Because of the immense power of the US, every word from the mouth of its president has ramifications for people everywhere. In his inaugural address, new US president, Donald Trump said quite a lot. His main theme was “America first”, and he stated that to that end the country would flex its muscles. On the surface his announcement that he would “rename” the Gulf of Mexico, call it the Gulf of America, seems childish; but the deeper meaning is clear. If, in the face of the world, you can unilaterally change a name that has been accepted globally for over 200 years, you are powerful indeed.
One immediate concern is the new president’s declaration of a national emergency at the country’s southern border, to immediately halt illegal entry and “begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came.” Many in our region live in impoverished conditions, and because “America” is the land of opportunity, many decent, hardworking people take great risks to cross the Rio Grande and begin a new life there.
One of the countries in the crosshairs of President Trump’s statement, “we will not allow ourselves to be taken advantage of any longer”, is Panama, which Trump said had violated the spirit of the treaty through which they gained control of the Panama Canal in 1999. Trump has complained that the shipping rates at the canal are excessive. Panama earns around US$2 billion annually from business at the canal, but the profits generated there is of little consequence to the vast US economy; their main concern is the rival Chinese, the primary mover behind a challenge to the US dollar as the dominant currency of commerce. Mainland China has made massive investments on the African continent, and is spreading its wings in the US’s backyard, and the intent is to clip it.
In his address Trump said, “China is operating the Panama Canal and we didn’t give it to China; we gave it to Panama”, and, unnervingly, he said, “we’re taking it back.” An AP News report said the administrator of the canal explained that Chinese companies operating ports in the canal “were part of a Hong Kong consortium that won a bidding process in 1997”, and that U.S. and Taiwanese companies operate “ports along the canal as well.”
There is serious concern that for the duration of the Trump government, increasing the already considerable material wealth of their nation will take precedence over critical initiatives to arrest global warming. The Trump government has announced that the US is withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, an international treaty that addresses climate change. Alarmingly, the wealthy US, the main sponsor of the World Health Organization, has begun the process of withdrawing from the body which, since its founding in 1948, has led the fight against infectious diseases and diseases triggered by pests.
Trump and the Americans are right about their military power being hugely responsible for the stability in our region. It is a debt the rest of us in the Americas owe to the empire. But the Americans can’t ignore that our payments are up to date, and maybe we are being overcharged. Americans own vast acreages and prime real estate in countries south of the Rio Grande, and their people do business with, extract wealth from, all of the countries in the Americas that kowtow to, or have been browbeaten to wholesale accept, their economic system.
US President Joe Biden “pardons” Marcus Garvey
In one of his last acts before leaving office, US president Joe Biden gave Marcus Mosiah Garvey, the great hero of millions of people of African ancestry in the Americas, a posthumous pardon. The charge for a presidential pardon for Garvey from the country that condemned him was led by his descendants, the UWI, political leaders in Jamaica, and members/followers of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), the organization he founded. Those who sought the pardon, which came a little over a hundred years after Garvey was destroyed on trumped up charges, said it is more than symbolic.
No people on this planet have endured hardship similar to what the children of Africa experienced in the Americas. Ripped from their homes, transported four thousand miles across the Atlantic Ocean, for 300 years they and their offspring slaved to enrich the Europeans in the US and Europe. When the shackles were finally removed from their descendants’ ankles, they were ill-equipped, impoverished, lost in a world where they owned no land, no businesses, nothing. Slavery was all they had ever known, and for most of them their only prospect was as wage laborers in the very fields and forests where they worked while enslaved. That was their ceiling, until a prophet, a savior, Marcus Mosiah Garvey, was born in 1887, in Jamaica.
Philip Nicholas, Archives Technician at the National Archives at College Park, Maryland, said Garvey left Jamaica for Central America in 1910, in search of work; that between 1912 and 1914 he studied at Birkbeck College, University of London, to advance his formal education; and that his vision to unify people of African descent throughout the world was sparked by his reading Booker T. Washington’s book, Up from Slavery, and by an encounter with an Afro-Caribbean missionary who taught him about colonialism in Africa.
Garvey received great love and was greatly admired in the Jewel. The Amandala publisher described the UNIA as “the most powerful post-slavery black organization the world has ever seen.” Afro-Belizeans (British Hondurans until 1981) flocked to the organization, forming a local chapter. They circulated the UNIA’s newspaper, Negro World, even though it was banned here. Under the guidance of Garvey, they formed the Black Cross Nurses, a group of medical professionals who served less well-off citizens, and established Liberty Hall on Barrack Road in Belize City, a place where they held their meetings. The author of our National Anthem, Samuel Haynes, traveled to the US to help produce the Negro World, and the wealthiest Afro-Belizean, Isaiah Morter, contributed mightily to advance the cause.
“Free your minds, none but ourselves can free our minds”, Garvey said, and “Up, you mighty race, accomplish what you will!” he told our people. Garvey preached self-reliance. He established a number of commercial enterprises. He founded the Black Star Line, a shipping company to compete with the European fleets. Shoppe Black said that in 1920 he “established the Negro Factories Corporation and offered stock for African Americans to buy. He raised one million dollars for the project.” Shoppe Black said the corporation “generated income and provided jobs by its numerous enterprises, including a chain of grocery stores and restaurants, steam laundry, tailor shop, dressmaking shop, millinery store (clothing, fashion, hats, accessories, etc.), publishing house, and a doll factory.”
Don Rojas, a journalist, author, and press secretary to Maurice Bishop, in a presentation in 2017 on the 130th anniversary of Garvey’s birth, said: “Close to 100 years ago, Marcus Garvey argued the case for reparations for the crimes of slavery and colonialism when he said back in 1919…‘Hand back to us that which you have robbed and exploited us of in the name of God and Christianity for the last 500 years.’”
The Europeans did great wrong to people of African descent. Garvey was too successful and ambitious, and his enemies conspired and used their system to destroy him. It is right that they pardon him, and acknowledge their uncivilized behavior and try to make reparations.