Quarterly Jamaica Diaspora & Returnee Update — | Q1 2002

Quarterly Update | January–March 2002 | Jamaica Homes News

Key Takeaways: Q1 2002 in Six Lines

• Euro notes and coins launch January 1; Jamaican-British communities watch closely
• Afghanistan war continues; Taliban routed but Osama bin Laden remains at large
• Daniel Pearl kidnapped and killed; journalism and diaspora communities mourn
• Queen Mother dies March 30; Jamaican-British community shares national grief
• Jamaica remittances prove resilient through post-9/11 economic turbulence
• Returnee property buyers adjust plans amid global uncertainty but hold firm

The Euro Arrives: Twelve Nations, One Currency

On January 1, 2002, euro notes and coins entered circulation in twelve European Union member states, replacing the German deutschmark, French franc, Italian lira, Spanish peseta, Dutch guilder and seven other national currencies in the largest currency changeover in history. Approximately 300 million people woke up on New Year’s Day able to spend the same notes and coins from Lisbon to Helsinki. The logistical operation involved distributing 14.5 billion banknotes and 50 billion coins in the weeks before launch — an achievement of continental coordination that had seemed barely conceivable a decade earlier.

For the Jamaican diaspora community in the United Kingdom, the euro’s arrival was a reminder of Britain’s ambiguous position in European integration. The Blair government, elected in 1997 on a broadly pro-European platform, had declined to join the single currency in the first wave — citing the need to meet five economic tests — and the euro debate continued to divide British political opinion as it entered circulation on the continent. Jamaican-British community members who travel frequently to Europe for business or family reasons — and there are significant Jamaican communities in the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium — noted the practical convenience of a single currency even as they registered the UK’s deliberate step back from full European integration.

The euro’s launch also had indirect implications for Caribbean economies through its effect on European trade and investment flows. Several Caribbean trade analysts and diaspora professionals with expertise in international economics have been monitoring how European monetary union might affect the island’s access to European markets, its aid flows from EU institutions, and the value of its exports denominated in currencies that now move together against the US dollar and Jamaican dollar. The picture is complex, but the general assessment is that a more stable euro-zone economy benefits Caribbean exporters through more predictable pricing in one of the region’s key markets.

Afghanistan: War Without End?

The US-led military campaign in Afghanistan, begun in October 2001 in response to the September 11 attacks, has continued through the first quarter of 2002 with the Taliban largely routed but the campaign’s core objective — the capture or killing of Osama bin Laden — unfulfilled. The Tora Bora battle of December 2001, in which bin Laden is believed to have escaped across the Pakistani border, marked the first great strategic frustration of the war on terror, and the implications of that failure are becoming clearer as the spring offensive Operation Anaconda in March 2002 encounters fierce resistance from al-Qaeda fighters who remain active in the Afghan mountains.

The Jamaican diaspora community’s assessment of the Afghanistan campaign is, broadly, sympathetic to the goal — dismantling the organisation that planned and executed September 11 — while sceptical about the strategy and deeply concerned about the humanitarian consequences for Afghan civilians. Community discussions in the first months of 2002 have focused as much on the reconstruction of Afghanistan and the obligations of the international community toward a country devastated by two decades of war as on the military operations themselves. The Bonn Agreement of December 2001, establishing an Afghan interim government under Hamid Karzai, is seen as a fragile but necessary first step, and diaspora voices with international development expertise are actively engaged in discussions about what a sustainable reconstruction programme would require.

Daniel Pearl: A Journalist Murdered

Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped in Karachi, Pakistan in January 2002 while investigating links between al-Qaeda and Pakistani militant groups, was murdered by his captors and a video of his killing was released in late February. The murder of a journalist in Pakistan by a group associated with the jihadist networks that had carried out September 11 sent shockwaves through the international media community and beyond. For the Jamaican diaspora — many of whose members in the United States and United Kingdom work in or adjacent to media, publishing and communications — the Pearl case was a visceral reminder of the human cost of the war on terror’s frontlines, and of the importance of press freedom and the rule of law in confronting political violence.

The Queen Mother: Farewell to a Constant

Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, died on March 30, 2002, at Windsor Castle, at the age of 101. Her death, which came six weeks after that of her younger daughter Princess Margaret on February 9, closed one of the most significant personal relationships in the history of the British monarchy — the Queen Mother’s role as the mother and confidante of the sovereign had been a quiet but constant feature of British institutional life for five decades. The public response was immense: more than 200,000 people queued to file past her coffin as it lay in state at Westminster Hall, and the funeral at Westminster Abbey on April 9 was watched by millions.

For the generation of Jamaicans who came to Britain in the 1950s and 1960s, the Queen Mother had been part of the backdrop of their entire lives in Britain. Her public appearances, her broadcasts, her presence at national occasions — all were woven into the fabric of what it meant to be in Britain during the years of post-war rebuilding and social change. Her death prompted community radio programmes and church services across the Jamaican-British community, and the depth of feeling expressed was genuine, even among those whose political views included strong critiques of the monarchy and its role in Britain’s colonial past. The personal and the political are rarely simple in a community with this community’s history.

Remittances: Resilience in the Face of Turbulence

The Bank of Jamaica’s data for the first quarter of 2002 shows that remittance inflows have remained robust despite the economic turbulence generated by September 11 and the subsequent global downturn. While many economic indicators — including tourism arrivals, which fell sharply in the autumn of 2001 — showed the impact of the attacks, remittances proved more resilient. The explanation is not difficult to find: for most Jamaican families abroad, the regular payment home is not a discretionary expenditure but an obligation — a moral and practical commitment to parents, siblings, children and communities that does not diminish in hard times and may actually increase as people reach into emergency savings to maintain the support their families depend on.

This resilience has been noted by Caribbean development institutions and by the Bank of Jamaica as evidence that remittances are a more stable source of foreign exchange than most other revenue categories. Unlike tourism — which can collapse overnight in response to a terrorist attack, a hurricane or a health scare — diaspora transfers tend to maintain their volume through disruption. The policy implications are significant: investing in the conditions that sustain and grow the diaspora’s capacity and willingness to send remittances is a development strategy of the first order, one that the upcoming discussions around the 1st Biennial Jamaica Diaspora Conference will have an opportunity to formalise.

Returnee and Investment News

The first quarter of 2002 has seen diaspora property investment activity recover from the immediate post-September 11 freeze that affected many aspects of international financial decision-making in the autumn of 2001. Enquiries to Jamaica estate agents and property developers from UK and North American buyers have returned to approximately pre-attack levels, and several developments that had seen purchases delayed in the aftermath of September 11 have received renewed commitment from buyers who had temporarily paused their decisions.

The broader context for diaspora investment decisions in 2002 is one of global economic uncertainty but Jamaica-specific relative stability. The island’s fiscal consolidation programme is being maintained, the tourism sector is recovering, and the political environment — with a general election expected later in the year — is not generating the kind of pre-election spending volatility that has in the past disrupted macroeconomic management in the run-up to polling day. For diaspora investors weighing the risk-return profile of Jamaican property against alternatives in the UK and North America, where interest rates have been cut to historically low levels in the aftermath of September 11, the comparison is increasingly favourable to Jamaica. The combination of yield, capital growth potential, and the personal significance of owning property in the country of one’s heritage continues to make Jamaica property a compelling proposition for a growing segment of the diaspora.

Jamaica Diaspora & Returnee Quarterly Update — Edition 99, covering January to March 2002. Published by Jamaica Homes News on 2 April 2002.

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