Purpose

This brief discussion provides an overview on some of the background issues pertaining to diasporas in general and the case of Dominica, in particular. By reference to the experience of other diasporas, it attempts to understand the relationships and dynamics between a scattered people and their homelands. Hopefully, it will provides some direction finders for the work underway in attempting to develop new, thoughtful and fruitful insights between the government of Dominica and its nationals dispersed in the "strange lands" across the globe. This paper by itself will provide no opinions, answers or recommendations on the nature, quality or intensity of the bonds that ought to exist between Zion (Dominica) and her sons and daughters in diaspora. Those issues will flow out of the more focussed work which is the subject of the Draft Policy Paper that this overview introduces. As we all set our minds and hearts to this task, let us remember that there are lessons to be learned from the experience of others as we craft, sing and act out our songs of redemption We can only guess at this stage what these factors might be in the Dominica situation. What they are and to what degree they apply will form the context of the recommended policy paper which we, nationals at home and abroad together, are working to prepare.

Diaspora, then and now

In speaking of "diaspora", or "the scattering of a people away from their traditional or ancestral homelands", one instinctively thinks of the experience of the Jewish people. Driven from their homeland, wandering for centuries in exile, often persecuted in lands of their adoption, they maintained their ethnic, religious and cultural distinctiveness, together with emotional links to their dispossessed homeland in anticipation of the day when they would return to the land of their fathers. Even today, despite the fact of the restoration of the Jewish state of Israel, the sense of belonging among Jews no matter where they reside in the world, continues strong. In part this may be due to an undiminished connectiveness through race, language and religion. In part, because they continue to share a spirit of activism and sacrifice in the economic and military support for and defense of the nation of Israel under threat.

Such a concept of "diaspora", the so-called ideal case, needs to be applied with various qualifications to the experiences of other displaced, migrant or otherwise scattered people. Because it may well be that to the extent that the defining variables of the Jewish case do not apply, one cannot assume that the success enjoyed by the world Jewry and Israel connection can be hoped for, still less achieved, in other cases. At the same time, against the background of the Jewish experience, some observations can be drawn. Chief among these is that the links between a scattered people and their traditional homelands can be established, successfully nurtured and profitably developed for the mutual benefit of homeland and non-resident nationals. For example, the strength of support by Jews abroad for the nation of Israel may be attributed to the ethno-cultural links which are part of the historical traditions of the people. These links are cemented by religion, consolidated by memories of discrimination and persecution, and sustained by a determination that Israel must remain as a place of safe return for the Jewish people. It would be misleading to believe that even when Israel did not physically exist as a nation, the relationship between the exiles and the longed-for homeland was a one-way linkage. In fact, the Promise of return, supported by myth, tradition, religion and the lure of the ancient biblical heritage was as sustaining and supporting as any formal, active national policy of refuge and protection.

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