Guyanese Diaspora?

The University of Guyana (UG) announced that it will host its inaugural “Diaspora Engagement Conference” from July 23-28, 2017, under the theme ‘Dreaming Diaspora Engagement, Doing Diaspora Engagement’.

More specifically, it claims the Conference would provide the platform to develop a diaspora engagement strategy that would inform the work of the first “Caribbean Diaspora Engagement Centre” which will be launched during the conference.

But in that statement, there are several ambiguities that need to be clarified. While the conference claims to be an “inaugural” one, it followed several engagements initiated by the new Vice Chancellor (VC) Ivelaw Griffith that also invoked the ‘diaspora’ theme. One of these was a “Renaissance Weekend” last September in New York City, to which the VC flew up with a large delegation of 13 from UG to represent the “UG Renaissance” in order to “friend and fund raise”.

It would appear the idea of a “diaspora engagement” was already in the air since in the UG Magazine “Renaissance”, following the inaugural one, it was reported: “One of the bold objectives of this Renaissance project was to facilitate tangible Diaspora Support Engagement in four critical academic areas: Technology (Architecture, Civil Engineering, and Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering), Health Sciences (Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Dentistry, Optometry, Medical Technology), Natural Sciences (Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics, Statistics), and Law.”

On the team’s return, the VC dubbed the trip to the diaspora a “success”, especially as it related to the above mentioned assistance and what it foreshadowed: “The Renaissance weekend in New York has set the stage for considerable financial, human capital and technical assistance to our university by providing structure to Guyanese and other nationals in the diaspora to support critical areas of need.” However, when the financial details were revealed, it turned out that while G$2,019,950 was secured through contributions from the diaspora, G$4,366,024 was spent on the expenses of the team. There were cries of protests from some staff, especially against the background of an increase in student fees and the presentation of UG’s largest budget ever – G$5.2 billion for financial year 2017, of which G$3.0 billion was earmarked for recurrent expenditure, versus G$2.2 billion for capital works.

The main reason for mentioning the previous expensive engagement to stimulate engagement with the diaspora is that the present “inaugural” Conference seems to have completely ignored the achievements mentioned above from the September 2016 engagement, since they relate to the core raison d’etre of UG. The attention of the VC appears to have expanded without consolidating the initial claimed gains: “the Conference will contribute to the development of diaspora policy and a framework to effectively attract direct diaspora investment and engage the diaspora in nation building.”

If the “success” of the first foray into “diaspora engagement” is anything to go by, one must be concerned about this expanded initiative with three components – an academic symposium, a business forum and community engagement.

This concern is heightened by the further ambiguity about exactly which “diaspora” the organisers have in mind, since the announcement speaks of establishing a “Caribbean Diaspora Engagement Centre”. The word “diaspora” means “to scatter about” and refers to people who leave their homeland and maintain some sort of identification with that homeland when they migrate, voluntarily or as in the paradigmatic Jewish instance, involuntarily to other lands.

The question that arises is whether UG and its VC are targeting the “Caribbean diaspora” or the “Guyanese diaspora”. If it is the former, is it the entire Caribbean diaspora as represented, say, by the nations of Caricom, or only the Anglophone Caribbean. And even if it is the latter, is it realistic to expect Jamaicans or Bajans to become part of a group intended to spur “engagement” in, for instance, the “community engagement” component of the Conference. This, the release claimed will, “focus on building relationships with key stakeholders, such as diaspora community leaders, governments and hometown associations.”

If we are not clear about our destination how will we ever get there?