The Big Issues

Christopher Columbus is both celebrated and reviled in the Atlantic World. Debate over how to regard him erupts each year around what's known as Columbus Day, observed around the first Monday in October. This observance happens in the United States (US), in Europe, and in some places in Latin America. But many have been pressing the point for years that the man himself isn't worthy of commemoration. He heralded Europe's immensely empowering colonization of the Americas, a hellish process for Native peoples and later for Africans. According to accounts, his personal treatment of Native people was brutish. So, in this episode we ask: How should Columbus be regarded in history, whether it's Caribbean history, American history, or European history? And why do all peoples often struggle to reconcile with the truth about their most exalted icons?

The host is Kieron Murdoch. The guest is: 

More Background:

While Columbus was not the first European to visit the “New World” as the Americas became known, his voyage in 1492 did initiate an era of rapid colonization and exploration of the Americas that catapulted European nations into a centuries-long age of territorial expansion, economic growth, and growth in global power. This, of course, was to the detriment of the first American civilizations of indigenous nations and tribes that were there. For them, contact with Europe was very literally cataclysmic. It led to epidemics, enslavement, land dispossession, and re-incorporation into the new settler or plantation societies as a permanent, forcibly assimilated underclass for the ensuing centuries. 

Colonialism in the Americas would later involve the trade in, and enslavement of, at least 12 million Africans, and their incorporation into settler and plantation societies as a permanent, brutalized underclass. So, the idea of celebrating Columbus is contemptible to many Afro-people in the Atlantic World as well. Put simply, Columbus became for many, a hated symbol of colonialism. But that's a difficult narrative for European and post-settler states today to reconcile. That struggle to reconcile historical narratives represents a clash of nations, races, and ethnic groups in our modern, post-colonial, 21st Century coexistence. 

A people's history represents who they were, how they became what they are, their struggles, their triumphs, and the events that ground their values. So changing a narrative is hard. If Columbus should be regarded firstly as a brute, then should the narrative be the same of all colonial era figures who benefitted from, or took part in the exploitation of non-European peoples? The entire narrative of European expansion into the New World would accordingly become one of murderous brutality. That is already the narrative in Caribbean history for example, which, in the post-colonial era, is primarily narrated with the experience of Africans, the Indigenous, and East Indians at its core. But it's easy because these groups are now the dominant groups. But in European societies, or multi-racial and multi-ethnic post-settler states, that's a harder pill to swallow.

This programme first aired on NewsCo Observer Radio 91.1 FM on October 17th, 2021. Get the latest news from Antigua and Barbuda at the Antigua Observer online.

Reacting to the incentives and powers given to the developer of the new 549-acre Western Imperial Special Economic Zone (WISEZ), an analyst and an opposition politician say quite starkly, that the entire concept of special economic zones (SEZs) in Antigua and Barbuda needs an overhaul. They feel the government retains too little involvement in overseeing the operations of the zone for itself, and is risking a lot by trusting investors to carry out what would normally be state functions.

The WISEZ's incentives and powers have created controversy in the last two weeks since the license order specifying those details surfaced. For many, it has brought on flashbacks of the outrage and controversy that followed the granting of a similar license order to Chinese investor Yida Zhang in 2015 for his SEZ in the northeast of Antigua. In fact, for anyone who has ever glimpsed the Yida license order, they would notice that much of the concessions and powers granted to Yida are repeated in the WISEZ license order. 

It's made it more apparent than it was before that Yida's sweeping concessions and powers were perhaps not a one-off, but may be the standard regime to which any investor deemed worthy will be entitled. In this episode, we continue the debate the WISEZ. Our analyst and our politician conclude that the SEZ laws desperately need redrafting.

The host is Kieron Murdoch. The guests are:

More Background: 

The WISEZ license was granted to a company called Milennia-Montaigne Developments (Antigua) Limited (MMDA). The principal act is the Special Economic Zone Act 2015, which was followed by Special Economic Zone (License) Regulations 2015.

This programme first aired on NewsCo Observer Radio 91.1 FM on October 17th, 2021. Get the latest news from Antigua and Barbuda at the Antigua Observer online.

The estimates of the trillions (yes, trillions) of dollars worth of hidden wealth that is parked, managed, registered or invested through secrecy networks keeps growing and growing. The Pandora Papers - a leak of millions of financial documents from more than a dozen sources connected to this background world of financial secrecy - have further confirmed as one of our guests put it, that the wealthy and the political class are "robbing the human race blind". 

In this episode we discuss the scale and significance of what the Pandora Papers reveal, and the implications for international development and the future of the human race. We ask: What should the response of global civil society and citizens be? Here in the Caribbean, where we are routinely considered part of the offshore world, what should be our response?

The host is Kieron Murdoch. The guests are:

Thoughts from the host:

The unpolished reality is this: Many wealthy people and political actors in countries around the globe have been shifting the wealth they earn both legitimately, and at times illegitimately or unethically, to jurisdictions where they are promised secrecy, little to no taxes, and a general free pass. While that may not sound so bad, it's actually horrible. A disproportionate amount of wealth is being hoarded up and kept from being reinvested in improving our society. And moreover, the scale of it is what is most frightening. Trillions of dollars. Trillions. Listening to our guests, you get a real sense of the crippling and insidious nature of this kind of theft. 

Whether to pay less tax on legitimate wealth, or conceal ill-gotten wealth, or conceal legitimate though unethically amassed wealth, the aim always seems to be hoarding - keeping wealth away from taxes or keeping stolen or unethically-gotten wealth from being discovered altogether. To be sure, much of the wealth the Pandora Papers reveal is legitimate, but that shows just how normal hiding legitimate earnings from taxation has become. It means there is drastically less money working to guarantee universal progress. 

Things like public healthcare, schooling, social services, transportation and communication infrastructure, public investment in clean energy, counteracting pollution and environmental degradation, mitigating climate change, and investing in medical research - these are the things that suffer. So, the next time you hear that your government doesn't have the money for this or that, remember that in your country, there are guaranteed to be at least some mega-wealthy elites, some straddling the line between business and politics, who are taking vast sums of money out of your jurisdiction, parking them in secrecy jurisdictions, avoiding taxes, and likely splurging on high-end overseas properties, foreign company stock, and international luxury goods.

This programme first aired on NewsCo Observer Radio 91.1 FM on October 17th, 2021. Get the latest news from Antigua and Barbuda at the Antigua Observer online.

In this episode, in the wake of Facebook's October 4th outage, and amidst the debacle in the US over the company's willingness to better respond to the harms created by its platform, we discuss how social media has long become the norm of communication and how the way we socialize has changed with it. We examine the harms that social media exposes us to - harmful people, harmful content, and harmful feelings and habits on our own part. We ask: How is today's social media redefining today's society, and how can we respond to its harms? 

The host is Kieron Murdoch. The guests are:

More background:

When it comes to harms, there are quite a few. Social media addition, for example, is a real problem for some people. Checking your apps constantly? Impatiently waiting for replies or reactions to your posts? Agonizing over your content? Glamourizing the ideals of shape and beauty portrayed by influences and models? That sort of absorption with a virtual world can be especially bad for young people and children, who are still building their sense of self, self-worth, personality, and their place in the world. 

There are other harms too - toxic people creating toxic spaces online for bullying, trolling, and harassment. And then there's predators interacting online, seeking out people to exploit. And then there's the scammers trying to rope you into something or steal your information in someway. And then there's the social media companies themselves and who they allow to access your data. 

Has a political party paid a shady company to run an influence campaign by accessing the personal data about you held by a company whose app you're using? Suddenly, unbeknownst to you, you are being targeted with tailored content designed to influence your political stances based on information you've placed on a social media profile, and the data the app has gathered about your interests. That's unsettling, isn't it?

This programme first aired on NewsCo Observer Radio 91.1 FM on October 10th, 2021. Get the latest news from Antigua and Barbuda at the Antigua Observer online.

A plethora of questions are being asked about a new special economic zone (SEZ) authorized by the government of Antigua and Barbuda with sweeping concessions and significant autonomy surrendered to the zone's operator. The zone, called the Western Imperial Special Economic Zone (WISEZ), was declared over more than 500 acres of reportedly privately owned land in the Five Islands and Jennings areas. Why is the developer given authority over local development control in the zone? Why does the language of the document speak routinely about the government "fast-tracking" its own regulatory procedures for the developer in the future? 

Why do phrases like "no restrictions" and "no limits" appear so frequently in the zone license, in reference to everything from the nature of what commercial activity may take place in the zone, to what amount of corporate information entities in the zone must disclose?  Why does it pledge that the government will provide "fast-track" approval for an unspecified proportion of foreign labour to work at any level, and in any industry in the zone? Why does it state that there shall be "no spatial planning and construction restrictions" in the zone? Why has it already pledged to impose no restrictions on creating marinas, artificial beaches, and trenching?

In this episode, we ask whether the terms of the new license for the SEZ are are too generous, and what benefits there will be over time for Antigua and Barbuda's people and economy.

The host is Kieron Murdoch. The guests are:

More Background:

Not much is publicly known about the zone's operator, Millenia-Montaigne Developments (Antigua) Limited, except that the entity is related to the principals behind the new Western Imperial Medical University (WIMU), which has been setup in Chinese investor Yida Zhang's SEZ in the northeast of Antigua. Quoting official sources, the Antigua Observer reported that the new Western Imperial SEZ (WISEZ) "will be facilitated by CEO of Western Imperial Capital Limited, Vijender Singh, and managed by Charit Mathur, Director of Western Capital Limited." That entity, Western Imperial Capital Limited, is related to the medical school, the WIMU, as its principals signed a memorandum of agreement (MoA) back in March with the Yida developers to establish the medical school in Yida's SEZ. 

This programme first aired on NewsCo Observer Radio 91.1 FM on October 10th, 2021. Get the latest news from Antigua and Barbuda at the Antigua Observer online.

Regionally, whether the death penalty ought to be abolished has been an issue of much public debate for more than a decade. In this episode, we teamed up with the organisation, Greater Caribbean for Life (GCL), to put together a panel of abolition advocates so that we could hear their arguments against the death penalty. 

The host is Kieron Murdoch. The guests are:

Thoughts from the host:

Abolition arguments are often couched in a human rights perspective, and one which sees life and the right to life as being sacrosanct. Some of those who argue in favour of keeping the death penalty favour it as a deterrent. But abolitionists will argue, based on statistics, that having the death penalty available or even regularly enforced does little to prevent the sort of crimes for which courts would issue death sentence. 

Retentionists will argue that there are some convicts who, having committed heinous acts such as murder or multiple murders, rape or multiple rapes, torture, slavery, brutalization, or child abuse, ought to be killed. This is where they tend to find a chorus of popular support based on the genuine disgust people have for heinous violence, the anger people feel toward the perpetrators, and the desire that people have for vengeance. 

But as much as we may feel someone is deserving of death, we ought not to allow our anger to strip anyone of their human rights. Human rights exist for a reason. They protect our life, liberty, freedom, and dignity from each other. They are inalienable to each of us as human beings. The right to life is us saying that no one, including the government, has the right to kill another, period. If a person violates that right by killing someone, how is it good for the state to violate it again by killing the perpetrator? 

We would not put punishments like slavery, beating, and torture on the law books. This is because we find such violence disgusting and dehumanizing for both the victim and perpetrator. No one should ever do those things to another person, even if the person is guilty of doing the same. But we seem to be less bothered by killing as a punishment. Why aren't we as disgusted by the act of killing? Abolishing the death penalty is not society saying that a person's crimes are not worthy of severe punishment. Rather, it's society saying that killing people is wrong, period.

This programme first aired on NewsCo Observer Radio 91.1 FM on October 10th, 2021. Get the latest news from Antigua and Barbuda at the Antigua Observer online.

The Caribbean was handicapped when it came to development even before Covid-19.  We are remote islands with few natural resources, repeated natural disasters, and a legacy of underdevelopment of just about everything. Then came Covid-19. It's hit us especially hard with tourism being the main economic driver of many of these small economies. But, ask yourself: Were we on the right development path before March of 2020? In this episode we explore the pace and nature of Caribbean development pre-Covid and post-Covid.

The host is Kieron Murdoch. The guests are:

Thoughts from the host:

The fault in our economies is now Covid-19, Covid-19, Covid-19. That's the new rhetoric. But that's not true, is it? Before Covid was plague, we were still dealing with poverty, sluggish growth, and fragile economies. The underdeveloped and under-skilled nature of the labour force was a problem. Brain drain was continuous with a mismatch between what our people specialized in, and which industries investors were putting money toward. Our infrastructure was poor. Our regulators didn't stick to the national plans technicians drew up.

Our land use policies were ineffective at empowering the lowest earners. There were, and are still, communities that remain intergenerationally poor and underprivileged. Too many of our people were, and are still, only prepared to seek employment as opposed to building enterprises, and we have not attempted to remedy that culture in any direct or comprehensive way. Our public sector was bloated and ineffective in too many areas. Agencies were retarded by unfit political appointees. Corruption, both petty and grand, was and is still perceived by the average citizen as a major problem. Public utilities and telecommunications were too often unreliable. 

Our prisons need to be bulldozed. Our courts are understaffed and backlogged. We need juvenile intervention programmes to be well funded. We need more public sector teachers, nurses, qualified police officers and mental health professionals, instead of wasting money on redundant government workers in needless positions. Our entire political system needed comprehensive democratic reform. The list is endless. So, again, we ask: Were we on the right path before Covid-19? Yes or No? And lastly, for all these chronic problems that are listed, and for all the others too numerous to mention, which dynamic, progressive leader with a new way of thinking has the solutions? Ralph Gonsalves? Keith Mitchel? Gaston Browne? Roosevelt Skerrit? 

This programme first aired on NewsCo Observer Radio 91.1 FM on October 3rd, 2021. Get the latest news from Antigua and Barbuda at the Antigua Observer online.

The Americas continue to witness an unmitigated outflow Haitians from Haiti, sometimes receiving them with open arms, but more often treating them with contempt. We saw, for instance, the United States (US) forcibly deport Haitians from its Mexico border to land them in Haiti with nothing but their measly personal belongings in cheap plastic bags. That can't be right, right? What would your government have done? On this episode, we talk about how the region and the world should respond to the migration crisis, and all whose job it is to help stabilize the Haiti.

The host is Kieron Murdoch. The guests are:

Background:

For Caribbean people, the images we saw from Texas and the ones we later saw later of hundreds of Haitians intercepted in Bahamian waters stokes a special unease. For Black people especially, it brings on a pang of jaded despair at the common misery of the Pan-African experience. Why should Haitians have to endure this, simply to live a peaceful life with health, security, and the opportunity to work? Well, Haiti is a country in dire straits if you'll excuse the cliché, and it has been so for many years. 

Gang war, massacres, kidnappings, Covid-19, the August 14th earthquake, and the July 7th assassination of its President have, this year, added to a decade of chronic poverty and struggle that followed the catastrophically destabilizing and ruinous 2010 earthquake. Now, the pace of Haitian migration is picking up again as the country's circumstances make it impossible for millions of its people to live happily. Added to that, Haitians who were once living in South America and Central America, are on the move as well, as Covid-19'seconomic fallout pushes them from comfortably living on the margins of those societies to being further without opportunity.

So what's the solution? Well, the problem is the solution: Haiti. Haiti needs political stability, economic opportunities for its people, and public security right now, or its people will keep arriving at other borders. But achieving those things, as has always been the case, requires a long, complex, and moderated mix of foreign involvement and domestic initiative - a mix that is difficult to create and sustain when gangs run entire swathes of the country and it's current de facto leader is being investigated for suspected involvement in the murder of the country's last leader. 

This programme first aired on NewsCo Observer Radio 91.1 FM on October 3rd, 2021. Get the latest news from Antigua and Barbuda at the Antigua Observer online.

In this episode we talk about sexual abuse, power, and accountability, in the wake of the very recent conviction of the popular American R&B singer R. Kelly for multiple crimes including sexual exploitation of a child, kidnapping, and  sex trafficking. The convictions came after more than two decades of Kelly fighting such accusations in criminal and civil court, and at times settling them out of court. Since the 1990s in fact, R. Kelly had been hounded by accounts of abuse and misconduct. 

In a nutshell, his abuses centred on the predatory pursuit of teenage girls, and running and trapping his partners in abusive, controlling relationships, within what's been described by some outlets as a sex cult. Today, with our two guests from Antigua and Barbuda, and St. Kitts and Nevis, we discuss abuse more generally and in a Caribbean context. We ask: What can we learn about the nature of sexual abuse, power, and our society from the case of R. Kelly? And how do we compel accountability?

We tackle topics like: 

The host is Kieron Murdoch. The guests are:

This programme first aired on NewsCo Observer Radio 91.1 FM on October 3rd, 2021. Get the latest news from Antigua and Barbuda at the Antigua Observer online.

St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) made international headlines in August when its prime minister was hit in the head at an anti-government protest. But long before, all the talk about SVG was about the disastrous volcanic eruption that happened there in April. In this episode, 5 months since the eruption, we ask: What is the state of the volcano? Are people still living in shelters? What is the social and political mood in the country? Has business activity returned strongly? What of the heavily damaged areas? Is clean up possible there and underway? What is the situation with schooling? With Utilities? With water? How badly hit is the tourism sector and agriculture? And how has Covid-19 impacted recovery efforts? 

The host is Kieron Murdoch. The guests are:

This programme first aired on NewsCo Observer Radio 91.1 FM on September 26th, 2021. Get the latest news from Antigua and Barbuda at the Antigua Observer online.