WHO REALLY IS THE AFRICAN DIASPORA?

Last weekend I attended the regional African Diaspora conference in New York , held from June 22-23rd and I left a very disappointed person. This is why I have decided to share my feelings with those in this list serve because I believe these things affect us all.

Background to the conference

The background to this conference is that last year, the African Union sitting in Addis Ababa agreeing that Africa needs to embrace its people in the Diaspora who, according the statistics given then, remit about 34 billion dollars to Africa every year. They decided to designate the African Diaspora as the 6th region of Africa. Meaning that in the next AU meeting, apart from the South African region, Central Africa, East Africa, North Africa, and West Africa , there will also be the Diaspora Africa.

Following this decision, the AU in its formal decision in document number, DOC.EX.CL/164 (VII), defined the African Diaspora to mean:

“The African Diaspora consists of peoples of African origin living outside the continent, irrespective of their citizenship and nationality and who are willing to contribute to the development of the continent and the building of the African union.”

Following this decision, South Africa was tasked with the responsibility of hosting the African Diaspora summit in early 2008. In order to prepare for the summit, South Africa is hosting smaller Diaspora consultative conferences in the US , Brasilia , Bahamas , the UK , and Belgium . Six representatives from each of the regional conferences will attend the AU heads of state Diaspora Summit in South Africa .

The New York meeting.

The New York meeting which brought together US and Canada delegates was held on 22 and 23rd June 2007. In attendance was a huge delegation from South Africa , obviously because they are the hosts, a number of distinguished black scholars, several representatives from African embassies in Washington, people from the World Bank, people from the non profit sector dealing with African issues and a number of people from the business private sector. From Kenya we had three people in attendance, the Kenyan ambassador, HE Oginga Ogego, the publisher of the African newspaper, Mshale, Tom Gitaa and I.

The event was hosted by the South African ambassador to the US , Ms. Barbra Masekela with James Early from the Smithsonian being the moderator assisted by professor Ottunu, of UNESCO. The key note speakers were the South African minister for education Ms Naledi Pandor and the AU ambassador to the USA , Mrs. Amina Ali.

The purpose of the conference was to come up with proposals that will be presented next year by the team of six (two from Canada and four from the USA ) which by the way has not been chosen yet.

The reason why I left this conference disappointed as opposed to those who left excited is because I feel that the AU has lost the course of involving Africans in the Diaspora even before they started it. This can be seen by the concerns raised by those of us who are recent immigrants.

The first concern was how the invitations were being done and how secretive this was because everywhere we went to in New York and New Jersey, nobody knew anything about the conference, so the question was shouldn’t we make it a little more open for others to attend? The answer from both the moderator and the guest speaker, Minister Naledi was that this was just a beginning so next we will be more open. But I wonder when that next will come.

The second concern was who really are the Diaspora since we have the old Diaspora and the new Diaspora, meaning those who came here 400 years ago and those of us coming now? Shouldn’t emphasis be given to the new immigrants since they are the ones sending the 34 billion dollars the AU wants to tap?

The third concern was who are we really looking for, are we talking about Africans outside Africa or blacks outside Africa, because nobody seems to talk about the non black Africans especially from the Magrib region of North Africa ?

The fourth concern was aren’t we alienating the real Africans who are sending the 34 billion dollars to Africa in form of remittances and direct investments when we covertly court the Brazilian and Caribbean governments and clearly African Americans to come to play a leading role in the African Diaspora affairs when really these are not the ones sending the 34 billion that the AU is touting?

The fifth concern was that there seems to be an abstract emphasis on improving infrastructure to attract foreign investments. Our concern was why these people are ignoring the fact that we are never going to improve infrastructure, if we do not improve the quality of political leadership. If we do not work hard to ensure that good leaders are elected to governments in Africa , who then is going to create this friendly investment climate that the investors are looking for?

The reason I am sharing these with everybody is because a number of the recent immigrants left that meeting wondering HOW this effort by African leaders in AU to engage black governments outside Africa and request them to join the AU and / or encouraging black Americans, and blacks in the Caribbean feel that the AU appreciates them is going to help develop Africa. They are not the ones whose brothers and sisters are suffering in Africa because of poor leadership; they are not the ones who have to do two to three jobs to send money back to Africa to put food and school fees on the table of their families back in Africa; apart from their desire to discover the roots in Africa and the nostalgia of feeling part of Africa, they do not know the suffering of Africa as we do.

I know I may not be invited to the next meeting because of my controversial stand but I believe and I stand corrected, that the African Union, if it is genuinely interested in engaging the African Diaspora in the development of Africa, should find away of engaging the real Africans outside Africa who have real and immediate traceable roots to Africa and who are sending money to Africa now to help their people survive. Anything sort of this is just another talking show.

Africa will only be developed by African Africans not by African Americans or blacks in the Caribbean or Brazil .

What do you think?

Joash Maangi

jmaangi AT ongerilaW dOT cOm
Telephone: 952 697 3690
Cell: 612 386 2279