THE circulated report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a think tank affiliated centre in Washington, D.C, on “The Guyana Diaspora” expands upon what most Guyanese have already known about their migration. The report has recycled old news in a crafted form. May I remind Team CSIS that Guyanese have been on the move since the middle of the nineteenth century. Specifically, Guyanese have migrated from rural to urban areas, from Guyana to other Caribbean regions (intra-regional), from Guyana to Europe and North America (extra-regional), and from these regions back to Guyana (return & transnational). There is, of course, the in-migration of foreign nationals to Guyana. Some of these movements are still active, revealing consistent patterns. Migration is necessary to experience personal and familial growth and development; migration has become synonymous with a culture of mobility; and migration has transformed Guyana from an importer to an exporter of people since independence in 1966. The bottom line is that whenever and wherever Guyanese choose to live beyond their border, they are a product of migration, and by extension, branch communities dubbed as The Diaspora. Unfortunately, the lack of specificities in the various stages of Guyanese migration has artificialised and lampooned the thought that the pasture on the other side is greener. The mere fact the CSIS has suggested tapping into the Guyanese diaspora punctuates the point of success among Guyanese abroad. That may be the case for some Guyanese, and so, we welcome the report insofar as untangling some chimerical views of Guyanese migration.

Team CSIS claims, however, that “Guyana’s emigration rate is one of the highest in the world, numbering about 30,000 annually.” This figure is a surprise. The report does not provide a specific time frame. Until this report, empirical evidence reveals that the peak of Guyana’s emigration occurred in the 1980s when the population decreased from 759,647 in 1980 to 723,673 in 1991, some 36,000 during the then People’s National Congress (PNC) dictatorship. The Guyana population census (2012) also shows that since the collapse of the PNC in 1992, the population has increased gradually to around 746,955 in 2012, the most recent reliable figures. In previous decades, Guyana has achieved some levels of growth in healthcare, infrastructure, education which are invariably different from the days when Guyanese were investing in airline tickets and voting with their feet. It is logical to question that 30,000 Guyanese are leaving annually since the report premised this movement on the so oft-cited push-pull theory of migration. This theory explains that individuals are pushed out of their homeland by deteriorating conditions and pulled to overseas destinations for better livelihood opportunities. The pattern is in sync with the hierarchy of migration. The individuals from less-developed regions will move to developed domiciles, and not generally the other way around. However, as conditions improve in the push-sending regions the need to out-migrate will diminish. The CSIS report espouses the opposite, claiming that Guyana continues to face the brain-drain dynamics of migration with the flight of skilled individuals and capital at the forefront. That might be generative but not the predominant trend. To rely merely on the brain-drain characteristics to define Guyanese migration discredits and effaces the millions in remittances sent by overseas Guyanese to sustain Guyana. Some Guyanese might be offended by the myopic views of their dedicated efforts and ask, why not see Guyanese migration as a fruitful brain exchange phenomenon between homeland and overseas? Shockingly, the brain exchange label is not even mentioned in the report. Yet, the report recommends that the government encourage the diaspora to invest in Guyana.

If one is willing to forego that the report “has undertaken an in-depth study of the Guyanese diaspora” and that the authors “interviewed approximately 40 individual members” without a clearly stated research design, then there are a few takeaways. The most instructive is that the Guyana government should engage and partner with Guyanese overseas branch communities to invest in Guyana in a two-way relationship. The Guyana government has acknowledged the report, promising to build upon the recommendations of CSIS. In the meanwhile, my message here is not to roast the report but to reveal a loose and ongoing narrative about Guyana’s past, present, and future since the discovery of oil and gas in 2015. Do you remember the New York Times’ controversial report on Guyana that generated mixed feelings across the land of many rivers? Well, this report is not far behind as an agent of a civilising mission (lomarsh.roopnarine@jsums.edu).