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By Sir Ronald Saunders |
Tuesday, March 29, 2005: The politics of 'foreigners' have bedevilled many Caribbean countries in recent years. There was a time when it was politically advantageous for politicians and political parties to identify themselves with an 'anti-foreigner' stance. That time has passed. The 'foreigner' vote has become so important in many Caribbean countries that politicians who are anti-foreigner risk not winning election to office.
Indeed, the time has probably come in several Caribbean countries when political parties will have to include 'foreigners' in their slate of candidates if their political parties are to win general elections.
The reason for this is quite simple: the number of 'foreigners' who have migrated to Caribbean countries now constitute a significant number in numerous electoral districts or constituencies they can make a difference as to who is elected in the electoral district and which political party wins an overall majority in a general election.
The remarkable thing about the term 'foreigner' in the Caribbean is that it is usually directed at our fellow Caribbean people and not at the North Americans and European who have also migrated to the region.
Years ago in the US Virgin Islands, persons who migrated particularly from the nearby Leeward Islands and Dominica were disparagingly referred to as 'down-Islanders'. The refrain, "Me born ya", established the authority and special rights of the native US Virgin Islander and confined the migrant to his foreign and, by implication, lesser status.
Much of this had to change in the US Virgin Islands as the 'down-Islanders' persons from Antigua, St Kitts, Nevis, and Dominica in particular became more numerous. The vote gave them power, and politicians quickly recognised that they had to take account of them, pull them from the periphery of society, and champion their causes. Today, they arguably comprise the single most significant voting bloc.
Over time, 'down islanders' aspired to be represented by their own in the Senate, and now many of them are elected representatives. The present Governor is a descendant of a British Virgin Island family, and in the not too distant future, a Governor from one of the 'down-Islands' may yet be elected.
The same will happen in the Caribbean. Caribbean 'foreigners' will want to see some of their own in elected positions.
What is significant and this is a good lesson for the Caribbean is that these so-called down-islanders in the US Virgin Islands are no less passionate about the territory or loyal to it than the people who count their ancestry there for over a century. The point is that they have chosen to live, work and represent the US Virgin Islands it is the homeland they know and want, and they feel just as strongly about it as those families that have been there for generations.
Of course in the first generation of migrants there is always a pull to the place in which they were born and in which they still have relatives and friends. This is only natural, but it does not diminish the rights these migrants are entitled to, or the obligations they owe, in their new homeland.
Recently, in the politics of 'foreigners', the Prime Minister of Barbados, Owen Arthur, had to berate the opposition Democratic Labour Party (DLP) in Parliament for "beating up" on Guyanese nationals who have migrated to Barbados and who now form the backbone of the construction industry and the domestic services.
Barbadian construction workers had been complaining that Guyanese workers were willing to work for less pay and were taking jobs from locals. Sensing a political opportunity, some representatives of the DLP jumped on the anti-foreigner bandwagon and tried to enflame popular sentiment on the issue.
Mr Arthur pointed out that "movement of large numbers of people between the two countries, including migration of labour, was a matter of historical record". He also pointed out that "the early stages of the modernisation of the Barbados economy were driven in large measure by Guyanese capital and Guyanese entrepreneurship".
The Barbados Prime Minister concluded his remarks by saying, "This kind of xenophobia (fear of foreigners) should not become official policy of any party in this country". Mr Arthur's comments were not only correct, they probably won his ruling Barbados labour Party, the support of many of the sizeable Guyanese community that now live in Barbados.
Of course, the phenomenon of assailing 'Caribbean foreigners' is not unique to Barbados. It has occurred in Antigua, Trinidad, St Lucia and elsewhere in the region. It is ending only because politicians and their political parties recognise that the 'foreigners' are so numerous that pandering to anti-foreigner sentiment would ensure that they lost the increasingly important 'foreigner' vote.
In Britain, the Conservative Party had traditionally aligned itself with the anti-immigrant prejudices of the traditional British society. Today, they are still regarded as the Party most likely to stop new immigrants and refugees even though it is the Labour Party that introduced restrictions on Commonwealth immigration and, more recently, has enacted legislation on refugees.
But, Labour was clever enough to recruit 'foreigners' to its front line. Thus, from the Caribbean the later Bernie Grant and others such as Diane Abbot from the Caribbean were fielded as Labour Party candidates in general elections.
The Labour Party's alliance with the Trade Unions also helped it to secure the 'foreigner' vote. Caribbean immigrants readily joined British Trade Unions because of their knowledge of the role that trade unions played in their political advancement in the region. In turn, the Unions persuaded them to vote Labour.
Like Britain and the US Virgin Islands, the politics of 'foreigners' is now very much alive and kicking in the Caribbean.
During this year, thirteen of the fifteen countries that form the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARIOM) are committed to the establishment of a Single Market with a Single Economy to follow by 2008. Essential to the success of a Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME) will be the free movement of people throughout the area. For, there will undoubtedly be dislocation for several local companies faced with regional competition and unemployment will follow.
In order to adjust to the dislocation that will be the inevitable consequence in disadvantaged countries, and to disadvantaged regions and sectors of countries, there will be the need for labour to move to areas of employment and economic opportunity. This is how it works even in the relatively rich European Union. There can be no other way in the Caribbean.
Every Caribbean country has to get accustomed to other Caribbean people in their midst and see them not as 'foreigners' but as citizens, along with themselves, of the wider Caribbean area.
Caribbean politicians have recognised it at last. This is why it is no longer politically sensible for them to trumpet anti-foreigner sentiment, and instead to promote our shared Caribbean history and increasingly our common Caribbean destiny.
It is a good thing. After all where would Trinidad calypso be without the Mighty Sparrow born in Grenada as Gerald Francisco Slinger? And, did you know that the parents of our St Lucian Nobel Prize winner for Economics, Dr Arthur Lewis, came from Antigua? And that Sir John Compton, former Prime Minister of St Lucia, and now back as leader of his political party, was born in St Vincent and the Grenadines?
I could go on. Suffice to say that it is good for the Caribbean that the politics of foreigners is now more far-seeing and productive.
Sir Ronald Sanders, a former Caribbean diplomat, now corporate executive, publishes widely on small states in the global community (responses to: ronaldsanders29@hotmail.com).