By Neil Armstrong
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| Photo credit: Danae Peart From left: Juliet Holness, Member of Parliament, Jamaica; Andrea Davis, Chair of the Department of Humanities, York University; Pamela Appelt, Co-Chair of the Jamaica 55 Canada Committee; Joe Halstead, Co-Chair of the Jamaica 55 Canada Committee; Tka Pinnock, executive director of the University of Toronto Students' Union; and Howard Shearer, CEO of Hitachi Canada at the inaugural Don Levy Lecture at York University on October 6, 2017. |
Juliet Holness, Member of Parliament for East Rural St.
Andrew, believes the emancipation that people have in using education as a
tool, physiologically, socially and financially, is very important to Jamaicans
at home and abroad.
She was a panelist at the inaugural Don Levy Lecture – a
panel discussion focused on “The Role of the Diaspora in National Development”
– presented by the Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community & Diaspora
at York University in association with the Jamaica 55 Canada Committee. The
event was held at the university in Toronto on October 6.
The other panelists were Beverley Mullings, associate
professor at Queen’s University; Howard Shearer, CEO of Hitachi Canada and
co-chair of the Jamaica 55 Canada Committee; and Tka Pinnock, executive
director of the University of Toronto Students’ Union.
“This emancipation, in fact, is the only sure way to mould a
new generation where gender equality and the resultant sustainable development outcomes
represents not only goals but attainable targets and norms.”
Holness said through education, she wants people to abolish
the concept of the marginalization of boys or men and eradicate the concept of
the inequality of girls and women “realizing that no progressive society can
and could be sustainably developed without boys and girls learning and growing
in a respectful environment of equity and equality.”
She said education has been her great ultimate liberator and
the tool of emancipation.
Education must been seen as a tool for
social, mental and economic transformation; a tool that allows for making
sustainable change to any society, she said.
Mullings said as the generation of migrants that settled in
the UK in the 1960s, Canada in the 70s and 1990s and the USA throughout the
1960s and 1980s age, and with the closing of immigration corridors to Europe
and North America there is an increasing concern for the sustainability of the
existing model of diasporic engagement that relies on nationalist narratives of
belonging and on a coordinating role for governments to focus attention on
issues of national concern.
“It’s no longer clear in my mind that appeals to patriotism
will continue to be the fundamental reason why Canadians with Jamaican heritage
engage in efforts to transform Jamaica. And, it isn’t also clear that the
issues that currently preoccupy the Jamaican state will hold the same level of
importance that they have had for earlier generations. Quite simply, I think
the time has come to ‘think outside the box’ about the role that a 21st century
diaspora might play in Jamaican social and economic transformation.
She said in order to do so, “we need to think about what
defines diaspora identity, and what issues and concerns are likely to generate
the levels of solidarity and engagement that characterize diaspora movements
like the League of Coloured Persons in the 1930s, or the UNIA, the United Negro
Improvement Association, in early 20th century.”
Mullings said as cultural theorists, such as the late Stuart
Hall and Paul Gilroy, have noted what they’ve seen is how important encounters
across difference have been to the forms of creativity and innovativeness that
have historically emerged from the Caribbean diaspora.
“Both of these scholars point to the way that a sense of
diaspora consciousness, rooted in a sense of displacement, a racial memory, and
longings that as one scholar puts it ‘lies at the edge of possibilities.’ How
that has sustained diasporic generations that are not migrant, not entirely
from ‘the rock’ but who share affinities and connections that are rooted not
only in the physical place of the island, but in its history and unresolved
questions of dispossession, violence and injustice.”
She said it is this “sense of diasporic consciousness among
second and third generation Jamaicans that offers the greatest promise for a
role for diaspora in the structural transformation of Jamaica, and the
Caribbean as a whole.”
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| Andrea Davis, Chair, Department of Humanities, York University at the podium with panelists, from left-right: Juliet Holness, Beverley Mullings, Howard Shearer and Tka Pinnocok. |
He said the diaspora has to create a synergy with the
national development plans of Jamaica.
Pinnock called for engaging the young people in the diaspora
and a shift in the conversation to one that focuses on them.
She said there is gatekeeping that happens in the Jamaican
community here and in Jamaica and as a result there are many youth “who would
like a seat at the table but are denied.”
The challenge, as she sees it, is how to create space at the
table where they are not usurping the roles of older people.
Pamela Appelt, chair of the Jamaica 55 Committee, said the
panelists recognize that education confers a moral responsibility to serve, a
human quest to fulfill a constructive mission in the service of others.
Janice Miller, High Commissioner of Jamaica to Canada, said
the work of the committee also strengthens the partnership which is valued by
the government of Jamaica with its diaspora and is in keeping with the theme
for Jamaica 55 – “ Celebrate Jamaicans at Home and Abroad.”
Meanwhile, Mitzie Hunter, Minister of Education, said the
lecture provides a space to talk about Jamaicans in the Canadian diaspora
context, and an opportunity to further engage in conversations and to have
debate.
Don Levy, managing director and portfolio manager of Confido
Wealth Management Group at Manulife Securities – sponsor of the lecture – said
he is “inextricably linked to every facet and fabric” of what the lecture is
all about and stands for.
Levy, who was born in Tower Hill, Olympic Gardens in
Jamaica, said he was raised by a single mother and life presented its fair
share of challenges.
He immigrated to Canada from Jamaica in 1983 and enrolled at
York University to pursue an undergraduate degree.
[This story has been published in the North American Weekly Gleaner, Oct. 12-18, 2017.]
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