What the Diaspora Needs to Do in 2023

            Now that the New Year is upon us, we in the African Diaspora need to plan for joint action to better ensure that emerging markets under Diaspora control really are under the control of the indigenous people and not complain about others using neocolonial methods to maintain their dominance. That happens because we let it happen. The time has come for that to end.

            We wait for international financial institutions, international combines of nations such as the United Nations, the African Union and the European Union, as well as donor nations, to solve our problems that we let our leaders get us into. It is said that God helps those who help themselves, but we seem to have preferred others to bear the burden that is ours to bear.

            In the 1930s, black people and our supporters in other races staged one of the largest demonstrations ever to protest the Italian invasion of Abyssinia (now Ethiopia). Aside from Ethiopians and a relative few non-Ethiopian supporters, including some politicians, who is it now that joins in the public effort to push the U.S. government to seek an equitable, sustainable end to the war in Ethiopia’s Tigray region? Oh, there has been a lot of side-choosing – either the Tigray or the Amhara-led government – but little thought and effort given to finally bringing an end to this destructive conflict and correcting decades-long ethnic dominance of the population. The officials in this country’s government work for us the citizens. If they are off target in our opinion, then we must let them know that they are and make them understand what we want them to do.

            We in the Diaspora lament the tribalism in Africa and the discord it foments. However, we fail to acknowledge the discord of which we are a part. Black people in the United States too often look down upon our cousins from Africa, the Caribbean and elsewhere in the Diaspora, and truth be told, they often look down upon us. Partly that is because of the way we behave toward one another, but that behavior is based on what we’ve been taught about each other. We’ve learned in schools and through the media that our people had no credible history pre-slavery and that Africans are still primitive in their organizations, that people from the Caribbean are small-time and fun-focused and that black Americans are selfish and small-minded. Even within the United States, there are North-South and urban-rural divides, not to mention the remaining color prejudices without our own race. More recently, we’ve developed a male-female dynamic favoring either a patriarchy or a matriarchy rather than a gender-neutral cooperative effort.

            What’s amazing is that even those who claim to want to help us work together don’t always have complete respect for the Diaspora as a whole. Consequently, one group is seen as more capable and responsible for any progress made while another is considered the reason why our efforts don’t succeed. That won’t work as a strategy for success.

            Getting back to the history part, it is understandable (though unacceptable) that most of us were not taught in school about our history as it was lived by our ancestors. I don’t just mean the part about slavery, colonialism and white supremacy. All that happened, but even if we focus more on that, it would be an injustice to the great accomplishments our ancestors made in millennia past. Africa is considered the mother of all humankind. If that is so, how could the people who lived there not have acquired knowledge that others built upon? When scholars show that the Greeks came to Africa for learning, which they later passed onto the Romans and Western civilization as a whole, there is an inclination for white people – as well as some black people – to regard this as a fantasy or a figment of black supremacy.

That is because such learning isn’t shared with all races. There would be far less prejudice if we all saw our own ancestors’ contributions in the tapestry of the history we’re taught. Several years ago, the National Democratic Institute created a curriculum for South Sudan that included the history of all the ethnic groups in that country as a means of establishing solidarity. Such an integrated curriculum would be beneficial in America as well. If we saw the worth all our ancestors created, we’d have less basis for demonizing or demeaning one another.

            So, let’s say we attained a more comprehensive understanding of one another. What should we do to end the diminished status of the Diaspora and finally unleash the complete potential of its members worldwide? Recognizing that we are all a part of a global entity that can and should work together would be a great start. Booker T. Washington taught more than a century ago that if we built our own businesses and institutions that we could stand on our own two feet and look anyone else in the eyes rather than from a position of supplication on our knees, asking for help. Marcus Garvey continued on this path, internationalizing the concept. Both men were ridiculed in their time by those who thought that they were better suited to guide black people, who they saw as unable to think properly and needed more educated shepherds to lead them. Unfortunately, that view has not disappeared.

            People in the Diaspora, especially those in the West, have two tools we can and must use to raise the status of the Diaspora and the nations we control. We have votes that – when used in an informed manner – can change government policies to match the true needs of people in emerging nations as those people see them, not as outsiders tell them they should see such imperatives. As I tell Diaspora communities in the United States, you must use your influence with politicians at the national, state and local levels – not as interest groups but as voters to achieve the change you believe needs to be made.

            The other tool is money. If we don’t buy directly from these countries or invest in their businesses, how can we complain that they’re exploited? Much of what we purchase now comes indirectly from these countries, but the middlemen make most of the profit because we don’t find ways to purchase directly to better support producers. Cow hides used to make drumheads can cost more than $200 here, but the farmer who raised, slaughtered and skinned the cow makes minimal return for their labor. That model can represent many such raw products where value added is done outside these countries. What if we in the Diaspora invested in value added production in emerging markets in Africa and the Caribbean? Not only could we help producers earn more for their products, but we as consumers could attain quality goods at lower prices and receive them more quickly and efficiently.

            As for those in the emerging nations, the days of ethnic-focused politics must end. I have been involved in voter education efforts in Africa and plan to do so again this year. The goal is to help voters understand that their vote is powerful but must be wielded as a tool and not a weapon. Politicians in all countries make promises, but we as voters must hold them to those promises, and if not, then we must replace them with those who will, even if they are not from our specific ethnic or social group. Honoring the ethnic spoils system used to be prevailing tradition. You vote for the party based on your ethnic or social group and expect that they will benefit your group first if not only your group. Usually, it benefits a select class and not everyone in the society. That is not limited to emerging markets; it happens in Western countries as well, where people vote for leaders who promise to raise their standards of living only to leave them in the same poverty their families have lived in for generations.

            Garvey tried a century ago to link the skills and resources of the Diaspora outside Liberia with the resources and skills in that country. His effort was thwarted by those outside Liberia as well as those inside, but for varied reasons. With colonialism now ended, even with the continued presence of neocolonialism, we in the greater Diaspora have the information, communications vehicles and resources to build – if not a real-life Wakanda – at least better versions of current reality.

            The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) was created in the 1990s, not just to make multinationals richer, but also to encourage and facilitate commercial interactions between small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in African nations and the United States. Prosper Africa was created with the Diaspora in mind as the vanguard for broader commercial interactions between SMEs as led by Diaspora companies who built relationships that could be shared with others in the United States. The Caribbean Basin Initiative, which predated AGOA by more than 12 years, was a model for AGOA in terms of creating quota-free, duty-free treatment for goods exported to the United States. It too could have and should have sparked greater SME interaction from both sides.

If this is left to the government alone, the focus on trade with emerging markets will be on big business because that “moves the needle” more in terms of boosting the amount of U.S.-Africa or U.S.-Caribbean trade as calculated in dollar amounts. The aggregate calculations in dollar amounts are what is popularly used to determine success in advancing trade, not job creation. Multi nationals don’t need Diaspora connections to get business; their sheer size opens doors for them. However, if jobs are to be created on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, then SMEs, primarily among the Diaspora, must be encouraged and facilitated to flourish.

            This encouragement and facilitation isn’t happening to the extent that it should currently, but it would be untrue to say that Diaspora commercial engagement is being prevented. Diaspora businesspeople ventured into commercial engagements in emerging markets long before either CBI, AGOA or Proper Africa were ever thought of, when there was little if any government help available. Therefore, there is no reason why the Diaspora, using our own existing resources, can make trade and investment work in Africa and the Caribbean.

            In this New Year, we need to do what so many of us have talked about and thought about doing. That would be a worthy resolution to make for 2023.