UK – Go Lean…Caribbean

Tag: UK

“Black British” Reality Exposed – Encore

Posted on March 9, 2021 in Ethos, Locations, Social

This has gotten heated…

Q: How dare Black People accuse British institutions of being racists. You can’t be serious?!?
A: Are you serious?! Just walk in our shoes!

This is a fitting summary of the global dialogue the last few days – after the bombshell March 7, 2021 interview on American TV with Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle. Yes, they went there and named, blamed and shamed Buckingham Palace of blatant racist thoughts, feelings, words and actions. See this portrayed in this short exchange here – this Twitter excerpt:

VIDEO – Good Morning Britain’s Piers Morgan vs Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamim – https://twitter.com/GMB/status/1368831131764858881

‘You want to deny the Royal Family has any racist undertones or actions simply because you’re in love with the Queen?’

‘What a load of race-baiting nonsense.’

The debate gets very heated between @piersmorgan and @SholaMos1. pic.twitter.com/6XaH6RrDlV

— Good Morning Britain (@GMB) March 8, 2021

————-

So Black people in Britain are NOT valued as equal citizens?!?! MMMmmmm?!?!

This assertion seems so familiar!

We had previously discussed the actuality of the Caribbean Diaspora who had fled to Great Britain. These ones had learned the harsh lessons that the “welcome mat” that were extended to their immigration did not include respect, hospitality, warmth nor love. 🙁

It is only apropos to Encore that April 21, 2017 commentary again here-now:

————-

Go Lean Commentary – ‘Black British’ and ‘Less Than’

Truth be told, a Black person speaking with a British accent gets more respect than a Black person speaking with a Caribbean slang or a ‘Hip-hop’ /‘Jive’ dialect.

It is what it is! Notice this portrayal in the Appendix VIDEO where many Afro-Caribbean citizens in Britain, seem to self-identify more as British than their Caribbean heritage; (POINT 5).

Does this mean that the Black British person is better off on the world stage? Sadly no! The actuality of Blackness still means “Less Than“.

The problem is not the Blackness, but rather Whiteness, the proliferation of White Supremacy … throughout the world.

This is the assertion of the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean, in consideration of reasons why the Diaspora should repatriate back to the Caribbean homeland and why the Caribbean youth should not even depart their homelands in the first place. This thesis was presented in a 9-part series, with these submissions:

All of these prior commentaries related to the disposition of the Caribbean Diaspora in the United States; now we take a look at England, Britain or the United Kingdom. There is a difference … supposedly.

“Britain has done a great job as painting itself as the humanitarian, with the US being the torturer. But that shit ain’t true.” – Patrisse Cullors, co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement.

The purpose of this commentary – considering these source materials below – is to relate the following 5 strong points of contention; (these labels are shown throughout this commentary where applicable):

POINT 1 – The world is not fair, equal or just; and if you are of the Black-and-Brown races, the injustice is even more pronounced.
POINT 2 – Charity begins at home! There is a need to reform and transform society wherever you are. No one else will reform your homeland; you must!
POINT 3 – Leaving home, hurts home.
POINT 4 – The children of the Diaspora identify more with their current home, than their parent’s ancestral home.
POINT 5 – When the children do not want to identify with your land of heritage, it is Time to Go, to take them back home.

See this interview here relating Black British reality, with VICE News (UK Desk), the provocative media outlet that exposes the harsh realities of daily life in the Third World and the “First World”; (find more on VICE in Appendix A):

Title: We Spoke to the Activist Behind #BlackLivesMatter About Racism in Britain and America
By: Michael Segalov

… Patrisse Cullors is co-founder of Black Lives Matter — the movement and oft-trending hashtag. Based in LA ([Los Angeles]), she’s been on the front line at uprisings across the US in response to a wave of high-profile deaths of black people in police custody.

[While] on a speaking tour of the UK and Ireland, heading to communities, universities, and holding meetings in Parliament. VICE caught up with Patrisse on the train from Brighton to London in the midst of a hectic schedule. VICE chatted [with her] about how she’s spreading the Black Lives Matter movement across the globe, what’s happening in the States at the moment, and why that’s relevant to the UK.

VICE: Tell us about the origins of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Patrisse Cullors: After George Zimmerman was acquitted of the murder of Trayvon Martin, back in July 2013, myself and two friends came up with the hashtag. My friend Alicia had written a love letter to folks, saying, “Our Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter.”

I put a hashtag in front—within days people were using it across the world. We’re talking about all black lives; we weren’t just talking about black men dying in the hands of the police. We’re talking about black women, black trans people, black queer people. We want to show that under the current system of white supremacy, anti-blackness has major consequences. Inside the US, and around the world, anti-black racism has global consequences. Black Lives Matter is a call to action—it’s a mantra, a testimony.

How did you end up at the heart of it?
I’ve been organizing since I was 16. I came out as queer, and was kicked out of home. Along with a bunch of other young queer women of color, we raised each other. We also dealt with poverty, being black and brown in the USA, and trying to figure out how to live our daily lives. My brother was incarcerated in LA county jails at 19, and he was almost killed by the sheriffs. They beat him. They tortured him and brutalized him. This was my awakening, seeing how far the state will go, and how they treat our families.

Most disturbing was the lack of support and absolute neglect that my brother and my family faced after he was brutalized. Part of my upbringing was a feeling of rage, but I also knew I could do something about it. With my mentors, and a civil rights organization, I learned my craft over 11 years. I focused on the school-to-prison pipeline [where young people go straight from school into the juvenile criminal justice system], environmental justice, and police violence.
…
You’ve been in the UK for a week, how has it been, and how does the situation here relate to the USA?

In theory the UK has a significant amount of structures to allow for accountability, of law enforcement in particular. That’s the theory. But in the US we don’t really have these structures to allow for accountability. There aren’t really independent investigators; its just very rare for prosecutions for law enforcement. And so, being here, I’ve realized, there are some systems in place that might actually be good for the US. It just seems those systems don’t work.

Then there are the similarities, the ways in which black people are treated—it’s outright racism. From Christopher Alder being brutalized on tape, hearing the officers calling him racist slurs, to the G4S guards who killed Jimmy Mubenga with racist texts on their phones. You have that same hatred, these white supremacist ideologies coming out of both of our countries. And here too, justice is not being served. We have Mike Brown, no justice. We have Eric Garner, no justice. Here we see the same: Mark Duggan, Sean Rigg. The list is vast.

Is this stuff talked about in the States, like how in the UK we’re aware over here about what’s going on in Ferguson?
Here’s the thing, black people in the US don’t know what’s happening here in the UK. I’m well read, well educated, and coming here and learning these stories I’m like, “Why don’t I know about this? Why haven’t we heard?” The US is very insular. The UK has an image of being better, a humane society in which there isn’t the same level of racism. But now I have a very different perspective that I’m going to take home and talk about. Britain has done a great job as painting itself as the humanitarian, with the US being the torturer. But that shit ain’t true.

Here in the UK there’ve been solidarity actions. People shut down the streets in London and Westfield shopping center too. What’s the impact of these things for people on the ground? Do you notice?
Yes, it was noticed. We’ve seen all the work folks are doing on the ground. From here, where you guys shut down Westfield, to Spain and Brazil. In Israel, African refugees are using the Black Lives Matter mantra to talk about law enforcement violence by the Israeli police. We see it, and we’re in awe. We wanted and needed it to go global.

Where is this going? What happens next?
There are 23 Black Lives Matter chapters right now, in the US, Canada, and Ghana. We need to uplift the local struggles across the country, as well as pushing for greater accountability for law enforcement.

We want legislation that will see divestment from law enforcement and investing in poor communities. We want to build a national project linking families who have been impacted by state violence, with a national database that looks at individual law enforcement officers and agencies. We also want to look at how to develop a system of independent investigation. We want to figure out a victim’s bill of rights, to counter the police bill of rights. Until then, we’re gonna shut shit down.
Source: VICE (UK) News; Posted February 2 2015; retrieved April 20, 2017 from: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/patrisse-cullors-interview-michael-segalov-188?utm_source=vicetwitterus

See related VIDEO’s here on Britain’s Black History; (POINT 1 and POINT 4):

That Black British Feeling – Why Black People in the UK are Marching – https://youtu.be/fB2IcH668xo

Black and British: A Forgotten History Part 1 First Encounters; Full BBC Documentary 2016 – https://youtu.be/6WP6qEc2uaM

Black and British: A Forgotten History Part 2 Meaning of Freedom – https://youtu.be/Tjq1X3TZ02U

Black and British: Britain’s Forgotten Slave Owners; The Price Of Freedom (2015) – https://youtu.be/kgaJyp8ix4M

For Caribbean people, the world thinks of us as “Less Than”, whether we are in the Caribbean or in the Diaspora in the UK, Europe or North America. We take the “Less Than” brand with us wherever we go. This is a crisis! The movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean seeks to use this crisis, to elevate the Caribbean brand …. globally.

Why is the Caribbean brand perceived as “Less Than”?

Yes, first there is the reality check of being Black-and-Brown in a White world. But also due to our own mis-management of our homeland. It is the greatest address on the planet, and yet our people beat down the doors to get out. Already we have lost 70 percent of our professional classes. So we send this subtle message to the world that “we would foul up the ground wherever we stand”; (POINT 1).

We – the Caribbean region as a collective – must do better; be better! We can reboot, reform and transform from this bad history and bad image; (POINT 2). How?

While easier said than done, this is the comprehensive action plan of the Go Lean book. The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The CU is designed to optimize Caribbean society in the homeland – though there are many benefits to the Diaspora as well – through economic, security and governing optimizations. Therefore the Go Lean roadmap has 3 prime directives:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance – including empowerments for image promotion – to support these engines.

Reforming or transforming the UK, Britain or England is not within scope of the Go Lean/CU effort, notwithstanding the impact on our Diaspora there. But the subject of “Image” is inseparable from any discussion of elevating the Caribbean brand. So this commentary is on image, the facts and fiction of being a minority in a majority world or being an immigrant to a foreign country. This applies to any consideration of the Caribbean Diaspora in the British Isles, where their numbers have been reported between 4 and 5 percent of the population; (POINT 4). Consider these encyclopedic details:

British African Caribbean (or Afro-Caribbean) people are residents of the United Kingdom who are of West Indian background and whose ancestors were primarily natives or indigenous to Africa. As immigration to the United Kingdom from Africa increased in the 1990s, the term has sometimes been used to include UK residents solely of African origin, or as a term to define all Black British residents, though the phrase “African and Caribbean” has more often been used to cover such a broader grouping. The most common and traditional use of the term African-Caribbean community is in reference to groups of residents’ continuing aspects of Caribbean culture, customs and traditions in the United Kingdom.

A majority of the African-Caribbean population in the UK is of Jamaican origin; other notable representation is from Trinidad and Tobago, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Barbados, Grenada, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Lucia, Dominica, Montserrat, Anguilla, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Guyana (which although located on the South American mainland is culturally similar to the Caribbean and was historically considered to be part of the British West Indies), and Belize.

African-Caribbean people are present throughout the United Kingdom with by far the largest concentrations in London and Birmingham.^[1] Significant communities also exist in other population centres, notably Manchester, Bradford, Nottingham, Coventry, Luton, Slough, Leicester, Bristol, Gloucester, Leeds, Huddersfield, Sheffield, Liverpool and Cardiff. In these cities, the community is traditionally associated with a particular area, such as Brixton, Harlesden, Stonebridge, Dalston, Lewisham, Tottenham, Peckham in London, West Bowling and Heaton in Bradford, Chapeltown in Leeds,^[2] St. Pauls in Bristol,^[3] or Handsworth and Aston in Birmingham or Moss Side in Manchester. According to the 2011 census, the largest number of African-Caribbean people are found in Croydon, south London.
Source: Retrieved April 20, 2017 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_African-Caribbean_people

There are a number of insights to glean looking at the demographics of the Afro-Caribbean population in the UK. (See Appendix B below). All in all, the Afro-Caribbean populations in the UK prefer to identify themselves more as British than as Caribbean; (POINT 4).

See this portrayal in the Appendix VIDEO below.

Despite the 60 years of futility, our Caribbean people continue to leave, abandoning our homeland; (POINT 3). This is bad; bad for the people and bad for the homeland. Our people “jump from the frying pan to the fire”:

Distress continues …
Oppression persists …
Image: “Less Than”!

This commentary asserts that it is easier for the Black-and-Brown populations in the Caribbean to prosper where planted in the Caribbean, rather than emigrating to foreign countries, like the UK. The reasons for the emigration in the first place have been identified as “push and pull”. “Push” refers to the societal defects in the Caribbean that drive people to move away (POINT 2); and “pull” factors refer to the impressions and perceptions that life abroad, as in England, is better. More details apply regarding these elusive “pull” factors:

The UK is NOT the #1 destination for the English-speaking Caribbean Diaspora, not anymore; that distinction is now towards the US. Today’s trending is for more and more new immigration to the US as opposed to the UK; Canada is Number 2.
While the “pull” factor had been compelling in the past, the decision-making of Caribbean emigrants – looking to flee – now needs a reality check! (POINT 1)
“Pull” is further exacerbated by the “push” factors; all of these continue to imperil Caribbean life; we push our citizens out. Then the resultant effect is a brain drain and even more endangerment to our society: less skilled workers; less entrepreneurs; less law-abiding citizens; less capable public servants – we lose our best and leave the communities with the rest. This creates even more of a crisis; (POINT 2).

The Go Lean roadmap posits that the entire Caribbean is in crisis now (POINT 3); so many of our citizens have fled for refuge in the UK and other countries, but the refuge is a mirage. The “grass is not necessarily greener on the other side”. Life in the UK is not optimized for Caribbean people. It is easier to fix the Caribbean than to fix the British eco-system. For our Diaspora there: it is Time to Go! For our populations in the Caribbean, looking to depart: Stay! Our people can more easily prosper where planted in the Caribbean … with the identified mitigations and remediation here-in.

The Go Lean book posits that Caribbean stakeholders made many flawed decisions in the past, both individually and community-wise; (POINT 2). But now, the Go Lean/CU roadmap is new (and improved). This is a vision of the CU as a confederation of the 30 member-states of the Caribbean to do the heavy-lifting of championing better nation-building policies, to reboot the region’s economic-security-governing engines. For one, there is the structure of a separation-of-powers between CU agencies and the individual member-states. So there are “two pies”, so citizens get to benefit from both their member-states’ efforts and that of the CU Trade Federation.

The Go Lean roadmap provides turn-by-turn directions on how to reform the society as a whole. This roadmap admits that because the Caribbean is in crisis, this “crisis would be a terrible thing to waste”. As a planning tool, the roadmap commences with a Declaration of Interdependence, pronouncing the approach of regional integration (Page 10 – 14) as a viable solution to elevate the regional engines:

Preamble: And while our rights to exercise good governance and promote a more perfect society are the natural assumptions among the powers of the earth, no one other than ourselves can be held accountable for our failure to succeed if we do not try to promote the opportunities that a democratic society fosters.
As the history of our region and the oppression, suppression and repression of its indigenous people is duly documented, there is no one alive who can be held accountable for the prior actions, and so we must put aside the shackles of systems of repression to instead formulate efficient and effective systems to steer our own destiny.

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xii. Whereas the legacy in recent times in individual states may be that of ineffectual governance with no redress to higher authority, the accedence of this Federation will ensure accountability and escalation of the human and civil rights of the people for good governance, justice assurances, due process and the rule of law. As such, any threats of a “failed state” status for any member state must enact emergency measures on behalf of the Federation to protect the human, civil and property rights of the citizens, residents, allies, trading partners, and visitors of the affected member state and the Federation as a whole.

xix. Whereas our legacy in recent times is one of societal abandonment, it is imperative that incentives and encouragement be put in place to first dissuade the human flight, and then entice and welcome the return of our Diaspora back to our shores …

xx. Whereas the results of our decades of migration created a vibrant Diaspora in foreign lands, the Federation must organize interactions with this population into structured markets. Thus allowing foreign consumption of domestic products, services and media, which is a positive trade impact. These economic activities must not be exploited by others’ profiteering but rather harnessed by Federation resources for efficient repatriations.

The Go Lean book details the community ethos to adopt, plus the executions of the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to impact the eco-systems in the Caribbean region.

The book provides these recommendations in regards to the dynamics of Diaspora living:

Encourage the Caribbean Diaspora to repatriate back to their ancestral homeland – (10 Reasons to Repatriate to the Caribbean – Page 118).
Dissuade the high emigration rates of Caribbean citizens to foreign stories – (10 Ways to Make the Caribbean Better – Page 131).

These subjects (Repatriation and Diaspora) have been frequently commented on in other Go Lean blogs (POINT 4); as sampled here with these entries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11244	‘To Live and Die in L.A.’ or London …
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9485	10 Things We Don’t Want from the UK
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8099	Caribbean Image: ‘Less Than’?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7151	The Caribbean is Looking for Heroes … ‘to Return’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1683	British public sector workers strike over ‘poverty pay’

The book also relates the significance of image/brand management, as with this advocacy: “10 Ways to Better Manage Image” (Page 133):

The Bottom Line on Martin, Malcolm, Mandela, Muhammad and Marley
The majority of the Caribbean population descends from an African ancestry – a legacy of slavery from previous centuries. Despite the differences in nationality, culture and language, the image of the African Diaspora is all linked hand-in-hand. And thus, when Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela, Muhammad Ali and Bob Marley impacted the world with their contributions, the reverberations were felt globally, not just in their homelands. It is hard for one segment of the black world to advance when other segments have a negative global image. This is exemplified with the election of Barack Obama as US President; his election was viewed as an ascent for the entire Black race.

Overall, we must elevate the Caribbean brand. There are active movements now to accentuate the image/brand; consider:

Proclaim ‘International Caribbean Day’

The African Renaissance Monument

Declared “Best in the World”

Accentuate Caribbean Image Tied to the Dreadlocks Hairstyles

Underlying to the Go Lean/CU prime directive of elevating the economics, security and governing engines of the Caribbean, is the desire to make the Caribbean homeland better, to reform and transform our society. If we can do this, we will dissuade the high emigration rate for our young people. But saying that it is “Time to Go“, must mean that we are ready to receive our Caribbean Diaspora from London and other British cities. Are we?

We are not! But this Go Lean roadmap gets us started. This is the intent of the book Go Lean … Caribbean.

The Go Lean/CU roadmap asserts that Britain should not be presented as the panacea for Caribbean ills – we must reform and transform our own society. While Britain or the UK does some things well, that country does not always act justly towards Black-and-Brown people of Caribbean descent; (POINT 5). We must do this ourselves (POINT 2); our region needs the empowerments here-in (jobs, economic growth and brand/image enhancement).

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people and governing institutions, to lean-in for the empowerments described in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. This is the roadmap to elevate the Caribbean; to make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

———–

Appendix A – Vice News

Vice News (stylized as VICE News) is Vice Media, Inc.‘s current affairs channel, producing daily documentary essays and video through its website and YouTube channel. It promotes itself on its coverage of “under-reported stories”.^[1] Vice News was created in December 2013 and is based in New York City, though it has bureaus worldwide.

Background
In December 2013, Vice Media expanded its international news division into an independent division dedicated to news exclusively and created Vice News. Vice Media put $50 million into its news division, setting up 34 bureaus worldwide and drawing praise for its in-depth coverage of international news.^[2] Vice News has primarily targeted a younger audience comprised predominantly of millennials, the same audience to which its parent company appeals.^[3]

History
Before Vice News was founded, Vice published news documentaries and news reports from around the world through its YouTube channel alongside other programs. Vice had reported on events such as crime in Venezuela, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, protests in Turkey, the North Korean regime, and the Syrian Civil War through their own YouTube channel and website. After the creation of Vice News as a separate division, its reporting greatly increased with worldwide coverage starting immediately with videos published on YouTube and articles on its website daily.^[5]Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vice_News

———–

Appendix B – British Afro-Caribbean Demographics

Based on a variety of official sources and extrapolating from figures for England alone, the estimates for the number of people in Britain born in the West Indies grew from 15,000 in 1951, to 172,000 in 1961 and 304,000 in 1971, and then fell slightly to 295,000 in 1981. The estimates for the population of ethnic West Indian in 1981 were between 500,000 and 550,000.^[26]

In the UK Census of 2001, 565,876 people classified themselves in the category ‘Black Caribbean’, amounting to around 1 percent of the total population.^[38] Of the “minority ethnic” population, which amounted to 7.9 percent of the total UK population, Black Caribbean people accounted for 12.2 percent.^[38] In addition, 14.6 percent of the minority ethnic population (equivalent to 1.2 per cent of the total population) identified as mixed race, of whom around one third stated that they were of mixed Black Caribbean and White descent.^[38]

In the latest, the 2011 Census of England and Wales, 594,825 individuals specified their ethnicity as “Caribbean” under the “Black/African/Caribbean/Black British” heading, and 426,715 as “White and Black Caribbean” under the “Mixed/multiple ethnic group” heading.^[35] In Scotland, 3,430 people classified themselves as “Caribbean, Caribbean Scottish or Caribbean British” and 730 as “Other Caribbean or Black” under the broader “Caribbean or Black” heading.^[36] In Northern Ireland, 372 people specified their ethnicity as “Caribbean”.^[37] The published results for the “Mixed” category are not broken down into sub-categories for Scotland and Northern Ireland as they are for England and Wales.^[36][37] The greatest concentration of Black Caribbean people is found in London, where 344,597 residents classified themselves as Black Caribbean in the 2011 Census, accounting for 4.2 per cent of the city’s population.^[35]

The UK Census records respondents’ countries of birth and the 2001 Census recorded 146,401 people born in Jamaica, 21,601 from Barbados, 21,283 from Trinidad and Tobago, 20,872 from Guyana, 9,783 from Grenada, 8,265 from Saint Lucia, 7,983 from Montserrat, 7,091 from Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, 6,739 from Dominica, 6,519 from Saint Kitts and Nevis, 3,891 from Antigua and Barbuda and 498 from Anguilla.^[39]

Detailed country-of-birth data from the 2011 Census is published separately for England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. In England and Wales, 160,095 residents reported their country of birth as Jamaica, 22,872 Trinidad and Tobago, 18,672 Barbados, 9,274 Grenada, 9,096 St Lucia, 7,390 St Vincent and the Grenadines, 7,270 Montserrat, 6,359 Dominica, 5,629 St Kitts and Nevis, 3,697 Antigua and Barbuda, 2,355 Cuba, 1,812 The Bahamas and 1,303 Dominican Republic. 8,301 people reported being born elsewhere in the Caribbean, bringing the total Caribbean-born population of England and Wales to 264,125. Of this number, 262,092 were resident in England and 2,033 in Wales.^[40] In Scotland, 2,054 Caribbean-born residents were recorded,^[41] and in Northern Ireland 314.^[42]Guyana is categorised as part of South America in the Census results, which show that 21,417 residents of England and Wales, 350 of Scotland and 56 of Northern Ireland were born in Guyana. Belize is categorised as part of Central America. 1,252 people born in Belize were recorded living in England and Wales, 79 in Scotland and 22 in Northern Ireland.^[41][42][40]Source: Retrieved April 20, 2017 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_African-Caribbean_people#Demography

———–

Appendix VIDEO – Do you call yourself Black British? – https://youtu.be/i3dgzdsAZug

Published on Oct 21, 2016

Category: People & Blogs
License: Standard YouTube License

Share this post:

Civil Rights, Diaspora, Power, UK

Brexit Manifestation: Not So Good

Posted on December 31, 2020 in Economics, Ethos, Government, Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

Brexit is hereby ratified as of today; the new “rules of the road” go into effect tomorrow – January 1, 2021. (Brexit = British Exit from the European Union).

It will be a scary time, as the manifestation of Brexit is “Not So Good”.

Britain wanted their freedom to choose – done. See the historicity in the Appendix VIDEO below.

But there is no freedom from the consequences of that choice. See the manifestation of the Brexit Trade and Inter-European relations as defined in this New York Times article here:

Title: Brexit, finalized
More than four years after Britain voted to leave the European Union, new travel and trade rules will go into effect tomorrow, concluding a saga that has divided Britons and dominated British politics.

The two sides reached an agreement last week, after nearly a year of trade negotiations. Yesterday, Britain’s Parliament approved the deal. Tomorrow brings the end of free movement of people between Britain and the E.U.

I talked to Mark Landler, The Times’s London bureau chief, about what it all means and what comes next. (Our conversation has been edited for brevity.)

CLAIRE: How will the new relationship between Britain and the E.U. affect people’s everyday lives?
MARK: The purpose of the 1,200-page trade deal between Britain and the E.U. was to avoid very disruptive changes, such as tariffs and quotas. But there will be an array of other bureaucratic requirements that did not exist before Jan. 1.

People won’t see a sudden shift in the price of fresh fruit and vegetables in London supermarkets. But it’ll have an impact on Britons who, for example, want to bring their dog on vacation to the continent or who want to get a job somewhere in the E.U.

Trade. Travel. Anything else?
Britain withdrew from the Erasmus exchange program, which allowed British students to study in E.U. countries and vice versa. It’s one highly visible example of things that will change in the post-Brexit era.

Something else, which may take a little bit longer to play out, is this idea of separatism and independence. Scotland, for example, was against Brexit, and it could fuel a new push to break off from the rest of Britain.

What will this mean for Britain’s economy?
A lot of stuff still needs to be negotiated. A major driving force of the British economy is the services sector, including legal, financial, consulting and other services. Virtually none of that is covered yet in the trade agreement.

How did the pandemic affect the process?
Without it, the negotiations for the trade deal would have been the biggest story in the country. But Brexit was almost completely overshadowed by the coronavirus. Britain is preoccupied with this health crisis, which will muffle the immediate effects of Brexit. But over time those will become more visible. Which means that the debate over Brexit may not be finished in the country.

Will this deliver the “global Britain” that pro-Brexit campaigners hoped for?
One of the driving arguments in favor of Brexit was throwing off the shackles of the E.U., so that Britain would become this agile, dynamic, independent economy that could strike deals with everyone in the world. But rising protectionism and populism have made making free-trade agreements harder. The “global Britain” arguments looked more valid in May 2016 than in January 2021. In a way, the Brexit vision is four and a half years too late.

Source: Retrieved December 31, 2020 from: https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/template/oakv2?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20201231&instance_id=25533&nl=the-morning&productCode=NN&regi_id=69450329&segment_id=48102&te=1&uri=nyt%3A%2F%2Fnewsletter%2Fa44d74cb-100d-5436-887d-e9c6aa325dbf&user_id=de9db917120d820078919cfacc03d8b3

So according to this foregoing, Brexit was the UK’s quest for agility. 🙁

The words and feelings of a known African proverb is ringing so loud right now; (this was related in a previous Go Lean commentary from July 6, 2016):

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

The thing about being agile and nimble is that not everyone in society is fast. Some people are slow … and old, and disabled. Yes, society has a greater responsibility than just getting to a destination quickly, it must ensure that everyone gets “there” … eventually.

This sounds eerily familiar; this sounds like a violation of the Code of Hammurabi; we addressed this in another previous Go Lean commentary from March 22, 2017; see this except here:

[The] Code of Hammurabi was enacted within the Babylonian Empire, a Super Power in the ancient world. … Despite the passage of 3,800 years, there is a lesson to glean from this ancient legal precept for us today. Despite the irrelevance of so many of the 282 statutes, there in the preface of the codified Law is this statement:

“So that the strong should not harm the weak”

Despite how much advances we have made in the millennia since King Hammurabi of Babylon reigned, this concept seems to be void in so many societies; this concept …

… is not in the Caribbean.

… is not in the United States.

… is not in the New World.

There is an obvious “ignorance or negligence of this concept” in the New World. Consider the experience in the United States, where the American DNA seems to be based on a consistent pattern of the “strong abusing the weak” and the long civil rights struggle to overcome the abuse. This is American History and the American Experience. …

A detail analysis of the root causes of Brexit presented that there was a loud minority in the United Kingdom that objected to the freedom of movements of people, goods and capital in the integrated European Union. The British contingent wanted to Exit the regional responsibility of hospitality towards the poor, sick and huddled masses of the European continent. The Brexiters wanted Independence from their neighbors in fulfilling any Social Contract to their citizens.

This is an important consideration for Caribbean stakeholders as we are calling for the same interdependence that the EU enjoy. This desired interdependence is the needed inter-state cooperation that is the only hope for Caribbean member-states to finally reform and transform. Any such cooperation for Britain is now in jeopardy or unlikely. 18 Caribbean member-states are current or former territories of the British Commonwealth. So this Brexit discussion – unitary independence – is relevant for our consideration as it is turning out to be more hype than hope.

The roadmap presented in the 2013 book Go Lean … Caribbean introduces the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), a technocratic federal government – modeled after the EU – to administer and optimize the economic, security, and governing engines of all 30 member Caribbean states – legacies from British, Dutch, French and Spanish imperial expressions. We need the hope of regional interdependence movement, not the hype of nationalistic independence. That previous July 6, 2016 commentary stated:

A philosophical attack on the EU is an attack on the Caribbean’s future. We must be aware … and be on guard.

In truth, the EU has prospered; it has been a win-win for all of its members. It has endured hardships (consider for example, the sovereign debt crisis in Greece) that under previous European regime’s would have resulted in wars; on two occasions, World Wars. Now so much of the rest of the world – especially Africa and the MiddleEast – wants what the EU has. This is why one of the greatest challenges for the EU as a whole and for each individual member-state is immigration. A basic requirement of the economic integration of the EU is the free movement of labor. So anytime, a refugee find their way inside EU borders, they can travel to any member-state. The only way to prevent this free movement is to exit the EU. This is the British decision.

The foregoing New York Times article reported that the UK has started to experience the dreaded economic stagnation that was feared by anti-Brexiters.

In addition, the issue of disunity remains; the Brexit vote showed that some elements in the United Kingdom are not so “united”. Just two years earlier, a referendum in Scotland to secede from the United Kingdom – and join the EU as a full member including the Eurozone Monetary Union – was narrowly defeated. There may still be a call to renew the quest for Scottish Independence, and maybe even spur a similar campaign for Northern Ireland, thereby eliminating the new Customs border between the Republic of Ireland and the UK country of Northern Ireland. << Photo 2 >>

The Go Lean roadmap prepared the Caribbean for Agents of Change; one of them is globalization, which produces 2 classes of people: producers and consumers. There is always a Comparative Analysis as to which locale is better suited to procure raw materials and then which locale is best to produce finished goods. Such a Comparative Analysis results in winners and losers from the consideration. The UK’s complaint about the EU was actually a complaint about globalization; the UK was losing out in the Globalization battles and becoming consumers more and more then producing less and less. Those who cling to nationalism tend to be among the losing classes from Globalization battles.

The lesson for the Caribbean Union, if we do not want to lose our own battles, is to be lucky in our Comparative Analysis. Luck is defined as the intersection of preparation and opportunity.

The Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic has taught the Caribbean the important lesson that we are not prepared for the threats that come from one aspect of Globalization, the free and frequent movement of people across borders and continents. This pandemic started as a flare-up of a contagious respiratory disease in Wuhan, China; then in short order, the infections traversed the planet: to Europe and North America, then onto our Caribbean communities. We were not prepared and suffered accordingly, both medically and economically.

The Go Lean book trumpets that “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste”. In the Caribbean, we want our homeland to be a better place to live, work and play. So we must enable our infrastructure so that we can produce more and consume less. This is the quest of our regional economic empowerments. Then we need to better protect our communities with a robust Security Apparatus to defend across economic crimes, natural disasters and epidemics/pandemics.

This is the lesson we can learn here in the Caribbean homeland from the crisis in the UK and the EU, that we must be prepared for the challenges of globalization in order to get lucky. It just does not happen naturally; the opportunities for profit nor the protection from dangers.

In 2013, the Go Lean book scanned the landscape in the Caribbean and found a lot of deficiencies in the planning, preparations and infrastructure related to the societal engines for economics, security and governance. We too would only be losers in the battles of globalization. So the strategies, tactics and implementations were published that would mitigate and remediate these challenges. These are present in the 370-book, as described below.

In addition, there have been 6 years of continuous blogging on how to apply the strategies, tactics and implementations of the roadmap to better prepare the Caribbean against the pangs of distress from globalization. This theme – empowerments and protections in the battle of globalization – has been frequently detailed in many previous Go Lean blog-commentaries. Consider this sample:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18834	A Lesson in History: Free Trade Agreement of the Americas
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16341	The Caribbean is ready for a regional Post Office solution
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16208	In Defense of Trade – Bilateral Tariffs: No one wins
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16192	In Defense of Trade – China Realities
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15875	Amazon: ‘What We Should Want To Be When We Grow Up’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11358	Retail Apocalypse – Preparing for the Inevitable
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7789	New Guards for Global Trade
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7601	New Guards for Caribbean Sovereign Debt
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7327	New Guards for Disease Control
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6867	How to address high consumer prices
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6341	New Guards for Tourism Stewardship
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6103	New Guards Against Deadly Threats
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5597	Dire Straits of Labor Unions (Collective Bargaining) during Globalization
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=833	European Model: One currency, divergent economies
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=242	Effects of Globalization: The Erosion of the Middle Class

The events related to UK, EU and Brexit are important for us in the Caribbean to consider … and learn from. In fact, we are in competition with the European world in terms of trade, and losing. We lose in the movement of people, products and capital as they all move out to these countries … with only a little coming back in.

As a region and a society we need to go farther than we have previously accomplished – not necessarily faster – so we need to go together. We need to get united and stay united. We need interdependence, not independence. This is the quest, a Big Hairy Audacious Goal, but still conceivable, believable and achievable.

Everyone in the Caribbean – citizens and institutions alike – are hereby urged to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap. This is how we can make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

About the Book
The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), for the elevation of Caribbean society – for all member-states. This CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

Who We Are
The movement behind the Go Lean book – a non-partisan, apolitical, religiously-neutral Community Development Foundation chartered for the purpose of empowering and re-booting economic engines – stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12):

x. Whereas we are surrounded and allied to nations of larger proportions in land mass, populations, and treasuries, elements in their societies may have ill-intent in their pursuits, at the expense of the safety and security of our citizens. We must therefore appoint “new guards” to ensure our public safety and threats against our society, both domestic and foreign. The Federation must employ the latest advances and best practices … to assuage continuous threats against public safety.

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xiv. Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

—————–

Appendix VIDEO – Brexit explained: Boris Johnson’s new trade deal with the EU – https://youtu.be/mFCKLBsmF_w

Channel 4 News
Posted December 30, 2020 – Brexit is finally over. The UK has finally agreed a trade deal with the European Union – which will start on 1 January, 2021.

But what’s in the deal? And what will change as a result?
(Subscribe: https://bit.ly/C4_News_Subscribe)

The Brexit saga has seen off two British prime ministers – Theresa May and David Cameron. But now Boris Johnson has reached a deal with Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the EU Commission.

After years of debate over the single market, the customs union, tariffs, and the border in Northern Ireland, the two sides have finally found a compromise.

The Brexit referendum in 2016 caused a huge division in UK politics, with MPs split between Leave and Remain. The issue has also divided the Conservative and Labour parties. Some wanted Brexit to be overturned and called for a second referendum. Others said the UK should have a “hard” Brexit, with a more divisive split from Europe.

You can watch our full series of Brexit explainers here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…

——-

Watch more of our explainer series here – https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…
Get more news at our site – https://www.channel4.com/news/
Follow us: Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/Channel4News/
Twitter – https://twitter.com/Channel4News

Share this post:

Disaster, EU, Model, Trade, UK

[Top]

Long Train of Abuses: Enough Already … from Colonialism

Posted on December 5, 2020 in Ethos, Government, Social

Go Lean Commentary

For anyone in an abusive relationship, here is what your family, friends … and the world expects of you:

Get Out!

It is easier said than done – see the tongue-in-cheek song in the Appendix VIDEO below – but getting out is the quest, the goal and the end destination. This applies to all victims: individuals … and countries.

In fact, this was the actuality of the 1776 Declaration of Independence for the original 13 colonies that became the United States of America. Here is a powerful excerpt from that text, as recorded on Page 10 in the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean:

… Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these [former] colonies [of European imperialism]; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government.

This was modus operandi for the Americans to establish New Guards. This was also the assertion of the Go Lean book. The 30 member-states of the Caribbean region has also endured a long train of abuses from its historicity, actuality and colonial heritage.

It’s enough already!

The same as it was the right time for the 13 original American Colonies to usurp their status quo, demand independence and appoint New Guards, it is past time for the Caribbean to take this stand. In 2013, the Go Lean book presented this:

Declaration of Interdependence
We, the people of Caribbean democracies find it necessary to accede and form a confederated Union, the Caribbean Union Trade Federation, with our geographic neighbors of common interest.

In addition, that Declaration “submitted facts”, detailing the shift in governance that must occur in the region. (Page 12):

xii. Whereas the legacy in recent times in individual states may be that of ineffectual governance with no redress to higher authority, the accedence of this Federation will ensure accountability and escalation of the human and civil rights of the people for good governance, justice assurances, due process and the rule of law. As such, any threats of a “failed state” status for any member state must enact emergency measures on behalf of the Federation to protect the human, civil and property rights of the citizens, residents, allies, trading partners, and visitors of the affected member state and the Federation as a whole.

Every month, the movement behind the Go Lean book presents a Teaching Series to address issues germane to Caribbean life and culture. For this month of December 2020, we are looking at the Long Train of Abuses that could-would-should move our people to change, to reform and transform. This is entry 1-of-6, the first one; it introduces the thesis that “enough already”; we are past the time when we should have made these changes. Consider here, the full catalog of the series this month:

Long Train of Abuses: Enough Already – Colonialism Be Gone!
Long Train of Abuses: Overseas Masters – Cannot See Overseas
Long Train of Abuses: Religious Leadership in Government – Reconciling Trump
Long Train of Abuses: Religious Character in Society – Human Rights
Long Train of Abuses: Dutch Hypocrisy – Liberal Amsterdam vs Conservative Antilles
Long Train of Abuses: Puerto Rico – “Take the Heat” or “Get out of the Kitchen”

The Go Lean book, serving as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), asserts that Caribbean stakeholders must do the heavy-lifting to mitigate the societal defects, of which there are many. Our focus for Forging Change must consider both Top-Down and Bottoms-Up approaches. The purpose of the Go Lean roadmap is to optimize the economic, security and governing engines of Caribbean society, so there is a lot to consider.

There is not just One Stumbling Block that we must overcome; there are many. The purpose of this month’s Teaching Series is to focus on those Stumbling Blocks that have been aged for centuries here in our region. This is why we say, it is past time to reform and transform.

Enough already …

We must learn, as depicted in the opening of this commentary, that the structures of colonialism were not designed for our best interests, but rather the best interests of our colonizing host empires. So if we still maintain the same colonial structure that was instituted centuries ago, we are already behind in the race for the needed protection and prosperity in modern life.

Yes, we must finally Get Out of the abusive relationships that we have endured for such long times.

To the 18 (of 30) member-states that have a heritage of British colonialism – just 1 of the 5 – we have repeatedly warned to remove all vestiges of the Westminster ecosystem. It does not work! See this theme as it was presented in these previous blog-commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=21138	Brexit Manifestation: Not So Good for Britain or Colonies
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16317	When Queen ‘Elizabeth’ Dies … what’s next?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13993	First Steps – Following the ‘Dignified and Efficient’ British Model
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13579	Colonialism’s Bloody History Revisited – ‘Thor’ Movie
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12447	State of the Union: Deficient ‘Westminster System’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11420	‘Black British’ and still ‘Less Than’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9485	10 Things We Want from the UK and 10 Things We Do Not Want

Life imitating art …

… the Netflix TV Series “The Crown Season 4” featured the storyline of British Prime Minister (PM) Margaret Thatcher’s rise and fall.

Three episodes from the fourth season — “Favourites,” “Fagan” and “48:1” — strongly imply that [Queen] Elizabeth objected to Thatcher’s harsh government spending cuts and refusal to impose economic sanctions on South Africa’s apartheid regime. The show depicts the queen politely but firmly confronting the prime minister over these matters during private meetings and “audiences” at Buckingham Palace.

The drama from this TV Show dramatizes that PM Thatcher had a clear conflict of interest regarding South Africa, in that “her son was an investor in projects promoted and supported by the Apartheid South African government“. When the UK government (and many other international governments) were called on to impose economic sanctions against South Africa, the UK PM was the sole hold-out. See the series; consume it at your leisure. The performances are awe-inspiring; see this summary of one key character’s performances in this VIDEO here:

VIDEO – Best of Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher | The Crown – https://youtu.be/gZgqQsFvyMM

Netflix UK & Ireland
Posted Nov 25, 2020 – Best known for her sensational performances in The X Files, The Fall and Sex Education, Gillian Anderson plays Britain’s first female Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, in The Crown Season 4. Here are her best moments from the series. That voice though…

➡️SUBSCRIBE FOR MORE: http://bit.ly/29kBByr

About Netflix:
Netflix is the world’s leading streaming entertainment service with over 195 million paid memberships in over 190 countries enjoying TV series, documentaries and feature films across a wide variety of genres and languages. Members can watch as much as they want, anytime, anywhere, on any internet-connected screen. Members can play, pause and resume watching, all without adverts or commitments.

Find Netflix UK on:
➡️TWITTER: http://bit.ly/29lYvcs
➡️INSTAGRAM: http://bit.ly/29slD8O
➡️FACEBOOK: http://bit.ly/29mx00a

Or visit the Netflix WEBSITE: http://nflx.it/29BcWb5

Best of Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher | The Crown https://youtube.com/NetflixUK

In the 1980s, Elizabeth clashes with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher while Prince Charles enters a tumultuous marriage with Lady Diana Spencer.

This foregoing show is set in London. This city is the cradle of the British brand of democracy around the world, with the seat of government for Her Royal Highness, Queen Elizabeth II, the Head of State of the UK and the Head of the Commonwealth of Nations. So we in the Caribbean – whose population reflect a majority Black-and-Brown demographic, just like South Africa – need to add this historicity to the “Long Train of Abuses” in our orthodoxy. Thatcher’s refusal to endorse the tougher program of economic sanctions against Apartheid, as originally laid out by other Commonwealth leaders, is a direct “slap in the face” to our race of people.

Colonialism has been the source of many of our toxic environments. Enough already!

We can do bad all by ourselves; we do not need a toxic hegemony to impede our societal progress. We should never “love people that do not love us back”; nor sacrifice for people that will not sacrifice for us.

This is why we say: Enough already!

At one point, South Africa said “Enough Already”, as they shed their colonial shackles; they migrated to a Republic with a more representative constitution.

This is our urging for all Caribbean member-states of British heritage. But don’t get it twisted …

… the same issue is applicable for the other colonial legacies: American, Dutch, French and Spanish. While we cannot change the past, we do not have to be chained to it. This goal, as depicted in the Go Lean book, is to learn from the past, value our culture, but adapt our society for the challenges of the future. See this excerpt from the first page of the book:

Though a lot of the options the CU advocates were available to Caribbean member-states in the past, the reasons and rationales as to why they were not pursued is now of no consequence. We cannot ignore the past, as it defines who we are, but we do not wish to be shackled to the past either, for then, we miss the future. So we must learn from the past, our experiences and that of other states in similar situations, mount our feet solidly to the ground and then lean-in, to reach for new heights; forward, upward and onward.

Lean-in or adapt? A better way to state the action is to “reform and transform”.

This is how we change our world, after a long train of abuses, by feeling-saying-doing: “No; Stop; and Get Out”.

We hereby urge all stakeholders to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap; this is our plan to make our regional homeland a better place to live, work and play.

Yes, we can … 🙂

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

x. Whereas we are surrounded and allied to nations of larger proportions in land mass, populations, and treasuries, elements in their societies may have ill-intent in their pursuits, at the expense of the safety and security of our citizens. We must therefore appoint “new guards” to ensure our public safety and threats against our society, both domestic and foreign. The Federation must employ the latest advances and best practices … to assuage continuous threats against public safety.

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xxii. Whereas the heritage of our lands share the distinction of cultural tutelage from European and American imperialists that forged their tongues upon our consciousness, it is imperative to form a society that is neutral and tolerant of the mother tongue influences of our people to foster efficient and effective communications among our citizens.

xxiii. Whereas many countries in our region are dependent Overseas Territory of imperial powers, the systems of governance can be instituted on a regional and local basis, rather than requiring oversight or accountability from distant masters far removed from their subjects of administration. The Federation must facilitate success in autonomous rule by sharing tools, systems and teamwork within the geographical region.

xxiv. Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

—————

Appendix VIDEO – 50 Years to Leave Your Lover – https://youtu.be/K4xoHjNjxus

Simon & Garfunkel
Posted August 25, 2015 – “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” by Simon & Garfunkel from The Concert in Central Park

Lyrics:
“The problem is all inside your head”
She said to me
“The answer is easy if you
Take it logically
I’d like to help you in your struggle
To be free
There must be fifty ways
To leave your lover”

She said, “It’s really not my habit to intrude
Furthermore, I hope my meaning
Won’t be lost or misconstrued
But I’ll repeat myself
At the risk of being crude
There must be fifty ways
To leave your lover
Fifty ways to leave your lover”

You just slip out the back, Jack
Make a new plan, Stan
You don’t need to be coy, Roy
Just get yourself free
Hop on the bus, Gus
You don’t need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, Lee

And get yourself free

Ooh, slip out the back, Jack
Make a new plan, Stan
You don’t need to be coy, Roy
Just listen to me
Hop on the bus, Gus
You don’t need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, Lee
And get yourself free

She said, “It grieves me so
To see you in such pain
I wish there was something I could do
To make you smile again”
I said, “I appreciate that
And would you please explain
About the fifty ways?”
She said, “Why don’t we both
Just sleep on it tonight
And I believe in the morning
You’ll begin to see the light”
And then she kissed me
And I realized she probably was right
There must be fifty ways
To leave your lover
Fifty ways to leave your lover

You just slip out the back, Jack
Make a new plan, Stan
You don’t need to be coy, Roy
Just get yourself free
Hop on the bus, Gus
You don’t need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, Lee
And get yourself free
Slip out the back, Jack
Make a new plan, Stan
You don’t need to be coy, Roy
Just listen to me
Hop on the bus, Gus
You don’t need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, Lee
And get yourself free

#SimonAndGarfunkel #50WaystoLeaveYourLover #TheConcertInCentralPark

Music in this video

Song: 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover (Live at Central Park, New York, NY – September 19, 1981)
Artist: Simon & Garfunkel
Writers: Paul Simon
Licensed to YouTube by: SME (on behalf of Columbia); CMRRA, UNIAO BRASILEIRA DE EDITORAS DE MUSICA – UBEM, UMPG Publishing, BMI – Broadcast Music Inc., LatinAutorPerf, UMPI, LatinAutor – UMPG, and 9 Music Rights Societies

Share this post:

BOT, Civil Rights, Disaster, EU, Model, Power, Transform, UK

[Top]

When ‘Elizabeth’ Dies …

Posted on December 11, 2018 in Government, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

Long Live the Queen!

But at her ripe age of 94, the ‘long” part needs a realistic assessment. At some point, soon, that dreaded day will come, Queen Elizabeth II will die. This is an important consideration as she is the monarch of the United Kingdom and Head of State, Head of the Commonwealth for 18 of the 30 Caribbean member-states. So these entities and institutions need this consideration.

What will happen?
What should happen?
What change will this death bring to the Caribbean?
What change – the ideal – that should be considered?

The truth of the matter is that there is a formal comprehensive plan in London for this eventuality; (there should be one in the Caribbean as well). See the details of this British plan in this VIDEO here:

VIDEO – What Happens When The Queen Dies | Vanity Fair – https://youtu.be/v61JI6h423E

Vanity Fair
Published on Aug 16, 2018 – After nearly 66 years on the throne, Queen Elizabeth II is the longest reigning monarch in British history and has been a constant and calming force amidst the fast-paced changes their country has faced, making it even more inconceivable to think about what happens when she dies.
Since Buckingham Palace doesn’t shy away from procedure, it’s no surprise there’s already a comprehensive plan in place for what happens after she passes, known as Operation London Bridge. On the day Queen Elizabeth II dies, her death will elicit a comprehensive plan that has been in place since the 1960s. What will happen when Her Majesty’s reign comes to an end and how will Britain mourn the loss? Here is what we know so far.

Category: News & Politics

Now is the time to ask ourselves: should the British neo-colonial status continue? Is it time to consider a formal exit?

While there is love for the current British monarch – Queen Elizabeth – her death should be viewed as a checkpoint in our sovereignty considerations.

The British eco-system is not working for all non-British-Isles stakeholders; consider Brexit; this is a nationalistic expression of “Britain First”.

With that reality, could their be any hope for maintaining the status quo in the Overseas Territories?

It is London’s claim that “they” will sustain their commitments and priorities. See a related Press Release here:

Overseas Territories meet in London for annual Joint Ministerial Council
Lord Tariq Ahmad of Wimbledon, Foreign Office Minister of State for the Overseas Territories, hosted political leaders from UK Overseas Territories on 4-5 December 2018. The discussions covered a range of topics, including Brexit, trade and investment, financial services, safeguarding, disaster management and constitutional issues.

See the remaining of the article at the source here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/overseas-territories-meet-in-london-for-annual-joint-ministerial-council

Can we truly expect the UK Territories status quo to continue? This is a shocking concern, worthy of skepticism!

Wasn’t a similar commitment-promise made to the EU?

The movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean – available to download for free – asserts that it is past-time for the Caribbean member-states to “throw off the shackles of colonialism” – whichever European power – we must now reform and transform our society to better deliver, ourselves, for the future for our citizens.

No more parasitical dependence! We must be protégés rather than parasites.

But, these European territories (colonies) in our region are too small to effect change alone; therefore there is the need to convene, collaborate and confederate as regional neighbors. Of the total (30 member-states), there are 18 that reflect some British neo-colonial stance (overseas territory or commonwealth member). In addition there are 6 direct territories (Aruba and the 5 formerly branded Netherlands Antilles) with active governance from the Kingdom of the Netherlands, 4 embedded in the Republic of France, and 2 American territories.

Some of these lands are small territories, i.e. Anguilla, Montserrat and St. Barthélemy have less than 10,000 people in each island. Rather than these standing alone as a small island, these territories need to stand united with their regional brothers. Yes, the Go Lean book stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit – for all 30 member-states. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 13):

viii. Whereas the population size is too small to foster good negotiations for products and commodities from international vendors, the Federation must allow the unification of the region as one purchasing agent, thereby garnering better terms and discounts.

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xxiii. Whereas many countries in our region are dependent Overseas Territory of imperial powers, the systems of governance can be instituted on a regional and local basis, rather than requiring oversight or accountability from distant masters far removed from their subjects of administration. The Federation must facilitate success in autonomous rule by sharing tools, systems and teamwork within the geographical region.

The proposed regional pursuit is a new confederation, the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of this technocratic CU Trade Federation, for the elevation of Caribbean society – for all member-states. This CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion and create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

It is the urging here that upon the death of Queen Elizabeth II, the 12 British Commonwealth countries should exit the commonwealth – its a voluntary club with no benefits; security is enforced by NATO, not the Commonwealth. Plus too, the 6 British Overseas Territories should petition for full membership in this new CU Trade Federation. The Go Lean book opens with this explanation (Page 4):

There is no expectation of sovereignty with this entity, so a commitment to the goals and aspirations of this Federation must be voluntary. The member-states of the region must therefore lean-in, to embrace the values, hopes and dreams of an integrated brotherhood of neighbors.

The book proceeds to detail the following definitions and developments for Caribbean sovereignty:

Go Lean Strategy
The Caribbean Union is not envisioned to be a sovereign “unified” state, but rather a Trade Federation, a proxy entity similar to a confederacy, a champion to “wage battle” on behalf of its member-nation-states. – Page 45
Fostering a Technocracy
The Caribbean Union is a non-sovereign union, of which the right to rule remains with the member-states, in whatever constitutionality at the time of the CU accedence: Republic, Commonwealth, Department (French), Collectivity (French) Constituent Country (Netherlands) or Overseas Territory (USA and UK). The CU is therefore a confederation, a ”service provider”, acting on before and with the authority of the member-states. – Page 63
Caribbean Supreme Court
With sovereignty not tied to the CU, there can also be the technical challenges as to whether the Caribbean Supreme is the final escalation of the judicial process. Consider an example of a case in Guadeloupe, a French Overseas Territory, a plaintiff may feel that the French courts maintain jurisdiction. A few test cases like this, early in the CU history should establish the precedence. – Page 90
Autonomous Rule for Territories
The CU treaty includes the American, British, Dutch and French Overseas…. Though the legacy powers are among the world’s biggest economies, such prosperity has not always extended [here]. The CU only seeks autonomous rule from their legacies, not sovereignty, and receivership status in the case of any financial insolvency. – Page 120
Confederation Without Sovereignty
The CU is only a trade and security bloc, so the sovereignty of island nations remains with its current possessors. So Puerto Rico remains with the US; the Caymans with the UK; Curacao with the Netherlands; Guadeloupe with France, etc. Yet there are still severe consequences for violating the mandates of the CU, that of economic sanctions. When a country’s currency is maintained by the regional bloc, they are less inclined to egregiously work against their best interest. (This is the EU model). For Cuba, a Communist country, their political structure remains their choice, as the CU is only the technocratic and economic engine that does their trade bidding. – Page 127
Ways to Model the EU
The EU region has quite an ignoble history of contending with differences, spurning 2 World Wars in the last century. Yet they came together to unite and integrate to make Europe a better place to live, work and play. Just like the EU, the CU will not possess sovereignty; this feature remains with each member-state. – Page 130
White Paper [Excerpt]: “Towards A CariCom Parliament”
The Caribbean … difficulty in establishing a common Parliament has to do with leadership. Because of their history as slave and indentured societies, it has been suggested that the leaders in the Caribbean were reluctant to transfer authority and cede their sovereign status. While these factors are no doubt valid, the paper argued that the major problem in the Caribbean may be the absence of a well- thought out federal political arrangement and the inability by the various countries to articulate clearly defined procedures and practices. …
This paper concluded that given the global imperatives, the countries of the Commonwealth Caribbean must re-examine their options and perhaps extend CariCom to that of a CariCom Parliament. – Page 167
Economic Sanctions and Penalties
Since the CU does not have sovereignty, the only legal response is sanctions for state governments not complying with CU mandates. The “death penalty” would be a Failed-State designation. The CU is the designated receiver/trustee. – Page 168
Spanish Integration
The CU allows the reunification of Spanish Caribbean (PR, Cuba, DR) to one economic market, a reversal of European Imperialism of the 19th Century. There are no sovereignty issues with the CU…, so the neighbors get to integrate and scale with no political disparity. This is a lesson learned from the Samoa Islands experience. – Page 244
Ways to Impact British Territories
The CU will allow for the unification of the region into one market, thereby creating a single economy of 30 member-states for 42 million people with the scale to effect change; the CU does not involve sovereignty. The treaty includes the British Overseas Territories of Anguilla, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Montserrat, Turks & Caicos and the Virgin Islands. Though the UK is one of the biggest (richest) economies, British economic prosperity has not always extended to these islands; many chose to just emigrate there. – Page 245

The Queen of England, Elizabeth II, does help to run the governments of England, Great Britain, United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. She serves as the Head of State and asks the political parties in the individual countries to form a government in her name. The theme of this style of governance – Westminster – has been detailed in previous blog-commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13993	First Steps – Following the ‘Dignified and Efficient’ British Model The British model for governance – where Queen Elizabeth II is the Head of State – strives to provide the dual functions of “the Dignified and the Efficient”. There are lessons to learned regards the strengths and weaknesses of this scheme.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12447	State of the Union: Deficient ‘Westminster System’ The Westminster structure of governance is not as efficient as we need for a new Caribbean. What are the defects and how do we fix our governance?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11420	‘Black British’ and ‘Less Than’ Any appeal of the British eco-system must be rebutted with the reality of life in the UK for the Caribbean’s Black-and-Brown. Racial supremacy and discrimination is still a concern. Our people are still considered “Less Than” there.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9485	10 Things We Want from the UK and 10 Things We Do Not Want There is a “give and take” relationship between the Caribbean and the United Kingdom. They have given a lot to the Caribbean over the centuries: systems of commerce, systems of governance, education, language, art and culture. They also gave things we do not want: racism, mercantilism, global war, etc.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4840	Jamaican Poll: ‘Bring back the British!’ The island-nation of Jamaica requested and was granted independence from the UK in 1962. Now those days before independence seem now to be nostalgic for many older Jamaicans. They long for a simpler time: with more economic prosperity, more jobs, more security (less crime), and more governing efficiency.
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1683	British public sector workers strike over ‘poverty pay’ For many of the Caribbean Diaspora that fled to England over the decades, the only employment option were with government agencies; this was due the blatant racism in the private society. But even those jobs were less than adequate with their poverty-level pay scales.

The death of Queen Elizabeth II will be an end of an era and a sad day …

… but it does not have to be the end or our actuality; it could be a new beginning …

… for a new rebooted Anglo-Caribbean region.

Yet, still the end of Queen Elizabeth should equal the end of the Anglo-Caribbean and the start of the Unified Caribbean.

London has a plan in place for that dreaded day. The Caribbean has this plan here-in. This plan is for more than just post-Elizabeth, it is for a bright Caribbean future. One in which we can make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the free e-book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

Share this post:

Model, UK

[Top]

‘Time to Go’ – Windrush: 70th Anniversary Today – ENCORE

Posted on June 22, 2018 in Ethos, Government, Social

On 22 June 1948, the ship HMT Empire Windrush brought a group of 802 migrants to the port of Tilbury, near London, England. – Wikipedia

Thus started the drain!

The Brain Drain that is. What started as a “drip has now turned into a drizzle”. After 70 years exactly, the jury is now in. The verdict is emphatic:

Time to Go!

“Frankly, the Caribbean Diaspora … can now do better at home … in the Caribbean.” – This was the assertion from this previous blog-commentary from July 10, 2014. Today, on the 70th anniversary of the Windrush landing with its African Caribbean arrivals; it is time now to Encore that submission – see below.

African Caribbean people may not be so welcomed in the British Isles right now, anyway. See the latest on the Windrush Controversy in the Appendix VIDEO below.

This Encore continues a series from 2016, with these entries:

Now, we consider 5 new entries along that same theme; they are identified as follows:

Time to Go: Windrush – 70th Anniversary
Time to Go: Mandatory Guns – Say it Ain’t So
Time to Go: Racist History of Loitering
Time to Go: Blacks Get Longer Sentences From ‘Republican’ Judges
Time to Go: States must have Population Increases

All of these commentaries relate to the Caribbean Diaspora’s disposition in foreign lands, asserting that it is Time to Go … home! See that Encore now:

———————

Go Lean Commentary – British public sector workers strike over ‘poverty pay’

The grass is not greener on the other side.

Go from being a big fish in small pond, to small fish in big pond.

These expressions are relevant in considering the fate of so many Caribbean Diaspora that had fled their Caribbean homelands over the past decades to take residence in Great Britain. Many of them sought refuge as career civil servants; (one reason ^[a] was the acute racism and intolerance encountered in private enterprises). These ones are faced with the harsh reality that pay scales in the public sector have not kept pace with inflation; they are now at poverty level. See the news article here:

By: Tess Little (Editing by Stephen Addison)

LONDON (Reuters) – Hundreds of thousands of public sector workers including teachers, council workers and firefighters staged a 24-hour pay strike on Thursday in a stoppage that has prompted Prime Minister David Cameron to pledge a crackdown on union powers.

Protesters marched through the streets of many of Britain’s main cities in one of the biggest co-ordinated labour stoppages for three years.

Denouncing what they called “poverty pay,” they demanded an end to restrictions on wage rises that have been imposed by the government over the past four years in an effort to help reduce Britain’s huge budget deficit.

In London, demonstrators marched towards Trafalgar Square at midday, chanting “Low pay, no way, no slave labour” to the beat of a drum. A giant pair of inflatable scissors, carried by members of the National Union of Teachers (NUT), read “Education cuts never heal.”

Firefighter Simon Amos, 47, marched wearing his uniform behind a flashing fire engine parading members of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU). “The government [is] making us pay more for our pension for it to be worth the same, and making us work longer,” he said.

The biggest public sector union involved, Unison, said early reports showed the strike had led to 3,225 school closures with more than 1,000 others partially closed.

Refuse collectors, school support staff, cleaners, street sweepers, care workers, nursery assistants and social workers were joining the strike, it added.

Hot spots, it said, included the North East, Wales and East Midlands where most council offices had closed, while more than 60 picket lines have closed most services in Newcastle.

“It is a massive decision by local government and school support workers to sacrifice a day’s pay by going on strike, but today they are saying enough is enough,” said Unison General Secretary, Dave Prentis in a statement.

Britain’s coalition government has enforced a policy of pay restraint for public sector workers since coming to power in 2010, imposing a pay freeze until 2012 and then a one percent pay rise cap, resulting in a fall in income in real terms [compared to inflation].

The Cabinet Office played down the impact of the strike, saying that most schools in England and Wales were open and that fire services were operating throughout the country.

On Wednesday, Cameron told parliament he planned to limit unions’ powers to call strikes.

“How can it possibly be right for our children’s education to be disrupted by trade unions acting in this way” he said.

Tough new laws would be proposed in the Conservative manifesto for next year’s general election, he added.

These would include the introduction of a minimum threshold in the number of union members who need to take part in a strike ballot for it to be legal.

The manifesto could also back the introduction of a time limit on how long a vote in favour of industrial action would remain valid.

The NUT mandate for Thursday’s strike, for example, came from a 2012 strike ballot based on a turnout of just 27 percent, Cameron said.

The issue of minimum voting thresholds last arose three months ago when a strike by London Underground train drivers caused huge disruption in the capital, prompting Mayor Boris Johnson to demand that at least half of a union’s members should vote in favour for a strike to go ahead.
Source: Reuters News Service; retrieved 07/10/2014 from: http://news.yahoo.com/public-sector-workers-strike-over-poverty-pay-105040672.html

Frankly, the Caribbean Diaspora employed in the British public sector can now do better at home … in the Caribbean.

This is the assertion of the book Go Lean…Caribbean. That once the proposed empowerments are put in place, the Caribbean Diaspora should consider repatriating to their ancestral homelands.

Unfortunately for the Caribbean, this societal abandonment has continued, since the early days of the “Windrush Generation”^[a] right up to now. In a recent blog post, this commentary related analysis by the Inter-American Development Bank that the Caribbean endures a brain drain of 70% among the college educated population; (https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1433).

Change has now come to the Caribbean.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This roadmap will spearhead the elevation of Caribbean society. The prime directives of the CU are presented as the following 3 statements:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy & create 2.2 million new jobs at home.
Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The book posits that the improved conditions projected over the 5 years of the roadmap will neutralize the impetus for Caribbean citizens to flee, identified as “push and pull” factors. This point is stressed early in the book (Page 13) in the following pronouncements in the opening Declaration of Interdependence:

xix. Whereas our legacy in recent times is one of societal abandonment, it is imperative that incentives and encouragement be put in place to first dissuade the human flight, and then entice and welcome the return of our Diaspora back to our shores. This repatriation should be effected with the appropriate guards so as not to imperil the lives and securities of the repatriated citizens or the communities they inhabit. The right of repatriation is to be extended to any natural born citizens despite any previous naturalization to foreign sovereignties.

xx. Whereas the results of our decades of migration created a vibrant Diaspora in foreign lands, the Federation must organize interactions with this population into structured markets. Thus allowing foreign consumption of domestic products, services and media, which is a positive trade impact. These economic activities must not be exploited by others’ profiteering but rather harnessed by Federation resources for efficient repatriations.

This foregoing article highlights other issues that have been prominently addressed in the Go Lean book, namely that of the Civil Service and Labor Relations. There is the need for a professional staff in the Federal Civil Service. They require marketable benefits and compensation. There is also a role for Labor Unions to play in the elevation of Caribbean society. The Go Lean roadmap envisions an inclusionary attitude towards unions. The Go Lean community ethos is that of being partners with unions, not competitors. The book features specific tools and techniques that can enhance management-labor relationships.

These issues constitute heavy-lifting for the regional administration of the Caribbean:

fostering best practices for federal civil service and labor unions,
minimizing the brain drain, and
facilitating repatriation to the homeland.

These issues cannot be glossed over or handled lightly; this is why the Go Lean book contains 370 pages of finite details for managing change in the region. The book contains the following sample of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to impact the Caribbean homeland:

Community Ethos – Economic Systems Influence Choices & Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – The Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Job Multiplier	Page 22
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Negotiations	Page 32
Strategy – Competition – Remain home –vs- Emigrate	Page 49
Strategy – Agents of Change – Aging Diaspora	Page 57
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Versus Member-States Governments	Page 71
Implementation – Year 1 / Assemble Phase – Establish Civil Service	Page 96
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Implementation – Trade Mission Objectives	Page 116
Implementation – Reasons to Repatriate	Page 118
Anecdote – Experiences of a Repatriated Resident	Page 126
Planning – 10 Big Ideas for the Caribbean Region	Page 127
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Labor Unions	Page 164
Advocacy – Ways to Manage Federal Civil Service	Page 173
Anecdote – Experiences of Diaspora Member Living Abroad	Page 216
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the Diaspora	Page 217

The Go Lean roadmap has simple motives: fix the problems in the homeland to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work, learn and play. There should be no need to go abroad and try to foster an existence in a foreign land. So for those of Caribbean heritage working in the British Civil Service, we hear your pleas. Our response: Come home; come in from the cold.

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people residing in the homeland and those of the Diaspora, to lean-in for the empowerments described in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. This Big Idea for the region is a dramatic change; one that is overdue. The policies & practices of the past have failed Caribbean society. Too many people left, yet have little to show for it.

Caribbean music icon Bob Marley advocated this same charter for the Caribbean Diaspora. He sang to “come in from the cold” in the opening song of his last album Uprisings in 1980. How “spot-on’ were his words in the following music/video:

Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

———————

Appendix – Cited Reference
a: “There was plenty of work in post-war Britain and industries such as British Rail, the National Health Service and public transport recruited almost exclusively from Jamaica and Barbados”. Retrieved July 10, 2014 from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_African-Caribbean_people#The_.22Windrush_generation.22

——————–

Appendix VIDEO – How will the UK solve the Windrush controversy? | Inside Story – https://youtu.be/GYUag4XYhFo

Al Jazeera English

Published on Apr 17, 2018 – They are called the “Windrush generation”. That is a refefence to the ship, the Empire Windrush, that carried the first wave of immigrants from the West Indies to Britain in 1948. Many arrvied as children on their parents’ passports – and have lived in the UK for over 70 years, paying taxes and insurance, but never formally becoming British Citizens. Now, as the government tightens its immigration rules, those without the proper documents are being denied services and could even face deportation. Some are calling it ‘cruel and inhumane’ treatment. The government has apologised and it’s promsing an investigation. But will that be enough?
Presenter: Peter Dobbie Guests Sally Daghlian – CEO of Praxis, an organisation that provides assistance to people affected by the Windrush controversy. Clive Foster – member of the Nottingham Citizens Group.

Category: Shows

License: Standard YouTube License

Share this post:

Civil Rights, Diaspora, UK

[Top]

Remembering Manchester and learning ‘How to Get Better Security’ – ENCORE

Posted on May 22, 2018 in Government, Implementation

There was another school shooting in the US, this time in Santa Fe, Texas near Houston. This was on Friday May 18, 2018. Then on Saturday (May 19), there was a shooting in the Greater Atlanta, Georgia area, at a High School graduation. So this too counted as a school shooting since it was a school extra-curricular activity.

In the meanwhile, today is May 22 and we are remembering that on this day a year ago, there was a mass shooting “across the pond” in Manchester, England …

They are having memorials in England today; see the full story here.

… that one incident, just like the American events this past week, are all expressions of modern day terrorism. To satisfy any Social Contract, where “citizens surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the State in exchange for protection of remaining natural and legal rights”, community leaders must be “on guard” for domestic and foreign threats like these.

Our lives … and livelihoods depend on it.

This is a good time to remember Manchester and Encore the lessons learned from that experience on how we can better protect the societal engines in the Caribbean. See the previous blog-commentary here:

—————-

Go Lean Commentary – Want Better Security – Must Love Dogs

So you want to secure your homeland against terror and other threats? Here’s a key requirement:

‘Must Love Dogs’

This is so true; man’s best friend can also be our best partner for mitigating threats of terroristic acts in public places. This is common sense … now that we have seen how devious the terrorists can be, exploiting soft targets right outside any hard target zones.

This is a fresh concern as there was a terrorist attack at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England last night (May 22, 2017). The attacker was an ISIS-backed suicide bomber who positioned himself among the exiting concert-goers for a show at the Arena. (The artist is American teen pop-sensation Ariana Grande, a fan-favorite among teenage girls and boys). He detonated his “Improvised Explosive Device” (IED) right outside the security zone while people were exiting to leave. So far, the death toll is 22, with 59 injuries. See full details on the story, aftermath and investigation here:

ISIS Claims Responsibility for Manchester Concert Attack; 22 Dead

Manchester Arena – Situation Normal

Manchester Arena – Monday Night May 22, 2017

Expect more revelations of the motives and bitter consequences of this attack against “innocence”.

This is a matter of serious concern for planners of a new Caribbean. This is Terrorism 101; this is affecting the whole world and our world. Though this attack was far away from the Caribbean islands, it was not far away from Caribbean people, as related in a previous blog-commentary from the promoters of the book Go Lean…Caribbean, there is a large Caribbean Diaspora in Manchester.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean – available to download for free – serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), for the elevation of Caribbean society – for all member-states. The book asserts that the needed security apparatus to better defend against the modern threats of terrorism is too much for any one Caribbean member-state alone. There must be a regional integrated and confederated solution. This CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy and create new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

The book stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 13):

x. Whereas we are surrounded and allied to nations of larger proportions in land mass, populations, and treasuries, elements in their societies may have ill-intent in their pursuits, at the expense of the safety and security of our citizens. We must therefore appoint “new guards” to ensure our public safety and threats against our society, both domestic and foreign. The Federation must employ the latest advances and best practices of criminology and penology to assuage continuous threats against public safety. …

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes … can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.

Is there anything more that could have been done to prevent this Manchester Terrorist Attack? Let the post-trauma analysis begin! For one, the planners of the new Caribbean security apparatus have always presented this ingredient to the recipe for security success:

Must love dogs!

In a previous blog-commentary, it was related how specially-trained canines can help to better secure the Caribbean homeland. Consider this quotation:

The subject of animals and animal companionship is also pivotal in the roadmap for elevating Caribbean society, especially for the security engines. The Go Lean book posits (Page 185) that better command of Animal Husbandry can facilitate better security around the region’s economic engines. Dogs feel a lot less intrusive and less intimidating than formal security screening, or personnel patrolling with AK47 automatic rifles. Imagine a beautiful Caribbean beach scene with a plain clothes “officer” walking along with specialty dogs, or more exactly:

Drug Sniffing Dogs

Bomb Sniffing Dogs

Service/Therapy Dogs

This is one implementation that could have been deployed to mitigate the terrorism threat in Manchester … and everyday here in the Caribbean. Yes, this is in hindsight; this is “Monday Morning Quarterbacking“. This is not fair to the 22 lives lost in Manchester, but this is most importantly a pledge, not to let those lives die in vain. Let’s apply the lessons-learned.

This implementation with service dogs is just one “how”. The Go Lean book provides 370-pages of turn-by-turn instructions on “how” to adopt new community ethos, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute so as to better ensure homeland security in the Caribbean region.

Consider this one chapter (and Case Study) … where the Go Lean book fully detailed the advocacy of Animal Husbandry; see these headlines from Page 185:

Case Study: Trikos K9 Warriors
When the bombs went off at the Boston Marathon [in April 2013], highly trained dogs were rushed to the scene to search for more explosives. Boston Police have said dogs swept the streets in the morning and a second time just an hour before the first marathoners crossed the finish line. It’s considered likely that the bombers planted their devices well after the dogs finished sweeping the area. Since 9/11, dogs have been used more than ever because nothing has proven more effective against hidden bombs than the nose of a working dog. The best of them serve with U.S. Special Operations, so much of what they do is classified, but by looking at the trainers, Trikos K9 Warriors (www.trikos.com) – on a 20-acre ranch in rural Cooper, Texas – one gets a rare glimpse inside the secretive world of these elite dogs. Most of them are from one breed, Belgian Malinois.
Dogs and their handlers work as a team, train as a team, and they go through so much together their bond is as strong as a band of brothers. In Afghanistan, they led their units and protected them in battlefields littered with hidden bombs. Per former Navy SEAL and Trikos Founder Mike Ritland: “same thing that they do for [the troops] overseas, detect explosives, they can do on American streets; plus they can run faster than 30 miles an hour so they can help take down suspects”.
See Appendix below for VIDEO from CBS News Magazine “60 Minutes”.

10 Ways to Improve Animal Husbandry

1	Lean-in for Caribbean Integration The CU treaty allows for the unification of the region into one market, thereby impaneling a federal layer for oversight of the economy and security of the 30 member-states and 42 million people. One CU mission is to facilitate better security around the region’s economic engines. Another mission is to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. In considering the needs of the 42-million population, there must be some consideration for their animals. Beyond the CU overseeing food-supply regulations and spearheading the security benefits of employing specially trained service animals, the CU will spur philanthropy for more animal husbandry efforts, such as foundations advocating Spay/Neuter goals for dogs/cats. Lastly, the CU will coalesce with local authorities to ensure “dog parks” in urban/suburban areas.
2	Plantations for Bomb Sniffing Dogs The CU assumes the responsibility to assuage systemic risks and economic crimes. This includes marshaling defensive support for events/festivals, against terrorism and cross border gangs. The US model of Trikos K9 Warriors will be adopted with Belgian Malinois dogs, to breed them on plantations and train them to detect and interdict explosives.
3	Cadaver Dogs / Drug Sniffing Dogs / Drug Sniffing Pigs The CU will install plantations for dogs and pigs (Vietnamese Potbellies are especially acute) to train them to detect drugs/contraband and cadavers. The CU will maintain animals on-the-ready for acquisition by local and federal police.
4	Police K9 Units Each member-state may currently have a platoon of K9 police dogs, but their average service life is less than 10 years. So there is always a constant need for service animals. These needs will henceforth be fulfilled locally within the region.
5	Horses for Mounted Police Many polices forces have a Mounted Police Squad. These are especially critical for patrols at events and crowded locales. The CU will facilitate the acquisition and training of horses for the region’s Mounted Police units. These breeding and training plantations are ideal for rural area development, thus spurning an economic benefit.
6	Water Focus – Seals and Dolphins Service animals are not only the land variety. There are aquatic mammals as well: seals and dolphins. These species are excellent for securing maritime and naval operations – the CU are all islands and coastal states. The best practice is to mount mobile cameras on these mammals and have them patrol a specified grid. The economies of scale of the CU will allow for the deployment of these creative solutions while any one member-state alone cannot justify the investment. These deployments should not be secretive, but rather exposed to local/foreign media for image promotion.
7	Service Dogs for the Blind / Disabled – Domestic and Tourists
8	Comfort Animals for Therapies and Treatment
9	Bio-Medical Farms (Pigs, Baboons)
10	Agricultural Considerations – Animals for Foods

The Go Lean movement (book and preceding blog-commentaries) relate that security is not automatic, innate nor natural – Freedom is not Free. There is heavy-lifting involved in protecting the homeland for Caribbean stakeholders: residents and visitors. This point was detailed in these previous blog-commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11332	Boston Bombing Anniversary – Learning Lessons
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10959	See Something, Say Something … Do Something
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10566	Funding the Caribbean Security Pact
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10222	Waging a Successful War on Terrorism
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9072	Securing the Homeland – On the Ground
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6103	Sum of All Fears – ‘On Guard’ Against Deadly Threats
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5307	8th Violent Crime Warning to Bahamas Tourists
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5002	Managing a ‘Clear and Present Danger’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1965	America’s Navy – 100 Percent – Model for Caribbean Regional Security
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1832	American Drug-arrested inmates to be deported – Look-out Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1554	Status of Forces Agreement for Regional Security Pact
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1487	Here come the Drones … and the Concerns
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=392	Jamaica received World Bank funds to help in crime fight

The quest of the Go Lean roadmap is to make the Caribbean homeland, a better place to live, work and play. This means measurable reduction (mitigating and remediation) of crime, interpersonal violence and systemic threats in the region. The Go Lean book presents a regional solution to remediate and mitigate crime and terrorism in the Caribbean, featuring details of strategies, tactics and implementations designed based on best-practices from around the world. The book’s vision is quite simple:

If we fail to plan, then we plan to fail.

The premise in the Go Lean book is that “bad actors” will always emerge, from internal and external origins. We must be prepared and on-guard to defend our homeland against all threats, foreign and domestic, including terrorism and interpersonal violence. Plus, we must accomplish this goal with maximum transparency, accountability, and commitment to due-process and the rule-of-law. Thusly, there is a place for many tools and techniques, think: closed-circuit TV (CCTV), dashboard and body cameras.

The title on this commentary – ‘Must Love Dogs’ – puns the title of the 2005 Movie of the same name. That movie was not about Terrorism nor about dogs. (It was about a couple who met through an internet dating site that matched their dog-loving profiles).

See a review of the movie here: http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/must-love-dogs-2005.

Yes, we can – with our “love for dogs” – make our homeland a better-safer place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

—————

Appendix VIDEO – Sniffing Out Bombs: America’s most elite dogs – https://youtu.be/FsnPAQ137fY

Published on Apr 21, 2013 – Lara Logan gets a rare look into the secretive world of working dogs — some of whose capabilities are military secrets — and their handlers.

Category: News & Politics
License: Standard YouTube License

Share this post:

Events, Model, Security, Terrorism, UK

[Top]

First Steps – Following the ‘Dignified and Efficient’ British Model

Posted on January 19, 2018 in Government, Implementation

Go Lean Commentary

Of the 30 member-states that constitute the Caribbean, the highest count of the 4 language groups is English – 18 territories. The British eco-system assimilated these 18 lands with the English language, culture, commerce and systems of governance.

This commentary is Part 2 of a 6-part series from the movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean in consideration of the First Steps for instituting a new regime in governance for the Caribbean homeland. The other commentaries in the series are cataloged as follows:

First Steps: EU – Free European Money – To Start at Top
First Steps: UK – Dignified and Efficient
First Steps: US – Congressional Interstate Compacts – No Vote; No Voice
First Steps: CariCom – One-Man-One-Vote Defects
First Steps: Deputize ‘Me’!
First Steps: A Powerful C.P.U.

All of these commentaries relate to “how” the Caribbean can finally get started with adapting the organizational structures to optimize the region’s societal engines. This is the consideration of leading from the Top. This would apply to the Anglophone Caribbean, who all operate on constitutional structures based on the English Constitution or Westminster. But there are lessons for all the Caribbean, as we can glean how the Go Lean roadmap can reform and transform the Caribbean member-states so that they can be better places to live, work and play.

So looking at the British model for governance – where Queen Elizabeth II is the Head of State – means considering the concepts of “the Dignified and the Efficient”, as defined in the book The English Constitution by Walter Bagehot:

What was crucial, he [(Bagehot)] insisted, was to understand the difference between the ‘dignified parts’ of the constitution and the ‘efficient parts’ (admitting that they were not ‘separable with microscopic accuracy’). The former ‘excite and preserve the reverence of the population’, the latter are ‘those by which it, in fact, works and rules’.

England had a ‘double set’ of institutions – the dignified ones ‘impress the many’ while the efficient ones ‘govern the many’. The dignified or ‘theatrical’ parts of the system played the essential role of winning and sustaining the loyalty and confidence of the mass of ordinary people whose political capacities were minimal or non-existent they helped the state to gain authority and legitimacy, which the efficient institutions could then use. Bagehot was an unashamed elitist who believed bleakly that the ‘lower orders’ and the ‘middle orders’ were ‘narrow-minded, unintelligent, incurious’. Throughout The English Constitution, there are references to ‘the coarse, dull, contracted multitude’, ‘the poor and stupid’, ‘the vacant many’, ‘the clownish mass’.

The dignified parts of the constitution were complicated, imposing, old and venerable; but the efficient parts were simple and modern. The ‘efficient secret’ at the heart of it all was ‘the close union’ and ‘nearly complete fusion’ of executive and legislative powers in the Cabinet – the ‘board of control’ which rules the nation. ‘The use of the Queen, in a dignified capacity, is incalculable’, opened the chapters of the book dealing with the monarchy. It acted as a ‘disguise’ and strengthened the government through its combination of mystique and pageantry. He famously summed up the monarch’s role as involving ‘the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn’. – Source.

Under the British system, there is a lot of pomp-and-pageantry – theatrics. This is the sphere of the monarchy, as the Royal Family performs all the ceremonial functionality – think: launching ships, grand openings, receiving ambassadors, etc.. The government – Cabinet, Prime Minister’s Office, etc. – on the other hand perform the governing efficiency – there is a separation-of-powers between “the Dignified and the Efficient”. There is advantage to a structure of delivery specialization; it allows for laser-focus and minimal distractions. This is the beauty of a technocracy.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean – available to download for free – serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), for the elevation of Caribbean society – for all member-states. The book (Page 64) cited the model of monarchies in the design of this Trade Federation:

Model of Constitutional Monarchy
Despite hundreds of years of government evolutions with the Republic system, there are still many modern democracies that maintain constitutional monarchies (i.e. UK, Netherlands, Spain & Canada). Their preference is justified in the logic where a President may only be respected by his party. Rather, a technocratic monarch (King or Queen) must transcend party politics and rule for the betterment of all subjects. (Queen Elizabeth II has ruled for 60 years out of a sense of duty).

A political climate is simply inescapable, with classic democracies – see the VIDEO on the Queen wielding apolitical power in the Appendix below. The goal of the Go Lean/CU roadmap is simply to govern better, to be …

… Apolitical – Loved by All
Partisan politics can lead to scenarios where politicians refuse to execute their constitutional mandates; just out of spite of each other …. Even worst, when political sides are so polarized, dreaded consequences can ensue, like civil wars (think: US conflict over slavery in 1860). A technocracy seeks a better governing system, one in which the administration is apolitical and therefore the potential to be loved by all; or equally despised by all (think: Greek Austerity in 2012). Thus, technocracies are more patriotic than political.

Considering “Dignified” versus “Efficient”, there is no “dignified” role with the CU structure, just apolitical efficiency. The pomp-and-pageantry remains with the member-states. Overall, this Go Lean/CU roadmap seeks to deliver on just one efficient charter, to elevate Caribbean society; this is expressed as a prime directives, with these 3 statements:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion and create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines, including our own separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies. Any existence of Dignified would be found at member-states; the CU is only efficient.

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes … can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.

xxiii. Whereas many countries in our region are dependent Overseas Territory of imperial powers, the systems of governance can be instituted on a regional and local basis, rather than requiring oversight or accountability from distant masters far removed from their subjects of administration. The Federation must facilitate success in autonomous rule by sharing tools, systems and teamwork within the geographical region.

xxiv. Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.

Reforming and transforming the Caribbean member-states means including the governing stakeholders for all Anglophone territories. Of the 18, 17 require some interaction with the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office – see Appendix below – to enact new laws; (Trinidad & Tobago is now a Republic). Imagine the challenge of this UK Commonwealth Office … now … and over the last 5 decades. They have had to manage both the “Dignified” and the “Efficient” for all the British territories in the Caribbean and watch one territory after another pursue independence.

Note: Governor Generals in the independent countries, despite the official job descriptions of representing the Head of State – The Queen – do not actually report directly to the Queen, but rather to this UK Commonwealth Office. See this functionality of the UK Commonwealth outreach in this Press Release here:

Press Release: PM to call for revitalised Commonwealth at reception ahead of 2018 Heads of Government Meeting

Posted 19 September 2017 – From: Prime Minister’s Office, 10 Downing Street and The Rt Hon Theresa May MP

The Prime Minister will co-host a reception for Commonwealth leaders tonight in the margins of the UN General Assembly in New York where she will set out the need for a wholesale revitalisation of the Commonwealth if it is to thrive and serve its 2.4 billion citizens into the 21st century.

She will also launch the theme for the 2018 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting – Towards a Common Future – and set out the four main goals for the summit, due to be held in the UK next spring:

prosperity: boosting intra-Commonwealth trade and investment

security: increasing cooperation across security challenges including global terrorism, organised crime and cyber attacks

fairness: promoting democracy, fundamental freedoms and good governance across the Commonwealth

sustainability: building the resilience of small and vulnerable states to deal with the effects of climate change and other global crises

The biggest meeting of Heads of Government the UK has ever hosted, the summit will take place in iconic venues in London and Windsor including Buckingham Palace, St James’s Palace and Windsor Castle from 16-20 April 2018. It will bring together up to 52 Commonwealth leaders, up to 52 Foreign Ministers and thousands of people from across business and civil society, representing the Commonwealth’s vibrant and diverse global network.

Also speaking at the reception will be co-host Prime Minister Muscat of Malta as the current Commonwealth chair, the Commonwealth Secretary-General, and youth representatives drawn from across the Commonwealth who will help to deliver the Commonwealth Youth Forum at next year’s summit.

In her speech, the Prime Minister will outline the need for the Commonwealth to have a clearer purpose, and be better able to address the global challenges we face. With 60% of its population under 30, she will also talk about the need for the Commonwealth to respond to the concerns and priorities of its young people.

Speaking ahead of the reception, the Prime Minister said:

As the world changes, so must the Commonwealth if it is to rise to the new challenges that the 21st century presents. It is the responsibility of all members to ensure we are working together towards a common future that will meet the needs of all our peoples, particularly our youth. I look forward to this unique organisation coming together at next year’s Heads of Government Meeting to pursue an ambitious agenda for a more prosperous, secure, fair and sustainable future for everyone.

Source: Retrieved January 18, 2018 from: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pm-to-call-for-revitalised-commonwealth-at-reception-ahead-of-2018-heads-of-government-meeting

While we appreciate London’s efforts, the Caribbean is proposing its own Way Forward with the CU as part of a new regime.

The Go Lean book provides 370-pages of turn-by-turn instructions for a Way Forward, a guide on “how” to adopt new community ethos, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute so as to reboot, reform and transform the societal engines of Caribbean society. One advocacy in the book is entitled “10 Ways to Impact British Territories“; this allows for the delivery of best practices to introduce the new CU regime. London would be considered an “overseas master” for Caribbean stewardship. While the UK is one of the biggest (richest) economies in the world, British economic prosperity has not always extended to these islands. Though they do not need the CU to impact the United Kingdom – notwithstanding the Diaspora living there – there is the need for this CU treaty to impact efficiency of all the Anglophone nations and Overseas Territories.

The Go Lean/CU roadmap does not override the sovereignty of the 30 member-states. So this foregoing Dignified role continues. The CU is simply a deputized agency for delivering the apolitical efficiency of the Social Contract.

According to the Go Lean book (Page 96), the roadmap calls for the functionality of “assembling” all the regional stakeholders in the Caribbean into the Trade Federation, including the “overseas masters” during the first year of the confederation plan. We cannot just consider Europe as a singularity. No, for the United Kingdom has voted to divorce themselves from the European Union construct.

So we want to make our homeland a better place to live, work and play, and our “overseas masters” want our Caribbean nations to be elevated, all we need now is the “will and the way”. We urge all to lean-in to this roadmap for change and empowerment. 🙂

Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

————

Appendix – UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), commonly called the Foreign Office, is a department – [agency to exercise executive authority] – of the Government of the United Kingdom. It is responsible for protecting and promoting British interests worldwide. It was created in 1968 by merging the Foreign Office and the Commonwealth Office.

The head of the FCO is the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, commonly abbreviated to “Foreign Secretary” (currently Boris Johnson, who took office on 13 July 2016). This is regarded as one of the four most prestigious positions in the Cabinet– the Great Offices of State – alongside those of Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Home Secretary.

The FCO is managed from day to day by a civil servant, the Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, who also acts as the Head of Her Majesty’s Diplomatic Service. This position is held by Sir Simon McDonald, who took office on 1 September 2015.

Source: Wikipedia Online Reference retrieved January 18, 2018 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_government_departments

————

Appendix VIDEO – What Powers Does the Queen of England Actually Have? – https://youtu.be/wiDCwqpupj8

Today I Found Out

Published on Jul 21, 2017 – A short while ago we wrote about the fact Queen Elizabeth II needs neither a passport nor driving license thanks to a quirk of British law. But what other powers does the Queen of many titles have and what could she theoretically do if she decided to flex the full might of the authority she wields? As it turns out, thanks to the Royal Prerogative, a terrifying amount if she really felt like it, or, at least, assuming parliament went by the letter of the law and they and the people didn’t decide to stage a little revolt.

Category: Education
License: Standard YouTube License

Share this post:

Model, Transform, UK

[Top]

State of the Union: Deficient ‘Westminster System’

Posted on July 15, 2017 in Government, Locations, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

The issue of governance is very important to understanding the State of the Caribbean Union. In many countries, governance is just one of the factors that dictate success or failure for homeland’s societal engines. But in the Caribbean, it is “#1 … with a Bullet”. The government is normally the largest employer, largest educator, largest infrastructure builder and the only security option.

Good governance = Good societal progress
Poor governance = Failed-State

The most common form of governance in all of the Caribbean is the Westminster System. This is due to the many British legacies among the member-states (18 of 30 feature a British constitutional heritage, only Guyana has reformed). See details of Westminster here:

Title: Westminster System

The Westminster system is a parliamentary system of government modelled after that which developed in the United Kingdom. This term comes from the Palace of Westminster, the seat of the British parliament. The system is a series of procedures for operating a legislature. It is used, or was once used, in the national legislatures and subnational legislatures of most former British Empire colonies upon gaining responsible government,^[1][2] beginning with the first of the Canadian provinces in 1848 and the six Australian colonies between 1855 and 1890.^[3][4][5] However, some former colonies have since adopted either the presidential system (Nigeria for example) or a hybrid system (like South Africa) as their form of government.

Characteristics
A Westminster system of government may include some of the following features:

A sovereign or head of state who functions as the nominal or legal and constitutional holder of executive power, and holds numerous reserve powers, but whose daily duties mainly consist of performing ceremonial functions. Examples include Queen Elizabeth II, the governors-general in Commonwealth realms, or the presidents of many countries, and state or provincial governors in federal systems. Exceptions to this are Ireland and Israel, whose presidents are de jure and de facto ceremonial, and the latter possesses no reserve powers whatsoever.

A head of government (or head of the executive), known as the prime minister (PM), premier, or first minister. While the head of state appoints the head of government, constitutional convention suggests that a majority of elected Members of Parliament must support the person appointed.^[6] If more than half of elected parliamentarians belong to the same political party, then the parliamentary leader of that party typically is appointed.^[6] An exception to this was Israel, in which direct prime-ministerial elections were made in 1996, 1999 and 2001.

An executive branch led by the head of government usually made up of members of the legislature with the senior members of the executive in a cabinet adhering to the principle of cabinet collective responsibility; such members execute executive authority on behalf of the nominal or theoretical executive authority.

An independent, non-partisan civil service which advises on, and implements, decisions of those ministers. Civil servants hold permanent appointments and can expect merit-based selection processes and continuity of employment when governments change.^[7]

A parliamentary opposition (in a multi-party system) with an official Leader of the Opposition.

A legislature, often bicameral, with at least one elected house – although unicameral systems also exist; legislative members are usually elected by district in first-past-the-post elections (as opposed to country-wide proportional representation). Exceptions to this include New Zealand, which changed in 1993 to use mixed-member proportional representation; Israel, which has always used country wide proportional representation; and Australia, which uses preferential voting.

A lower house of parliament with an ability to dismiss a government by “withholding (or blocking) Supply” (rejecting a budget), passing a motion of no confidence, or defeating a confidence motion. The Westminster system enables a government to be defeated or forced into a general election independently.

A parliament which can be dissolved and snap elections called at any time.

Parliamentary privilege, which allows the legislature to discuss any issue it deems relevant, without fear of consequences stemming from defamatory statements or records thereof

Minutes of meetings, often known as Hansard, including an ability for the legislature to strike discussion from these minutes

The ability of courts to address silence or ambiguity in the parliament’s statutory law through the development of common law. Another parallel system of legal principles also exists known as equity. Exceptions to this include India, Quebec in Canada, and Scotland in the UK amongst others which mix common law with other legal systems.

Most of the procedures of the Westminster system originated with the conventions, practices, and precedents of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which form a part of what is known as the Constitution of the United Kingdom. Unlike the uncodified British constitution, most countries that use the Westminster system have codified the system, at least in part, in a written constitution.

However, uncodified conventions, practices, and precedents continue to play a significant role in most countries, as many constitutions do not specify important elements of procedure: for example, some older constitutions using the Westminster system do not mention the existence of the cabinet or the prime minister, because these offices were taken for granted by the authors of these constitutions. Sometimes these conventions, reserve powers, and other influences collide in times of crisis and in such times the weaknesses of the unwritten aspects of the Westminster system, as well as the strengths of the Westminster system’s flexibility, are put to the test. As an illustrative example, in the Australian constitutional crises of 1975 the Governor-General of Australia, Sir John Kerr, dismissed Prime Minister Gough Whitlam on his own reserve-power authority and replaced him with opposition leader Malcolm Fraser.

Operation
The pattern of executive functions within a Westminster System is quite complex. In essence, the head of state, usually a monarch or president, is a ceremonial figurehead who is the theoretical, nominal or de jure source of executive power within the system. In practice, such a figure does not actively exercise executive powers, even though executive authority may be exercised in their name.

The head of government, usually called the Prime minister or Premier, will ideally have the support of a majority in the responsible house, and must in any case be able to ensure the existence of no absolute majority against the government. If the parliament passes a resolution of no confidence, or refuses to pass an important bill such as the budget, then the government must either resign so that a different government can be appointed or seek a parliamentary dissolution so that new general elections may be held in order to re-confirm or deny the government’s mandate.

Executive authority within a Westminster System is essentially exercised by the Cabinet, along with more junior ministers, although the head of government usually has the dominant role within the ministry. In the United Kingdom, the sovereign theoretically holds executive authority, even though the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the Cabinet effectively implement executive powers. In a parliamentary republic like India, the President is the de jure executive, even though executive powers are essentially instituted by the Prime Minister of India and the Council of Ministers. In Israel, however, executive power is vested de jure and de facto in the cabinet, and the President of Israel is de jure and de facto a ceremonial figurehead.

As an example, the Prime Minister and Cabinet (as the de facto executive body in the system) generally must seek the permission of the head of state when carrying out executive functions. If, for instance the British Prime Minister wished to dissolve parliament in order for a general election to take place, the Prime Minister is constitutionally bound to request permission from the sovereign in order to attain such a wish. This power (along with others such as appointing ministers in the government, appointing diplomats, declaring war, and signing treaties, for example) is known as the Royal Prerogative, which in modern times is exercised by the sovereign solely on the advice of the Prime Minister. Since the British sovereign is a constitutional monarch, he or she abides by the advice of his or her ministers, except when executing reserve powers in times of crisis.

This custom also occurs in other Westminster Systems in the world, in consequence from the influence of British colonial rule. In Commonwealth realms such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand, the Prime Minister is obligated to seek permission from the Governor-General when implementing executive decisions, in a manner similar to the British practice. An analogous scenario also exists in Commonwealth republics, such as India or Trinidad and Tobago, where there is a President, though not in Israel or Japan, where the respective pri me ministers have the full legal power to implement executive decisions, and presidential (in Israel) or imperial (in Japan) approval is not required.

The head of state will often hold meetings with the head of government and cabinet, as a means of keeping abreast of governmental policy and as a means of advising, consulting and warning ministers in their actions. Such a practice takes place in the United Kingdom and India. In the UK, the sovereign holds confidential weekly meetings with the Prime Minister to discuss governmental policy and to offer her opinions and advice on issues of the day. In India, the Prime Minister is constitutionally bound to hold regular sessions with the President, in a similar manner to the aforementioned British practice. In essence, the head of state, as the theoretical executive authority, “reigns but does not rule”. This phrase means that the head of state’s role in government is generally ceremonial and as a result does not directly institute executive powers. The reserve powers of the head of state are sufficient to ensure compliance with some of their wishes. However, the extent of such powers varies from one country to another and is often a matter of controversy.

Such an executive arrangement first emerged in the United Kingdom. Historically, the British sovereign held and directly exercised all executive authority. George I of Great Britain (reigned 1714 to 1727) was the first British monarch to delegate some executive powers to a Prime Minister and a cabinet of the ministers, largely because he was also the monarch of Hanover in Germany and did not speak English fluently. Over time, arrangement continued to exercise executive authority on the sovereign’s behalf. Such a concept was reinforced in The English Constitution (1876) by Walter Bagehot, who emphasised the “dignified” and “efficient” aspects of government. In this sense Bagehot was stating that the sovereign should be a focal point for the nation, while the PM and cabinet actually undertook executive decisions.

There are important rules and responsibilities associated with the “Role of the head of state”

Role of the head of state

Cabinet government

Bicameral and unicameral parliaments

…

Source: Retrieved July 14, 2017 from Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_system

Westminster is good … sometimes, but Westminster is mostly bad!

Westminster does not allow for the needed responsiveness; it does not feature a direct election of the Head of Government by the general population; but rather, it includes electing Members of Parliament (MP) from individual districts, and then the MP’s elect their leader. The party leader with the majority in Parliament is appointed Prime Minister, Premier, First or Chief Minister – First Among Equals; see Appendix A. This means less accountability and responsiveness to the citizens not in the constituency of the MP that is selected as Prime Minister.

Under this Westminster scheme, since this Head of Government is NOT elected by the majority of population, this one can be susceptible to a minority group – his/her constituents – over the Greater Good. Plus, this Head of Government can also reign in more than one branch of government. This one is the leader of the party with the majority of seats in Parliament, so this means that he/she leads the legislature; he/she forms the Cabinet, so he leads the Executive Branch. This leader holds sway on the candidates for the party and the selections of the elected ministers to the Cabinet. Lastly, this one appoints the Judges, so he/she wields power over the judiciary as well. The ideal separation-of-powers between government branches is deficient, defective and thus embeds failure on the countries societal engines.

Absolute power …

It is the assessment for the movement behind the book Go Lean…Caribbean that Westminster is dysfunctional … for the accountability and responsiveness for administering the Caribbean homeland. As a result of the deficiencies of Westminster, many countries have evolved and reformed their governance; they have abandoned Westminster; see list in Appendix B.

On the other hand, it is the assessment of this movement that since the Westminster System allows the concentration of power to only one person, the Prime Minister, it is easier to reform and transform a country. There is only the need to reach (influence, lobby and persuade) that one person. It is therefore easier for change and empowerment to take place, but still we recommend the member-states of the Caribbean region reform, transform and conform … to a new standard of governance.

This subject of governing systems is analyzed in the book Go Lean…Caribbean. This book provides an assessment of the Caribbean today, drawing reference to its historic past. From the origins of colonialism, the region traversed the historic curves of social revolution and evolution. The Go Lean book – available to download for free – serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), for the elevation of Caribbean society – for all member-states. This CU/Go Lean roadmap endorses a system of better governance, with these 3 prime directives:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion and create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a true separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes … can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.

xxiv. Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.

This commentary is 3 of 5 in an occasional series on the State of the Caribbean Union. Surely, a malfunctioning state of governance throughout the entire region must have some common traits. These have been assessed in the Go Lean book and the technocratic solutions provided there-in. The full entries of all the blog-commentaries in this series are as follows:

State of the Caribbean Union – Lacking Hope and Change
State of the Caribbean Union – Dysfunctional Spanish Caribbean
State of the Caribbean Union – Deficient Westminster System
State of the Caribbean Union – Unstable Volcano States
State of the Caribbean Union – Self-Interest of Americana

As related in the first submission in this series, the young people in the region need the vision of “something better” or Hope and Change in order to be inspired to participate in the future of this homeland. We cannot have a future without these young people, so these solutions – strategies, tactics and implementations – are not optional.

Hope for the future! This is a consistent theme from the Go Lean movement. Consider these previous blog-commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11759	Understand the Market, Plan the …
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10629	Stay Home! A Series on Why and How to Keep Our Youth Home
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10554	State of French Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7198	State of the Caribbean Union
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4263	State of Aruba and Dutch Caribbean’s Economy
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1634	Chasing Youth Culture and Getting It Right

The Go Lean book provides 370-pages of turn-by-turn instructions on “how” to adopt new community ethos, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute so as to reboot, reform and transform the societal engines of Caribbean society. For one, the recommendation is to reform and transform Caribbean governance, to evolve from the dysfunctions of Westminster and adapt a more enlightened Strong Executive (Presidential) structure (Page 72).

See the contrast portrayed here in this related VIDEO:

VIDEO – Parliamentary vs. Presidential Democracy Explained – https://youtu.be/4quK60FUvkY

Published on May 7, 2015 – The two main systems of democratic government, Presidential vs. Parliamentary, explained.
Free audiobook: http://www.audibletrial.com/TheDailyC…
Subscribe to The Daily Conversation: https://www.youtube.com/TheDailyConve…

At one point, the US used a version of Westminster – during the bad old days of the United States of America under the Articles of Confederation (1781–1789) – but this country evolved … and now feature one of the most responsive and accountable forms on government on the planet. In addition to the US, there are many other countries – consider Appendix B – that have evolved; some have rebooted and some have adapted a hybrid system of Westminster and the Presidential system.

In the Caribbean, we can do better! We do not have to be America; we can be better!

There is an aspect of the Westminster System that is embedded in the Go Lean roadmap, where the separation-of-powers provision parallels to the “Reserve Powers” of Westminster. These “Reserve Powers” ensure compliance with the tenants of state constitutions and treaties. These powers allow the CU to serve as a deputized entity for member-state governance; consider the justice scenarios requiring Commissions of Inquiries.

Yes, it is possible to reform and transform the Caribbean member-states that employ the deficient Westminster System. We can do better; we can make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

———–

Appendix A – First Among Equals

The status of the Prime Minister has been described as primus inter pares: Latin for “first among equals.” This concept defines not only the prime minister’s relationship with Cabinet, but also, in a sense, his or her relationship with the public in our modern democratic society. Drawing on a wide variety of documents and artifacts, this site explores five main themes (see the menu at left) relating to Canada’s prime ministers. The site examines our leaders’ political careers as well as their private lives. It also sheds light on Canadians’ perceptions of our prime ministers.

From Macdonald to Harper, our political leaders are twenty-two individuals who have made a difference, shaping Canada’s identity, sometimes in profound ways.

Source: Retrieved July 15, 2017 from: https://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/primeministers/index-e.html

———–

Appendix B – Countries That Abandoned Westminster

The Westminster system was adopted by a number of countries which subsequently evolved or reformed their system of government departing from the original model. In some cases, certain aspects of the Westminster system were retained or codified in their constitutions. For instance South Africa and Botswana, unlike Commonwealth realms or parliamentary republics such as India, have a combined head of state and head of government but the President remains responsible to the lower house of parliament; it elects the President at the beginning of a new Parliament, or when there is a vacancy in the office, or when the sitting President is defeated on a vote of confidence. If the Parliament cannot elect a new President within a short period of time (a week to a month) the lower house is dissolved and new elections are called.

The Union of South Africa between 1910 and 1961, and the Republic of South Africa between 1961 and 1984. The 1983 constitution abolished the Westminster system in South Africa.
Newfoundland gave up self-government in 1934 and reverted to direct rule from London. Use of the Westminster system resumed in 1949 when Newfoundlandbecame a province of Canada.
Rhodesia between 1965 and 1979, and Zimbabwe between 1980 and 1987. The 1987 constitution abolished the Westminster system.
Nigeria following the end of British colonial rule in 1960, which resulted in the appointment of a Governor-General and then a President, Nnamdi Azikiwe. The system ended with the military coup of 1966.
Ceylon between 1948 and 1972, and Sri Lanka from 1972 until 1978 when the constitution was remodelled into an Executive presidential system.
Burma following independence in 1948 until the 1962 military coup d’état.
Ghana between 1957 and 1960.
Tanganyika between 1961 and 1962.
Sierra Leone between 1961 and 1971.
Uganda between 1962 and 1963.
Kenya between 1963 and 1964.
Malawi between 1964 and 1966.
The Gambia between 1965 and 1970.
Guyana between 1966 and 1980.
Fiji between 1970 and 1987.
Japan between 1890 and 1947, under the Meiji Constitution the Diet of Japan was a bicameral legislature modelled after both the German Reichstag and the Westminster system.^[11] Influence from the Westminster system remained in Japan’s Postwar Constitution.^[12][13][14]

Source: Retrieved July 14, 2017 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_system#Former_countries

Share this post:

Civil Rights, Model, Power, Transform, UK

[Top]

Want Better Security? ’Must Love Dogs’

Posted on May 23, 2017 in Government, Implementation

Go Lean Commentary

So you want to secure your homeland against terror and other threats? Here’s a key requirement:

‘Must Love Dogs’

ISIS Claims Responsibility for Manchester Concert Attack; 22 Dead

Manchester Arena – Situation Normal

Manchester Arena – Monday Night May 22, 2017

Expect more revelations of the motives and bitter consequences of this attack against “innocence”.

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy and create new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

x. Whereas we are surrounded and allied to nations of larger proportions in land mass, populations, and treasuries, elements in their societies may have ill-intent in their pursuits, at the expense of the safety and security of our citizens. We must therefore appoint “new guards” to ensure our public safety and threats against our society, both domestic and foreign. The Federation must employ the latest advances and best practices of criminology and penology to assuage continuous threats against public safety. …

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes … can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.

Must love dogs!

In a previous blog-commentary, it was related how specially-trained canines can help to better secure the Caribbean homeland. Consider this quotation:

The subject of animals and animal companionship is also pivotal in the roadmap for elevating Caribbean society, especially for the security engines. The Go Lean book posits (Page 185) that better command of Animal Husbandry can facilitate better security around the region’s economic engines. Dogs feel a lot less intrusive and less intimidating than formal security screening, or personnel patrolling with AK47 automatic rifles. Imagine a beautiful Caribbean beach scene with a plain clothes “officer” walking along with specialty dogs, or more exactly:

Drug Sniffing Dogs

Bomb Sniffing Dogs

Service/Therapy Dogs

Consider this one chapter (and Case Study) … where the Go Lean book fully detailed the advocacy of Animal Husbandry; see these headlines from Page 185:

10 Ways to Improve Animal Husbandry

1	Lean-in for Caribbean Integration The CU treaty allows for the unification of the region into one market, thereby impaneling a federal layer for oversight of the economy and security of the 30 member-states and 42 million people. One CU mission is to facilitate better security around the region’s economic engines. Another mission is to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. In considering the needs of the 42-million population, there must be some consideration for their animals. Beyond the CU overseeing food-supply regulations and spearheading the security benefits of employing specially trained service animals, the CU will spur philanthropy for more animal husbandry efforts, such as foundations advocating Spay/Neuter goals for dogs/cats. Lastly, the CU will coalesce with local authorities to ensure “dog parks” in urban/suburban areas.
2	Plantations for Bomb Sniffing Dogs The CU assumes the responsibility to assuage systemic risks and economic crimes. This includes marshaling defensive support for events/festivals, against terrorism and cross border gangs. The US model of Trikos K9 Warriors will be adopted with Belgian Malinois dogs, to breed them on plantations and train them to detect and interdict explosives.
3	Cadaver Dogs / Drug Sniffing Dogs / Drug Sniffing Pigs The CU will install plantations for dogs and pigs (Vietnamese Potbellies are especially acute) to train them to detect drugs/contraband and cadavers. The CU will maintain animals on-the-ready for acquisition by local and federal police.
4	Police K9 Units Each member-state may currently have a platoon of K9 police dogs, but their average service life is less than 10 years. So there is always a constant need for service animals. These needs will henceforth be fulfilled locally within the region.
5	Horses for Mounted Police Many polices forces have a Mounted Police Squad. These are especially critical for patrols at events and crowded locales. The CU will facilitate the acquisition and training of horses for the region’s Mounted Police units. These breeding and training plantations are ideal for rural area development, thus spurning an economic benefit.
6	Water Focus – Seals and Dolphins Service animals are not only the land variety. There are aquatic mammals as well: seals and dolphins. These species are excellent for securing maritime and naval operations – the CU are all islands and coastal states. The best practice is to mount mobile cameras on these mammals and have them patrol a specified grid. The economies of scale of the CU will allow for the deployment of these creative solutions while any one member-state alone cannot justify the investment. These deployments should not be secretive, but rather exposed to local/foreign media for image promotion.
7	Service Dogs for the Blind / Disabled – Domestic and Tourists
8	Comfort Animals for Therapies and Treatment
9	Bio-Medical Farms (Pigs, Baboons)
10	Agricultural Considerations – Animals for Foods

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11332	Boston Bombing Anniversary – Learning Lessons
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10959	See Something, Say Something … Do Something
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10566	Funding the Caribbean Security Pact
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10222	Waging a Successful War on Terrorism
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9072	Securing the Homeland – On the Ground
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6103	Sum of All Fears – ‘On Guard’ Against Deadly Threats
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5307	8th Violent Crime Warning to Bahamas Tourists
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5002	Managing a ‘Clear and Present Danger’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1965	America’s Navy – 100 Percent – Model for Caribbean Regional Security
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1832	American Drug-arrested inmates to be deported – Look-out Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1554	Status of Forces Agreement for Regional Security Pact
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1487	Here come the Drones … and the Concerns
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=392	Jamaica received World Bank funds to help in crime fight

If we fail to plan, then we plan to fail.

See a review of the movie here: http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/must-love-dogs-2005.

Yes, we can – with our “love for dogs” – make our homeland a better-safer place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

—————

Appendix VIDEO – Sniffing Out Bombs: America’s most elite dogs – https://youtu.be/FsnPAQ137fY

Published on Apr 21, 2013 – Lara Logan gets a rare look into the secretive world of working dogs — some of whose capabilities are military secrets — and their handlers.

Category: News & Politics
License: Standard YouTube License

Share this post:

Events, Model, Security, Terrorism, UK

[Top]

‘Black British’ and ‘Less Than’

Posted on April 21, 2017 in Planning, Social

Go Lean Commentary

Truth be told, a Black person speaking with a British accent gets more respect than a Black person speaking with a Caribbean slang or a ‘Hip-hop’ /‘Jive’ dialect.

It is what it is! Notice this portrayal in the Appendix VIDEO where many Afro-Caribbean citizens in Britain, seem to self-identify more as British than their Caribbean heritage; (POINT 5).

Does this mean that the Black British person is better off on the world stage? Sadly no! The actuality of Blackness still means “Less Than“.

The problem is not the Blackness, but rather Whiteness, the proliferation of White Supremacy … throughout the world.

“Britain has done a great job as painting itself as the humanitarian, with the US being the torturer. But that shit ain’t true.” – Patrisse Cullors, co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement.

POINT 1 – The world is not fair, equal or just; and if you are of the Black-and-Brown races, the injustice is even more pronounced.
POINT 2 – Charity begins at home! There is a need to reform and transform society wherever you are. No one else will reform your homeland; you must!
POINT 3 – Leaving home, hurts home.
POINT 4 – The children of the Diaspora identify more with their current home, than their parent’s ancestral home.
POINT 5 – When the children do not want to identify with your land of heritage, it is Time to Go, to take them back home.

Title: We Spoke to the Activist Behind #BlackLivesMatter About Racism in Britain and America
By: Michael Segalov

… Patrisse Cullors is co-founder of Black Lives Matter — the movement and oft-trending hashtag. Based in LA ([Los Angeles]), she’s been on the front line at uprisings across the US in response to a wave of high-profile deaths of black people in police custody.

[While] on a speaking tour of the UK and Ireland, heading to communities, universities, and holding meetings in Parliament. VICE caught up with Patrisse on the train from Brighton to London in the midst of a hectic schedule. VICE chatted [with her] about how she’s spreading the Black Lives Matter movement across the globe, what’s happening in the States at the moment, and why that’s relevant to the UK.

VICE: Tell us about the origins of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Patrisse Cullors: After George Zimmerman was acquitted of the murder of Trayvon Martin, back in July 2013, myself and two friends came up with the hashtag. My friend Alicia had written a love letter to folks, saying, “Our Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter.”

I put a hashtag in front—within days people were using it across the world. We’re talking about all black lives; we weren’t just talking about black men dying in the hands of the police. We’re talking about black women, black trans people, black queer people. We want to show that under the current system of white supremacy, anti-blackness has major consequences. Inside the US, and around the world, anti-black racism has global consequences. Black Lives Matter is a call to action—it’s a mantra, a testimony.

How did you end up at the heart of it?
I’ve been organizing since I was 16. I came out as queer, and was kicked out of home. Along with a bunch of other young queer women of color, we raised each other. We also dealt with poverty, being black and brown in the USA, and trying to figure out how to live our daily lives. My brother was incarcerated in LA county jails at 19, and he was almost killed by the sheriffs. They beat him. They tortured him and brutalized him. This was my awakening, seeing how far the state will go, and how they treat our families.

Most disturbing was the lack of support and absolute neglect that my brother and my family faced after he was brutalized. Part of my upbringing was a feeling of rage, but I also knew I could do something about it. With my mentors, and a civil rights organization, I learned my craft over 11 years. I focused on the school-to-prison pipeline [where young people go straight from school into the juvenile criminal justice system], environmental justice, and police violence.
…
You’ve been in the UK for a week, how has it been, and how does the situation here relate to the USA?

In theory the UK has a significant amount of structures to allow for accountability, of law enforcement in particular. That’s the theory. But in the US we don’t really have these structures to allow for accountability. There aren’t really independent investigators; its just very rare for prosecutions for law enforcement. And so, being here, I’ve realized, there are some systems in place that might actually be good for the US. It just seems those systems don’t work.

Then there are the similarities, the ways in which black people are treated—it’s outright racism. From Christopher Alder being brutalized on tape, hearing the officers calling him racist slurs, to the G4S guards who killed Jimmy Mubenga with racist texts on their phones. You have that same hatred, these white supremacist ideologies coming out of both of our countries. And here too, justice is not being served. We have Mike Brown, no justice. We have Eric Garner, no justice. Here we see the same: Mark Duggan, Sean Rigg. The list is vast.

Is this stuff talked about in the States, like how in the UK we’re aware over here about what’s going on in Ferguson?
Here’s the thing, black people in the US don’t know what’s happening here in the UK. I’m well read, well educated, and coming here and learning these stories I’m like, “Why don’t I know about this? Why haven’t we heard?” The US is very insular. The UK has an image of being better, a humane society in which there isn’t the same level of racism. But now I have a very different perspective that I’m going to take home and talk about. Britain has done a great job as painting itself as the humanitarian, with the US being the torturer. But that shit ain’t true.

Here in the UK there’ve been solidarity actions. People shut down the streets in London and Westfield shopping center too. What’s the impact of these things for people on the ground? Do you notice?
Yes, it was noticed. We’ve seen all the work folks are doing on the ground. From here, where you guys shut down Westfield, to Spain and Brazil. In Israel, African refugees are using the Black Lives Matter mantra to talk about law enforcement violence by the Israeli police. We see it, and we’re in awe. We wanted and needed it to go global.

Where is this going? What happens next?
There are 23 Black Lives Matter chapters right now, in the US, Canada, and Ghana. We need to uplift the local struggles across the country, as well as pushing for greater accountability for law enforcement.

We want legislation that will see divestment from law enforcement and investing in poor communities. We want to build a national project linking families who have been impacted by state violence, with a national database that looks at individual law enforcement officers and agencies. We also want to look at how to develop a system of independent investigation. We want to figure out a victim’s bill of rights, to counter the police bill of rights. Until then, we’re gonna shut shit down.
Source: VICE (UK) News; Posted February 2 2015; retrieved April 20, 2017 from: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/patrisse-cullors-interview-michael-segalov-188?utm_source=vicetwitterus

See related VIDEO’s here on Britain’s Black History; (POINT 1 and POINT 4):

That Black British Feeling – Why Black People in the UK are Marching – https://youtu.be/fB2IcH668xo

Black and British: A Forgotten History Part 1 First Encounters; Full BBC Documentary 2016 – https://youtu.be/6WP6qEc2uaM

Black and British: A Forgotten History Part 2 Meaning of Freedom – https://youtu.be/Tjq1X3TZ02U

Black and British: Britain’s Forgotten Slave Owners; The Price Of Freedom (2015) – https://youtu.be/kgaJyp8ix4M

Why is the Caribbean brand perceived as “Less Than”?

We – the Caribbean region as a collective – must do better; be better! We can reboot, reform and transform from this bad history and bad image; (POINT 2). How?

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance – including empowerments for image promotion – to support these engines.

British African Caribbean (or Afro-Caribbean) people are residents of the United Kingdom who are of West Indian background and whose ancestors were primarily natives or indigenous to Africa. As immigration to the United Kingdom from Africa increased in the 1990s, the term has sometimes been used to include UK residents solely of African origin, or as a term to define all Black British residents, though the phrase “African and Caribbean” has more often been used to cover such a broader grouping. The most common and traditional use of the term African-Caribbean community is in reference to groups of residents’ continuing aspects of Caribbean culture, customs and traditions in the United Kingdom.

A majority of the African-Caribbean population in the UK is of Jamaican origin; other notable representation is from Trinidad and Tobago, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Barbados, Grenada, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Lucia, Dominica, Montserrat, Anguilla, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Guyana (which although located on the South American mainland is culturally similar to the Caribbean and was historically considered to be part of the British West Indies), and Belize.

African-Caribbean people are present throughout the United Kingdom with by far the largest concentrations in London and Birmingham.^[1] Significant communities also exist in other population centres, notably Manchester, Bradford, Nottingham, Coventry, Luton, Slough, Leicester, Bristol, Gloucester, Leeds, Huddersfield, Sheffield, Liverpool and Cardiff. In these cities, the community is traditionally associated with a particular area, such as Brixton, Harlesden, Stonebridge, Dalston, Lewisham, Tottenham, Peckham in London, West Bowling and Heaton in Bradford, Chapeltown in Leeds,^[2] St. Pauls in Bristol,^[3] or Handsworth and Aston in Birmingham or Moss Side in Manchester. According to the 2011 census, the largest number of African-Caribbean people are found in Croydon, south London.
Source: Retrieved April 20, 2017 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_African-Caribbean_people

See this portrayal in the Appendix VIDEO below.

Distress continues …
Oppression persists …
Image: “Less Than”!

The UK is NOT the #1 destination for the English-speaking Caribbean Diaspora, not anymore; that distinction is now towards the US. Today’s trending is for more and more new immigration to the US as opposed to the UK; Canada is Number 2.
While the “pull” factor had been compelling in the past, the decision-making of Caribbean emigrants – looking to flee – now needs a reality check! (POINT 1)
“Pull” is further exacerbated by the “push” factors; all of these continue to imperil Caribbean life; we push our citizens out. Then the resultant effect is a brain drain and even more endangerment to our society: less skilled workers; less entrepreneurs; less law-abiding citizens; less capable public servants – we lose our best and leave the communities with the rest. This creates even more of a crisis; (POINT 2).

Preamble: And while our rights to exercise good governance and promote a more perfect society are the natural assumptions among the powers of the earth, no one other than ourselves can be held accountable for our failure to succeed if we do not try to promote the opportunities that a democratic society fosters.
As the history of our region and the oppression, suppression and repression of its indigenous people is duly documented, there is no one alive who can be held accountable for the prior actions, and so we must put aside the shackles of systems of repression to instead formulate efficient and effective systems to steer our own destiny.

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xii. Whereas the legacy in recent times in individual states may be that of ineffectual governance with no redress to higher authority, the accedence of this Federation will ensure accountability and escalation of the human and civil rights of the people for good governance, justice assurances, due process and the rule of law. As such, any threats of a “failed state” status for any member state must enact emergency measures on behalf of the Federation to protect the human, civil and property rights of the citizens, residents, allies, trading partners, and visitors of the affected member state and the Federation as a whole.

xix. Whereas our legacy in recent times is one of societal abandonment, it is imperative that incentives and encouragement be put in place to first dissuade the human flight, and then entice and welcome the return of our Diaspora back to our shores …

xx. Whereas the results of our decades of migration created a vibrant Diaspora in foreign lands, the Federation must organize interactions with this population into structured markets. Thus allowing foreign consumption of domestic products, services and media, which is a positive trade impact. These economic activities must not be exploited by others’ profiteering but rather harnessed by Federation resources for efficient repatriations.

The Go Lean book details the community ethos to adopt, plus the executions of the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to impact the eco-systems in the Caribbean region.

The book provides these recommendations in regards to the dynamics of Diaspora living:

Encourage the Caribbean Diaspora to repatriate back to their ancestral homeland – (10 Reasons to Repatriate to the Caribbean – Page 118).
Dissuade the high emigration rates of Caribbean citizens to foreign stories – (10 Ways to Make the Caribbean Better – Page 131).

These subjects (Repatriation and Diaspora) have been frequently commented on in other Go Lean blogs (POINT 4); as sampled here with these entries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11244	‘To Live and Die in L.A.’ or London …
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9485	10 Things We Don’t Want from the UK
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8099	Caribbean Image: ‘Less Than’?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7151	The Caribbean is Looking for Heroes … ‘to Return’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1683	British public sector workers strike over ‘poverty pay’

The book also relates the significance of image/brand management, as with this advocacy: “10 Ways to Better Manage Image” (Page 133):

The Bottom Line on Martin, Malcolm, Mandela, Muhammad and Marley
The majority of the Caribbean population descends from an African ancestry – a legacy of slavery from previous centuries. Despite the differences in nationality, culture and language, the image of the African Diaspora is all linked hand-in-hand. And thus, when Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela, Muhammad Ali and Bob Marley impacted the world with their contributions, the reverberations were felt globally, not just in their homelands. It is hard for one segment of the black world to advance when other segments have a negative global image. This is exemplified with the election of Barack Obama as US President; his election was viewed as an ascent for the entire Black race.

Overall, we must elevate the Caribbean brand. There are active movements now to accentuate the image/brand; consider:

Proclaim ‘International Caribbean Day’

The African Renaissance Monument

Declared “Best in the World”

Accentuate Caribbean Image Tied to the Dreadlocks Hairstyles

We are not! But this Go Lean roadmap gets us started. This is the intent of the book Go Lean … Caribbean.

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

———–

Appendix A – Vice News

———–

Appendix B – British Afro-Caribbean Demographics

———–

Appendix VIDEO – Do you call yourself Black British? – https://youtu.be/i3dgzdsAZug

Published on Oct 21, 2016

Category: People & Blogs
License: Standard YouTube License

Share this post:

Diaspora, Image, UK

[Top]