By Premier Mark Brantley
The Caribbean’s Opportunity for a Brain Gain
Recent news from our friend and neighbour, the United States of America, reinforces the new approach to immigration not just in the United States but across the developed world. Each morning we in the Caribbean wake to more “Breaking News”. Yesterday it was small States being forced to accept deportees from 3rd countries. Today it is that immigrant visa processing for some Caribbean States has been suspended by the US.
At each announcement, the people of the Caribbean howl in dismay and blame their leaders. Regional leadership wrings its hands with cries of “woe is me” and the usual statement is issued that we are engaging diplomatically to resolve issues. A certain level of hysteria is setting in almost as if Caribbean people think themselves Stateless and homeless.
The truth though is that for far too long developed countries around the world particularly the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and parts of Europe have benefitted from the migration to those countries of the best and brightest minds from the Caribbean and the rest of the developing world. This phenomenon referred to as the “brain drain” has contributed to the advancement of those countries whilst simultaneously depriving the Caribbean of the contribution that such persons could have made to our regional development.
So I here propose a different regional approach. Do not be dismayed by the new immigration policies of the United States and others. Every country has the right to set its own immigration policy. America is doing what it deems to be in the best interests of America. The Caribbean should embrace the opportunities that this new approach presents for our region. We should:
*Re-orient our thinking as a region and as a people and start to look for opportunities within the Caribbean, Latin America, our motherland Africa and the global South.
*Send out the call for those in our vast Diaspora to come back home to lend their talents to Caribbean development
*Let the message resonate from the shores of Miami to the mountains of New York that the Caribbean is calling its people to come home
*Make land available and develop a range of fiscal incentives to encourage our people to return home. In Nevis for example we offered returning university graduates land for EC$1 per square foot.
*Tell our people: when you’re coming bring your wealth with you; bring your ideas with you; bring your entrepreneurial spirit with you; bring your training with you; bring your education insights and innovation with you; sell your home in Brooklyn and buy a home in Bridgetown; sell your shares on the New York Stock Exchange and buy shares on the Eastern Caribbean Stock Exchange; transfer your bank accounts from Bank of New York to Bank of Nevis.
*Create greater opportunities for intra-regional migration, business establishment, investment and travel. Miami is fabulous but so too is Castries and Kingston.
Let this crisis become an opportunity to shift our generational brain drain into a brain gain. Let us not become unwanted guests in foreign lands. It’s time for our people to come home.
Hon Mark Brantley. Premier of Nevis, Leader of the Opposition St. Kitts and Nevis
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To the writter: Hon Mark Brantley. Premier of Nevis.
Your ideas are not bad but to achieve your goals the Caribbean countries need to do much more than you are suggesting.
Your previous writing like this article offers some good ideas.
It also contains some erroneous assumptions. One such example is your thoughts Ai.
A subject that is bantered about by Caribbean academics and politicians which tgry know very little about.
Ai do not reduce energy cost, in tge contrary it increase the energy to energy users across the board, but especially to consumers.
Ai has been directly responsible for driving up consumer energy costs in the US during a time when gasoline prices has been almost at record low.
You are doing what few others are doing. Putting your thoughts and ideas on the table as a leader and not just a political hack like many others are.
The Dyaspora will need to see changes not papered over changes.
The Corrosive Politics, the pervasive Corruption and a system based on nepotism and not merit; has to be replaced with rewarding individuals professional accomplishments, valuable skills and experience coupled with drive and determination.
Some Caribbean people who are not legally in the US might find this is the time to liquidate a return hone. For others and their offsprings it remains a place to visit.
Politicians and the academics the ones to make the Caribbean attractive to the Dyaspora not just Donald Trump’s and his followers philosophy and actions.
Politicians has historically let us down, and we reasonable expect more from them.
The Caribbean needs a revolution. A reset of its values. Its institutions are failures: CARICOM UWI WCI An indictment that I can support
I’m not going to belly ache about the North benefiting from our talents.
The complaint should be how UWI has destroyed the case for reparations.
First in not developing a body of work to make the case and advocate for it relentlessly.
We are entitled to reparations not only from the North but from the African who March our forefathers across the interior of the African continent like hearts into the hands of the waiting Europeans at the Walls of no return.
What are the ground breaking innovative strategies and or results that has come out of UWI?
Most of the innovative and ground breaking initiatives in the Western world has come out of its academic programs in its research and development programs.
UWI was created back in 1953. It was first a medical school WOW! And we needs the Cubans medical brigade.
We need to see ideas and action as well as the results of working non-stop and making progress.
That’s what the Dyaspora will need to see as they make a choice.
Today they wake up and it’s cold like hell out outside.
Wrapped up they make my way briskly to the bus stop or step into a car in their garages.
They freeze asses off and make their way through life in the North
With all the challenges of living in the North it’s a rational choice they take it over living in a place and not having running water, not having electricity, living in a place where basic sanitary facilities in public facilities are missing.
In choosing to stay up North. They make a choice between rude and disrespectful indifference by public servants who got their jobs through political nepotism.
Pontificating is not leadership, that’s what most Caribbean politicians do best you are an exception.
Most of the other politicians across the Caribbean are an embarrassment.