Our guest today is Barrister Melvin Brown Speaker of the Parliament of the State of the African Diaspora, who gave us the honor to respond to our questions.
The Cotonou Times : Can you please introduce yourself?
My name is Melvin Brown; I am a Panamanian attorney from afro-Caribbean descent. My forefathers came to Panama during the construction of the Panama Canal in the 19th century. In October 2021, I was elected Speaker of the Parliament of the State of the African Diaspora.
The Cotonou Times: Be kind to explain what is the State of the African Diaspora also known as SOAD?
The State of the African Diaspora is a political organization which structures the African Diaspora in a pan African spirit. We Africans who live outside of the continent believe that we must have a working relation with the African continent and that our interests are the same as those of the continent.
The Cotonou Times: When did you start having an interest for the African continent?
Twenty years ago, I started to get involved in sustainable development and strategic planning for the socio-economic development of afro-descendants. I had the opportunity to work with the United Nations Steering Committee (entity established by Kofi Annan) of the 2001 UN Durban Conference on Racism, where I was representing a Panamanian civil society NGO. It is during this period that I discovered the objectives of pan Africanism. Through my multiple interactions with members of the Diaspora who had a long experience in this area, I started to realize that if the Diaspora which includes 350 million persons and that the continent who has between 1.3 and 1.4 billion inhabitants, it makes perfect sense for the Diaspora and the continent to work together.
Africa despite colonialism, despite neocolonialism remains the richest continent on the planet. In the Diaspora, we have a series of resources, human resources, financial resources that if we combine efforts working together, master planning, strategic planning, developing programs and projects; it seems to me that it is a “win win situation”. That is the proper way to go and as we move forward, we can engage and have solutions to the problems that have kept us in the last six hundred years in these two system frameworks: colonialism and neocolonialism which have affected us in a profound manner as a people.
The Cotonou Times: From which parts of the world the principals of your Organization hail from?
We have six regions which are: The African Continent, Europe, Asia and Pacific, North America, Central America and the Caribbean, and South America.
The Cotonou Times: What have been the main achievements of the State of the African Diaspora since its creation?
Various pieces of legislation have been adopted on identity and citizenship, on spirituality and religious practices as well as on culture and ethnocide. We also have the twinning cities program which has recently been put in place to work with cities across the world in Africa and in the Diaspora which come together to have programs of actions among themselves. We also have the smart cities program which is run and organized by the Prime Minister’s Office. Finally, awareness raising campaigns aimed at promoting the pan African idea have been organized in different countries to sensitize the afro-descendant populations.
The Cotonou Times: Is the afro-descendant population of Central America and the Caribbean that you know very well interested in establishing touristic ties with specialized entities on the African continent?
As far as I am concerned, everything is a question of number. If the Diaspora has more than 350 million people and that its revenue exceeds several billions of dollars only on the American continent, those operating in the tourist industry must establish strategies aimed at developing business ties between the Diaspora and Africa. If we take as an example the “return program” put in place by Ghana, we know that it generated more than a billion dollars.
