‘Foreign mind’ (the opposite of an emancipated mind) manifests itself on multiple levels. Apart from showing up in balance of trade as import-addiction and export-lethargy, it shows up more generally as strong loyalty and inclination towards foreign products and policies and general contempt and disdain for one’s own.
The leadership landscape in the public and private sector, in religion and politics, is littered with ventriloquist dummies parroting perspectives, policies and plans imported from foreign centers of power, very few of which, when interrogated are aligned with internal interests.
As lofty as it may sound, perhaps Marley’s assertion that “none but ourselves can free our minds” is more platitudinous than pragmatic. Self-examination, (not to mention self-adjustment) after all, requires a self-consciousness of some fortitude which neither parrots nor dummies have or may acquire. Is Caribbean consciousness too compromised to recognize not only friend or foe, but itself? I’m listening to our best minds. Even the optimists among us do not dismiss outright the question.
Whether it catches on or not, I’ve been in the habit of celebrating July 4th as Caribbean day. I’m aware that in the eastern Caribbean it’s the first Monday in July for some territories. I celebrate the 4th because:
- it’s the anniversary of the Treaty of Chaguaramas which brought CARICOM into being
- it’s the birthday of Norman Manley, the chief visionary of Caribbean integration
- it’s a significant milestone of recompense for the Kalinago (Caribs) of Dominica from whom the Caribbean derives its name, (them coming into possession on that day of a significant portion of the island, 1/6th of the total landmass)
I observe the anniversary by focusing this year on the weakest link of CARICOM, understanding the principle of the chain. Having been alerted by the most prominent and credible voices in leadership (Mottley, Gonsalves, Patterson etc) not only of the possibility but the plausibility of a new colonialism should the tender chain break; rather than taking myself and my people for anybody’s fool, it seems more prudent to cry ‘Wolf!’ large and loud, seeking to awaken all who can be stirred.
It is sheer arrogance to look at Haiti and see an exception rather than a precedent for the rest of CARICOM. It takes just one failed state, just one Grenada (‘79), one Trinidad (‘90), one Jamaica or Guyana (take your pick of a number of years of close calls) to break the fragile wall of sovereignty still being built throughout the region. A good portion of the Caribbean still has not yet even emerged from colonial status.*
*Martinique, Guadeloupe, Saint Martin and St Barthelme are Departments of France. Anguilla, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Montserrat and Turks and Caicos Islands are Dependencies of Britain. Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao, St Marten, Saba and St Eustace are Dependencies of Holland. Puerto Rico and US Virgin Islands are territories of the United States.
The new and rising fascism exposes the democratic facade of imperial powers. Unchecked militarist expansionism is again on the horizon. The UN has no teeth for these tigers. Past requirements of subterfuge are yielding to shamelessly naked force. After the wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing slaughters his first lamb, he no longer needs a disguise.
Compare the Google narrative of the Aristide coup (‘04), which features the US, France and Venezuela as the heroes of the day and guardians of democracy, rescuing the poor beleaguered Haitian president from his out-of-control people, who unanimously voted for him by more than 50% points over the next rival just six months before; and the narrative of Mildred Aristide, wife of the then president, who takes a rather different approach when deciding friend and foe.
Money talks, but only through ventriloquy. Follow the money; you will find the true master and the true slave. The emancipated and the emaciated. She finds it more than merely coincidental that the coup against her husband was immediately preceded by his governmental demand for reparations and restitution; that one of the first presidential acts of Aristide’s replacement was to jump on a plane to apologize in person to the French government for such an ‘outrageous’ demand. So much things to say, but who the cap fits …
In the name and spirit of Norman Manley, I adjure all who handle the sacred cause of reparations – much more than 30 pieces of silver is at stake here. This is more than blood money. This money speaks more profanely than Cain ever could; has strings attached to snakes more pernicious than Judas’ handlers.
If you do not have the fortitude and constitution to search your heart and history’s pages to find your inner Dessalines, your Mackandal, your Fidel, your Bussa, Satuye, Nanny, Bogle, Quamina, your inner Nehanda; then step down rather than sell out in arrogance and ineptitude, or would you rather join through complicity the ignoble ranks of our ancestral enemies who have managed, through shrewd and sheer persistence in deceit and willful wickedness, to delay justice and prolong suffering now going 200 years?
Haiti has been and must be the epicenter of reparatory focus. If Haiti or any of the other 14 falls in these dark and dismal times, the rest are likely to follow. United we stand.
YeKengalé 
Does browbeating Leadership for a perceived lack of Caribbean consciousness serve any ultimate good… another form of nationalism being advocated and to what end? The scriptures teach that nationhood was instigated by God, as an antithesis to a one-world government of unregenerate men, so that people would seek Him and find Him within their national-cultural setting – Acts 17:26-33; Genesis 11:1-9; Romans 10:14.
The message of your article, summarized in your statement “Foreign mind’ (the opposite of an emancipated mind) manifests itself on multiple levels. Apart from showing up in balance of trade as import-addiction and export-lethargy, it shows up more generally as strong loyalty and inclination towards foreign products and policies and general contempt and disdain for one’s own.” sounds no different from the xenophobia of Trump’s MAGA movement…. a Caribbean echo with the idea regarding “balance of trade etc.” mimicking Trumps imposition of Tariffs as a fix. In their context, does the MAGA maniacs have an emancipated mind?
Against the background of Jamaica’s and the English speaking Caribbean territories’ rejection of Norman Manley’s vision of a Caribbean federation, encompassing political, social and economic unity, the Treaty of Chaguaramas that gave rise to CARICOM might be viewed as being essentially about pragmatic economics… in biblical terms, the quest for unrighteous mammon which the gentiles seek… in our case, as a puffed up economic entity, lite on unity.
Truth be told, the emancipated mind is one set on things above/transcendent, the things of the Spirit, of the Kingdom of God which Jesus spoke of to the learned Jewish Rabbi, Nicodemus… “I tell you the truth, no one can see the Kingdom of God unless he is born again” – John 3:3 NIV
This should not be viewed as pie in the sky when you die because “godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present and the life to come – 1 Timothy 4:8 NIV.
We are one blood with the common need for a bright future which God has promised in Christ alone.
Blessings
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Errol, you profoundly misunderstand the article if you interpret its meaning to be essentially about either foreign mindedness or brow-beating Caribbean leadership. Even more egregious, to make a comparison between Trumpian isolationism and Caribbean strategic survival, and to invoke scripture in the process is such a travesty that I sincerely hope this is an exercise at playing devil’s advocate to clarify and solidify my argument.
The most appropriate response I can muster, rather than to descend into the many fundamentally flawed statements you make, Is to steer you in the direction of the thesis statement of the piece which somehow you entirely missed: Haiti has been and must be the epicentre of reparatory focus. For the Caribbean and for the world. It has been most transgressed against, although those crimes have been concealed beneath many a diplomatic and theological cloak, that is the ungarnished truth. And those who stand for truth and for justice must respond appropriately or those with power to do harm with impunity will be empowered and released from any guardrails The consequences of such is already visible to those who properly interpret not only the times at present, but also the flow of human history.
If you meant all that you said however, I may need to take the time to ferret out each convoluted assumption that you make and we can agree on the appropriate private or public forum for this exercise. Stakes are too high.
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Pursuant to your response, I’ve reread your “Day of Remembrance” column and have adjusted my attitude somewhat, more favorably towards what I perceive to be your appeal for greater self appreciation in the Caribbean community… that’s noble and fine. However does the appeal require animosity towards the appreciation/embrace of things outside our community (“foreign mind… the opposite of an emancipated mind”?) when ironically a copy-cat celebration of July 4, is subliminally being advocated with reference to the Treaty of Chaguaramas, Norman Manley’s birthday and the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean?
Haiti, what an enigma? Foreign colonizers, the French, arguably bear the lion’s share of the blame for the state of affairs in that Caribbean nation but deliverance for them will necessarily require a significant foreign component… Moses, although born an Israelite, received foreign education of his mind in Egypt and of his spirit in the Wilderness before he was qualified to return as deliverer. Haiti is not a lost cause, from a biblical point of view but the fueling of resentment towards foreigners and the descendants of former colonizers in the agitations for reparation may be futile/sterile, in my view.
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Well, one re-reading seems to have done a modicum of good but in that you still think ‘fuelling resentment towards the descendants of former colonisers’ is anywhere alluded to in the piece, (and I have already responded to you on your grossly mistaken assumptions about subliminal suggestions of copycatting) I recommend that you read again for as many times as is necessary to get beyond the projections of your own mind and into proper comprehension. Notwithstanding all of the parabolic language employed, the piece was intended to be pretty direct and straightforward. That comprehension has been this difficult for you needs definitely to be explored.
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Admittedly Caribbean integration, solidarity, cooperation and self appreciation are noble ideals for citizens of the region and its diaspora, worthy of pursuit by its leaders because it is good and smart in a world where collective strength of smaller nations can ensure survival. However there are many of us who may be ambivalent, disillusioned, disinterested and indifferent for various reasons going as far back as the 1962 failure of the West Indies Federation which was being spearheaded by Norman Manley. Progress in CARICOM has also been seen to be very slow, big on meetings but small on becoming an actual movement over the fifty odd years since its inception.
Therefore castigating, browbeating and insulting the minds that are ‘not yet emancipated’ with perjoritive references to ventriloquist dummies and parrots doesn’t aid the persuasive component of your article and perhaps is what coloured my initial reading of the piece, knowing also that the CARICOM “weakest link”, Haiti, has antecedents that are not typical of the majority English-speaking Caribbean nations and blunts the way that its political misfortunes are being used to scare the region about a new threat of foreign imperial powers.
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Well, lo and behold, every re-reading apparently peels back layers of confusion giving more promise of the light of comprehension … both for you and I Errol, as I find it invaluable, as I read your responses, the insight it gives me into your triggers.
The ambivalence, disillusionment, disinterest and indifference you mention is exactly the state of mind I intend to disturb. I did say my intention was to cry ‘large and loud’. As much as we both may understand reasons for them, they are not conducive states of mind to meet the present hour and its prevailing circumstance. The enemy at the gates is US.
There is no polite way to gently awaken a sleeping watchman on the walls when troops are fast approaching. So although I appreciate that you may be beginning to stir from slumber, I recommend the following article to further assist you into somber alertness. We can talk about why afterwards.
Our longest serving and most experienced Heads of Government are not tranquillized by the mesmerizing historical narratives which apparently hold your imagination in a state of reverie. I will be referring you to their words next.
https://wp.me/p7GmiN-1d7
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