Contributing writer Dickson Igwe
Second story on poor parenting and social dysfunction: two evils creating a new social underclass in the Virgin Islands. This second narrative offers a historical and global perspective on social division in the Americas.
Before another narrative on growing social divisions in the Virgin Islands, this Observer of life offers his deepest condolences to the families of the children murdered in cold blood at an elementary school in Connecticut USA, on Friday December 14, 2012. A tearful President Barack Obama must now begin to formulate a comprehensive policy against a gun madness that is clearly out of control in the USA.
Ok! West Indian societies have always been greatly unequal in terms of education, wealth, and power. This is also a Latin American phenomenon. In Latin America, the sliding scales of color from Caucasian, through to mulatto, native Indian, mestizo which is a mix of white and native Indian, and African, has determined access to wealth and power for two centuries.
The Caucasian or white Latina sits at the top of the social and economic ladder. At the bottom end sit blacks, mulattos, native Indians mestizos, and poor whites. The Americas south of the Rio Grande are among the most unequal places on earth, socially, economically, and racially. Thankfully, globalization, beginning in the early 90s, has proven to be an equalizer. Access to digital technology, free trade, and foreign direct investment, has pulled millions out of poverty in the region, creating a new middle class of consumers able to afford life’s essentials and then some. And this is true also, of the West Indies.
A short diversion in the series of stories on social dysfunction and familial trauma in the Virgin Islands is requisite at this point, and it alludes to one outcome of globalization: the emergence of new powers. It tells the story of Brazil and Mexico. These two Latin American states are growing rapidly, commercially and industrially, leading the rest of the region towards a new economic El Dorado.
Mexico has become the largest exporter of flat screen televisions and blackberry cell phones in the world. The country, long plagued by a drug culture leading to tens of thousands of violent deaths, is beginning to climb the mountain of development and prosperity at long last. This is going to have positive consequences for the region with the establishment of a major economic and commercial hub headquartered in Mexico City. Brazil recently passed Britain to become the 5th largest economy in the world.
Latin America is expected to be a major beneficiary of the shift in gravity in terms of economic power in coming years towards the Asian Pacific. It has already experienced strong growth owing mainly to its trading links with China. The traditional West: North America and Western Europe are expected to experience declining influence and power as a consequence of the rise of Asia and the rest. Increasingly, the world will look towards the Asian Pacific as the new center of global economics and trade, with unforeseen but major social and economic implications for Western society.
The Western Pacific Coast of the USA will witness an economic boom as US businesses and businessmen scramble to trade with a booming Asia. Airline travel from the Western to Asian capitals and cities will begin to supersede air travel between Western ones in due course: a clear sign of the new global reality.
Latin America and the Caribbean are expected to be beneficiaries of this shift in power as the region becomes a critical hub, south of the equator; a hub that facilitates trade between the Americas and the Asian Pacific. In a multi-polar world, the US is expected to maintain its military superiority over the next three decades. However, China and India are expected to become two of the largest economies in the world by 2030.
Entertainment and Media mogul mulimillionnaire Russell Simmons. Photo courtesy blackmillionaires.blogspot.com
Now, the Caribbean is geographically the tiny sibling of North and Latin America. And for decades after the Spanish American War of 1898, it was considered a US’ backwater. The Monroe Doctrine of 1823 put the Caribbean squarely under American strategic control. In the early 20th Century, the US viewed Latin America and the Caribbean as poor neighbours who were useful only for providing bases for the US military. Add the importation of certain cash crops such as bananas. Then there were the ubiquitous casinos, resorts and nightclubs. These were playgrounds furnished with hedonistic pleasures and loose women, for powerful senators, wealthy gangsters, and rich businessmen.
At the end of slavery in the West Indies, the mulatto, a mix of white and Negro, took the reins of power from the white British and French slave master. For decades after slavery, access to wealth and power in the Caribbean depended upon a sliding scale of physical features: straight hair, thin nose, and light skin, were passport to the higher social classes and a better life.
On the other hand, curly hair, a flat nose, and dark skin were a handicap. Vast poverty was the norm and remained the norm on many islands for the black West Indian. But life was good, generally, for the white and mulatto. The black or dark skinned West Indian endured material hardship at the bottom of the social and economic ladder for decades after the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade.
However, with nationalism and independence post World War 2, education became crucial for social advancement. The first national leaders were graduates of some of the world’s leading halls of academia. Skin complexion and body type were still important attributes that aided advancement up the social economic ladder, but in the 1940s and 50s, education became equally important.
In the 21st Century, and for an even more modern West Indies, the right type of education and skills set is everything in that all consuming quest for social and economic advancement by individual, community, and society. This is a feature of modern globalization. Skin colour and body type are receding as factors in social advancement in an age in which knowledge rules.
Globalism is a new social and economic creed driven by science and technology, in an age where a specific type of knowledge is the determining factor in the achievement of wealth and prosperity. On the other end of the scale, a whole group without access to a first class education and the disciplines and skill sets it offers, is being left behind. Literally, globalization is creating a second class world citizenry. And the Virgin Islands are not immune from this DARWINIAN PARADIGM.
But how does this discussion relate to the parenting deficit? Well, poor parenting is setting up a whole generation for failure; and in a world increasingly borderless, where excellence in learning is closely related to economic wellbeing. Today’s world is highly competitive. It is a place in which the best in math, science, and technology, and in the speaking and understanding of numerous languages rule. The language of globalism is increasingly a synthesis of the multilingual married to an esoteric math and science.
The new global elite possess the nuances and thought patterns of an internationalist culture. On the other hand, in an increasingly complex world ruled by science and technology, those without the right education and skills sets will be consigned to a permanent underclass. That is why education and culture are the most important factors influencing national development in the new global environment. Yes, in the bold new world of the 21st Century, knowledge is power, information is boss, and education is king.
To be continued
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