DIASPORA WHAT IS IT REALLY?

The Jamaica dias­po­ra is a term we hear bandied about a lot, a quick Yahoo search revealed this about the word [Diaspora] .The term: dias­po­ra is used to refer to any peo­ple or eth­nic pop­u­la­tion forced or induced to leave their tra­di­tion­al eth­nic homelands.

As a Jamaican liv­ing abroad who was­n’t forced to leave my home­land I guess I am not tru­ly a mem­ber of the Jamaican dias­po­ra! Well enough of that, let’s not split hairs. The so-called Jamaican dias­po­ra, what­ev­er that is, has cur­rent­ly been meet­ing in Montego Bay between June 16 – 19 , 2013.

The Biennial Jamaica — Diaspora Conference, con­vened by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, is the glob­al forum that con­nects Jamaicans from all over the world with Jamaicans in the home coun­try every two years. The event seeks to strength­en exist­ing link­ages and net­works, and to build alliances for Jamaica’s devel­op­ment and stand­ing in the world.This year’s re-brand­ed and total­ly revamped glob­al forum, places spe­cial focus on Trade and Investment. It will seek to build on the lega­cy of JA 50 by explor­ing spe­cif­ic oppor­tu­ni­ties for the Diaspora, to expand their busi­ness inter­est in Jamaica through increased trade and invest­ment. Participants will also engage in dis­cus­sions about ways to expand the Diaspora’s con­tri­bu­tion to Health and Education in Jamaica, both as indi­vid­u­als and orga­nized groups. Conference 2013 holds spe­cial sig­nif­i­cance as it takes place with­in the cel­e­bra­to­ry peri­od of Jamaica’s 50^th Anniversary of Political Independence. This 5^th Biennial Conference has been re-cal­i­brat­ed to focus on Business, Trade and Investment, Philanthropy, Social Investment and Diaspora Diplomacy; and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will unveil a new Diaspora Policy.http://​www​.jamaican​di​as​po​ra​.gov​.jm/​i​n​d​e​x​.​p​h​p​?​o​p​t​i​o​n​=​c​o​m​_​c​o​n​t​e​n​t​&​v​i​e​w​=​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​&​i​d​=​1​0​9​&​I​t​e​m​i​d​=​554

I am a lit­tle mys­ti­fied, maybe some of you my read­ers can apprise me of who makes up this group or any oth­er dias­po­ra group, where are the mem­bers recruit­ed, who does the recruit­ing, where do they meet , what are the require­ments for mem­ber­ship beyond being a Jamaican liv­ing abroad ? Has any­one ever asked any of you to be a part of their dias­po­ra group? No..? Well me nei­ther, so I went ahead and took the lib­er­ty to pro­vide a link for you to judge for your­selves. I would be hon­ored to hear what you think about this dias­po­ra thing because it seem to me it’s just a name giv­en to the monied friends of the pow­er bro­kers in Jamaica. I don’t know for sure so I will await your views on this. Jamaica’s Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller in address­ing the con­fer­ence said that there can be no improve­ment in the for­tunes of the coun­try unless there is actu­al­ly active par­tic­i­pa­tion of the Jamaican diaspora.(my words)! Now do you see why I vis­it­ed the ques­tion of what dias­po­ra means and who is a part of it in their con­text? If what I saw is rep­re­sen­ta­tive of what they call dias­po­ra, many of you and cer­tain­ly me are not a part of it. Contextually it seem this is just a smoke-screen that is designed to fool Jamaicans liv­ing abroad into believ­ing that we mat­ter. It appears that it’s just a group of peo­ple from upper Saint Andrew, friends of the pow­er-bro­kers, who seek to speak for you and I with­out our say-so.

Having gone through the info on their web­site I believe that the Administration has not even begun to under­stand the vast untapped resource, that is Jamaican liv­ing abroad.

They nev­er will, like many Jamaicans at home and abroad the government(party neu­tral) are still stuck in the caste sys­tem which has defined Jamaica through­out it’s his­to­ry. The true worth of our coun­try are the aver­age man on the streets, not the well to do bourgeoisie.