#BTColumn – Ceremony without substance

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author(s) do not represent the official position of Barbados TODAY.

by Lenrod Nzulu Baraka

The Caribbean in recent years has been experiencing a trickle of African heads of states paying official visits to a number of Caribbean nations including Jamaica, Trinidad, Cuba, Guyana, Barbados, and St Vincent.

The most recent African head of state to visit our region is His Excellency President Paul Kagame of Rwanda. Official visits between African and Caribbean heads of state are long overdue and should be encouraged.

Leaders from both sides of the Atlantic have waxed eloquently in their meetings about the need to build bridges to reconnect a Black family ruthlessly separated by the ghastly and inhumane trafficking in Black bodies and souls.

Reconnecting the Diaspora with the continent of Africa is perhaps the most urgently needed development among people
of African ancestry.

This urgency is fueled by the closing of ranks among people of European ancestry.

The ongoing Coronavirus pandemic and the war in Ukraine should serve as stark reminders to African and Caribbean leaders that recess is over and that they need to roll up their sleeves and get down to the hard work of creating a future for the Black collective.

Climate change, global financial instability, increase fuel cost and the disruptions in the supply chain will force most countries to go into a hoarding mode simply to survive.

In his press statement delivered on April 14 in Barbados, his Excellency President Paul Kagame complimented Barbados on the standard of living enjoyed by Barbadians.President Kagame stated that this was the trajectory he wished to emulate in Rwanda.

This simple statement by an African leader should serve as a reminder to Caribbean leaders that the Caribbean can set standards for Africa and the rest of the African Diaspora to mirror.

The historically minded would be aware that it was Caribbean intellectuals and activists who crafted the philosophy which coalesced into Pan-Africanism. Names like Henry Sylvester Williams, C.L.R. James, George Padmore, Edward Wilmont Blyden, Hubert Harrison, Marcus Garvey and J.A. Rogers may be forgotten today, but these men contributed significantly to the independence movement in Africa.

The Caribbean may have missed a golden opportunity and may be continuing to miss the same golden opportunity to set an example of regional unity that can serve as a road map for the continent of Africa.

Associations of sovereign independent states are doomed to failure from their inception. Implementation of agreements will always be a problem in such associations.

Both CARICOM and the African Union are failed institutions and should be accepted as such by the leadership and citizens of Africa and the Caribbean.

Africa and the Caribbean should be thinking of creating smaller regional federal political governing structures as precursors to a more inclusive federal structure. Individual Caribbean and African countries are too small or too weak to exert any real significant impact in the international arena.

The West Indies cricket team has proven time and time again that when we combine our resources we can beat the world.

In his report “A Time for Action” the eminent Sir Shridath Ramphal reminded us that we do it better when we do it together.

Pretty speeches, empty promises and free trips to Kigali, Nairobi, Accra, and other African capitals by Caribbean leaders may help boost their egos but do very little to build the kind of bridges needed to connect the people of Africa and the Caribbean.

Millions of us were packed like sardines in the bowels of ships and brought crying and screaming to the shores of the Caribbean.If air travel is proving to be too costly and difficult then maybe it is time to resurrect the vision of Marcus Garvey and his Black Star Liner.

Lastly, as Caribbean leaders dialog with their African counterparts, the issue of the passage of a Law of Return by the African Union must be broached.Africans in the Diaspora are the descendants of Africans who were sold or kidnapped in Africa and forcibly transported to the lands where we now reside.

The African Union must be commended for recognising Africans in the Diaspora as Africans living outside the continent
of Africa.

Representation must be made to the African Union to go one step further and offer a simple path to citizenship to any Africans in the Diaspora who desire to reconnect with a country in their ancestral homeland.

Lenrod Nzulu Baraka is the founder of Afro-Caribbean Spiritual Teaching Center.