New moral global order needed
VICE Chancellor Vice Chancellor of the University of the West Indies Professor Sir Hilary Beckles has added his voice to the Caribbean leaders calling for a new moral economic order, recognising the post-colonial reality still affecting countries in the African Diaspora.
His comments came yesterday during a discussion hosted by the Centre for Reparation Research in celebration of African Liberation Day held under the theme: Equality, Equity, Justice, Human Rights: Imperatives for Africans Now, Not Later!
Sir Hilary made the point that the Small Island Developing States are being faced by an interconnected series of pandemics. “I call them the three Cs. Climate Change, which is very important, chronic disease revolution and the COVID-19. You put all of that together and what you have a is a cocktail of destruction of black life. It is going to persist until we get to the root of it.”
Outlining the historical context, Sir Hilary stated, “We know the pandemic of chronic diseases is ripping its way through the black world. And we know that this explosion of diabetes, hypertension in the black community, primarily in the Diaspora has been historically informed and shaped.”
“So just as we are confronting the significance of this chronic disease revolution and the context of the Caribbean and this is also the same for the US South, over 30 percent of all the black people over the age of 50 have either diabetes or hypertension or both. If we use the marker of chronic diseases, the black people are the sickest people in the world and certainly in the context of the Diaspora, the Caribbean , US, Brazil, yes, the post- enslaved community is the sickest community on the planet.”
“And it therefore connects to history of the chronic disease pandemic now to COVID-19 pandemic. That precisely it is these sickest people, the results of a historical process that are now the primary targets of COVID-19, which again violently connects history to the present. So the continuity of historical forces and there ought to be no surprises in this regard.”
“It is for this reason, that some of our CARICOM leaders, Prime Minister [Mia Amor] Mottley of Barbados and Prime Minister Gaston Browne of Antigua and Barbuda have called for a new discussion about the global moral order.”
“The pandemic of chronic diseases now, co-joined with the pandemic of COVID19 have exposed the facts much more clearly than ever before that there is a global, moral disorder. And that humanity cannot continue in the face of persistent evidence which illustrates that the Western World though which history and its contemporary practices are focusing upon the destruction upon the black people on this planet. We cannot ignore that evidence anymore.We cannot ignore the fact that these connections of history and contemporary relationships must be the centre of a new global discussion.”
Sir Hilary made the point that ten years ago, an argument was developed that the first half of the 21st century is going to be the moment in which the reparatory justice takes centre stage in international politics and discourse. Assuring that he is still committed to this view, the Vice Chancellor explained that the COVID conversation is showing the role of history in the contemporary conversation of social justice, particularly in the area of public health.
“So I join with those political leaders who have spoken of the need for the world to recognise right here and now that we have an immoral global order that must be addressed. Must be aggressively addressed. We must find a way into the United Nations and all of the other international arenas and we must say that COVID-19 and the destruction of black life is just the latest stage in a specific journey. We are going to put them all together, we are not going to disaggregate, we are going to show that COVID 19 is just the last iteration of the global assault on black lives.”
With regard to climate change, and the rising temperature on the planet, he noted that the communities, particularly those historically damaged by colonisation, persons are living in the least safe areas are on the front line of the migration of viruses.
Additionally he noted that hurricanes are affecting the working class people, the people in communities who are living in water courses and in unstable environments.
“Largely because the wealthy and rich people of the world have taken the best environments for developing housing. and we see not only in the Caribbean, we see the black people, the poor people in especially, living in communities that are not sustainable,” Sir Hilary lamented. (JH)