Robert Buddan, Contributor
IN TODAY'S globalised world, one can justifiably say that Jamaicans are a borderless people. The celebration of Jamaica's first Diaspora Day in June signifies the global movement that has helped to make Jamaica the best-known small country in the world. We must now build on this for development.
The Jamaican diaspora offers a profoundly different potential for development. We often associate globalisation with migration of economic capital and its colonisation of other countries. In Jamaica's case, it is the human capital that is our multinational source of wealth around the world as a result of human and labour migration.
We also associate small states with dependency, and dependency with underdevelopment. This was the theory that guided radical thinking in most of the developing countries in the 1960s and 1970s. In the present situation, Jamaica's human capital abroad represents a rich source of development of human and economic capital through interdependence between home and overseas.
We often associate the power of states with military might. Militarily weak states like Jamaica have to depend more on state diplomacy than on force. Now, Jamaicans overseas represent a new voice for transnational diplomacy, diplomacy not by state diplomats, but by nationals speaking with their own voice and through their own non-state organisations overseas. Examples are the recent voice of protest by the diaspora against United States' labelling of Jamaica as a human trafficker, and over immigration and deportee policies.
Furthermore, we think of globalisation as a one-way process, emanating from the developed to the developing countries. For migratory states like Jamaica, globalisation takes place in the opposite direction, a phenomenon that Louise Bennett recognised in poetry long ago as, 'colonisation in reverse'.
In these very important ways, the Jamaican diaspora represents a new way of looking at the possibilities of development through transnational communities or communities of people of the same national or ethnic origin who share an identity, and collaborate for development across borders.
GAIN OR DRAIN?
Although we have thought of migration as a 'brain drain' and therefore anti-developmental, even developed countries debate the migration of resources. Developed countries complain about 'outsourcing', where companies send business overseas. Jamaicans similarly complain of the outsourcing of teachers, nurses, and other professionals to developed countries.
Companies that outsource jobs from the developed countries say they repatriate profits and become more competitive. Migrants might say they remit earnings and that global remittances are a vital source of foreign capital flowing home to developing countries.
The best way to understand who gains and who loses is to see the benefits of migration over a period of cycles. In the first cycle, migrants were mainly in low-paying jobs and had infrequent contact with home societies. In a later and more mature cycle, migrants become sizeable communities with significant resources that can be moved more quickly from country to country.
It is estimated that the Jamaican diaspora is worth US$40 billion. If Jamaicans send home US$2 billion in remittances this year, that amount will be right up there with tourism and bauxite earnings. But this would still only be five per cent of what the diaspora is worth. We can double that amount in remittances and by mobilising the available people and capital for business. The combined wealth of Jamaicans at home and abroad, considered as one ethnic economy, actually ranks Jamaicans 53rd among the world's economies instead of 85 at present.
THE WEALTH OF A NATION
We are only just organising the potential of the diaspora and once the linkages are established, the brain gain will be much more evident. For instance, Keith Nurse, an academic who studies migration says that, "The region's contribution to the global arts and entertainment sector, particularly popular music, post-colonial literature, visual arts and carnival festivals, has been very significant for several decades."
He continues: "The Caribbean is not lacking in talent or product, yet the cultural industries are plagued by weaknesses in artistic professionalism, manufacturing quality, merchandise packaging, marketing and distribution and copyright protection."
According to Andre Gordon, president of the Jamaica Exporters' Association (JEA), exports have grown considerable in pharmaceuticals, chemicals, food, beverage, and coffee at rates of between 20 and 100 per cent. Dr. Gordon said there is potential to earn US$85 million (J$52.7 billion) from food and beverage exports within the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) alone. This is good news considering that the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) is on stream for 2006.
But a recent postgraduate study by Kameika Murphy in the Department of Government showed that Jamaicans (who attended the Diaspora Conference in 2004) agreed there was room for more Jamaican products to meet demand in the United Kingdom (UK), United States (US), and Canada. Kameika was able to determine the proportion of the weekly budget families spent on Jamaican products of different kinds in different overseas Jamaican communities, and her market research indicates potential for strong growth.
I am not sure if Jamaica Promotions Limited (JAMPRO) has a special division to communicate with Jamaicans overseas. Haiti considers the diaspora so important that it has a Ministry of Haitians Living Overseas. Jamaica does have ministerial, inter-
ministerial and non-governmental bodies with a new focus on the diaspora but we do need more national economic institutions and private sector organisations like the exporters' and the manufacturing associations to maintain direct links with like-minded diaspora organisations, if they have not already done so.
GATEWAY TO GLOBALISATION
The Jamaican people are the country's first globalisers. The territorial state and society are now catching up. The Jamaican state is now positioning the country as a gateway to the Americas. In his invitation to Chinese investors recently, Prime Minister P.J. Patterson summed up much of this strategy: a regional market of 14 million in the CSME in which Jamaica is a major mover; access to the major markets of North and South America; world-rated ports to become the Dubai of the Americas; the Caribbean's leading Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) centre; intention to become the business process outsourcing centre in the Western Hemisphere; to make Montego Bay an international business centre.
A recent set of measurements of globalisation regards small countries such as Ireland, Switzerland, and Singapore as among the most globalised in the world. The report did not include cultural exchange as a measure of globalisation although this has grown rapidly with the movement of people and ideas across borders, and the growing use of communication technologies.
Yet, this is precisely the area in which the diaspora has globalised Jamaica and this will be reinforced by the role of the state making Jamaica a gateway to the Americas. In fact, just as Mr. Patterson has invited the Chinese to develop China Town in Kingston, so too can other countries contribute to home diasporas in Jamaica - the Spanish, English, Africans, Indians, Europeans, Middle Eastern peoples, etc. - since, after all, Jamaica was formed as a diasporic nation in the first place. The potential for cultural investments from these many nations can remake the troubled past into a multi-national/multi-cultural model of globalisation that many others would envy.
Robert Buddan lectures in the Department of Government, UWI. Email: robert.buddan@uwimona.edu.jm or send comments to infocus@gleanerjm.com
