Our disapora, our returnees

By Allan Fenty January 8 2010

What? No clean money? Only laundries?
Frankly Speaking

The Diaspora – that dispersion or scattering of a people from their original homeland(s). The description gained currency and prominence ever since the Jews were dispersed outside of Israel from the sixth century (BC) when they were exiled to Babylonia – even up to their dispersal around the globe up to the present time.

Guyana’s diaspora, especially when the first and second generation’s offspring are included, accounts for perhaps four times the souls still residing within the country’s borders. Yes, and they are found everywhere – the USA, the UK, Canada, the Caribbean, amongst our continental three neighbours and (perhaps) in China (?).

The single point I wish to make here is one dealt with, months ago, by a Sunday Stabroek overseas columnist. It is that under-developed countries like Guyana, with hundreds of thousands of their countrymen living elsewhere – even as processed citizens of other societies – should establish well-though-out, properly structured, official agencies to connect with and court the contributions of those (exiled) nationals and their offspring. Even though those overseas- based “countrymen” would be either seeking to establish, or would have put down solid roots in their new host countries of settlement.

Read full article here.