As the African Union celebrates its 20th anniversary, the acceleration of partnership between Africa and the Caribbean has come to the fore. Afro-Caribbean relations date back to the infamous era of the transatlantic slave trade, which saw the most productive African being transported across the Atlantic to other parts of the world, including the Caribbean.
I couldn’t resist the call to be a panelist at a webinar titled “Dynamics of Africa-Caribbean Engagement”, hosted by the Institute of International Affairs at the University of the West Indies (UWI) on 9 September. Professor Ivelaw Griffith, Fellow, Caribbean Policy Consortium, chaired the meeting, while PJ Patterson, former Prime Minister of Jamaica; Cyril Kenrick Hunte, former High Commissioner of Guyana to South Africa and several African countries; Annita Montoute from the Institute of International Relations; and Eric Phillips, chairman of the Guyana Reparations Committee, were the other panelists.
The meeting reflected the urgency to increase cooperation between the two regions in terms of facing the challenges that have depressed post-colonial societies. Indeed, millions of Africans, both on the continent and in the diaspora, still sleep hungry, while several others are homeless and have inadequate access to social infrastructures and are denied a basic standard of living. The ties between Africa and the Caribbean are built on what Len Ismael called history, ancestry, culture, experience and a sense of shared identity.
AGGRESSIVE REMOVAL
Beginning in 1502, triangular slavery and the slave trade resulted in the aggressive removal of approximately 10 million Africans from Africa. Centuries later, several prominent Caribbean citizens, activists and intellectuals such as George Padmore of Trinidad and Marcus Garvey of Jamaica, as well as Henry Sylvester-Williams, a Trinidadian lawyer, activist and writer, contributed to its establishment, evolution and intellect. of Pan-Africanism as well as the liberation of African continents from foreign colonialism and dehumanization.
Indeed, the first political movement of a global nature against slavery, colonialism and other institutional oppressions against the black race – speaking of the first Pan-African Congress held in 1900 – was led by the Caribbean. The gains of the Congress were exploited by African greats such as Kwame Nkrumah, leading to the organization of the 6th Congress in Tanzania in 1974. While in September 2001 the “World Conference Against Racism, Discrimination, Xenophobia and Intolerance”, of led by the United Nations (UN) and held in Durban, South Africa, revealed political and diplomatic rifts in African-Caribbean partnerships due to their different approaches to slavery and reparations, the two regions have been able to walk forward to establish close political and diplomatic ties in several ways.
Diplomats and political leaders from the regions worked together on the UN platform. The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and African countries, including elected representatives of the UN Security Council, partner on difficult and pressing issues such as decolonization, global inequality, seeking to reform the UN and reforming the system existing global economic. . Leaders from the regions have also partnered within the platform of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group (ACP), the Commonwealth and the Non-Aligned Movement.
A few Caribbean countries such as Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago have resident diplomatic missions in South Africa and Nigeria, and these two African countries also have resident diplomatic missions in Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. At the height of the draconian subjugation of parts of Southern Africa by the colonial and apartheid powers, Caribbean countries such as Cuba joined the liberation struggle and strongly supported the African National Congress (ANC) to free South Africa from minority rule, leading to majority rule in 1994.
While leaders from the regions engage bilaterally, through diplomatic relations and accompanying memorandums, CARICOM has particularly sought to improve relations with Africa through the African Union (AU). Thus, the First CARICOM-Africa Summit was held virtually in September 2021, with the theme “Unity across Continents and Oceans – Opportunities for Deepening Integration”. This strengthened relations and sought to accelerate deeper engagements between heads of state from the two regions. The summit also gave birth to “Africa-Caribbean Day”, which was celebrated on 7 September. In 2019, talks on CARICOM-Africa cooperation made progress after the Presidents of Ghana and Kenya visited the region. In the same year, after other visits to Africa, the Prime Ministers of Jamaica and Barbados attended the 9th ACP Summit in Kenya, to deepen political relations with African countries.
HARD TO MEASURE
Despite the intensification of a series of talks about these partnerships, the political and diplomatic relations between the two regions have been very difficult to measure in terms of concrete results. As repeated over the decades, trade and commerce between CARICOM and African countries has been very poor, partly due to the lack of effective engagements or the challenge of transportation. However, there are growing commitments to overcome the problem of access and improve relations. For example, the First African-Caribbean Trade and Investment Forum was held recently on September 1 in Bridgetown, Barbados.
Further, most engagements have ended at the level of diplomatic talks and meetings without converting promises into action points or genuine collaborative efforts. Lack of a top-down approach to collaboration may not yield the desired results. Thus, non-state actors should be involved in efforts to facilitate effective partnerships between regions. It is necessary to identify specific areas of cooperation and a common agenda, followed by real commitments from the political leaders of both regions.
It also requires concerted investment of time and a deep understanding of the challenges to systematically turn the relationship into an effective and useful political, social and economic force large enough to transform the dreams of regions and their people into reality. While there are calls for immediate and direct integration of the two economies, this seems too soon and too ambitious. Rather, specific objectives such as the destruction of neo-imperialism, pseudo-colonialism and other forms of subjugation of the African people must be identified and pursued in both regions. Perhaps, the starting point should be a cooperative effort to intervene in the situation in Haiti in the Caribbean and the disputed Chagos Island in Africa.
Dr Adeoye O. Akinola is Head of Research and Teaching at the Institute for Pan-African Thought and Discourse, University of Johannesburg, South Africa. Send comments to [email protected]
