like the Gulf State of Qatar and Israeli, the examples cited here, Belize needs to build a truly national identity whose bedrock is a common and shared heritage. This can best be realised by returning to our traditional values, which are almost gone, and inculcating political best practices.

And, those best positioned to do so are Belizeans wherever they may be who are thoroughly conversant with our entire historical process, culture, social ethos, norms and goals – and who truly love and care for our little country.

Diasporan Belizeans, with or without dual nationalities, are a rich source to be harnessed in ALL spheres of our nation’s development, including voting and to be voted for. The nation which wilfully ignores or trivialises such people does so at its peril.

(NOTE: *This contributor lives in Lagos, Nigeria; and has only one passport – that of Belize.)

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