​Three years ago, The United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 24 January as International Day of Education, in celebration of the role of education for peace and development. This year's  theme, Recover and Revitalize Education for the COVID-19 Generation is a stark reminder that education is a human right, a public good and a public responsibility. This week,  GOFAD explores the context of this theme and plans a subsequent focus on actual examples toward achieving its  aspirations. 
 
An Evolving COVID-19 Generation 
 
Functioning during the current pandemic  has taught us that Education for the COVID 19  generation is not only linked to formal institutions and general sources like books but also that in times of crises, education must not be paused. Hence, through online engagements and  devices like mobiles and computers, there was little risk of getting contaminated with the virus. It demonstrated that through innovative applications,  education  provides hope of  what works to stimulate the mind. Children suffered from the lack of 'community' stimulation in the formal school system  but online education provided alternative ways to meet their demands. Education was sustained in  the form of new modes of  working and new avenues for exploring historical, artistic and cultural geo-spaces that  brought people out of depression and anxiety.
 
Yet the experience of adopting to educational requirements during a pandemic has illustrated that without inclusive and equitable  opportunities for all, countries will not succeed in achieving gender equality and breaking the cycle of poverty that are leaving millions of children, youth and adults behind. UNESCO's  Global Education Monitoring Report 2020 shows that  258 million children and youth still do not attend school; 617 million children and adolescents cannot read and do basic math; less than 40% of girls in sub-Saharan Africa complete lower secondary school and some four million children and youth refugees are out of school. Their right to education is being violated and it is unacceptable.
 
 Value of Schools and  links between Health and Education 
 
The purpose of the 2021 theme is to strengthen and welcome the revival of education whose normal modes were frozen with the wave of coronavirus starting  from china and  encapsulating the whole world. The pandemic gave new meaning to globalization.  Now, a ray of hope has appeared with the discovery of vaccines inspired by  global efforts of the scientific community . The looming impediment to a hopeful reality is whether or not the global governance of vaccines would permit equitable access and equal opportunities for the  Covid-19 generation in the North and South to start going to school, college and universities.
 
A  recent article in the Lancet Journal, "Supporting every school to become a foundation for healthy lives"  
(January 21, 2020) warns of the consequences of these  inequities and shows in particular,  the intrinsic link between education and health. Schools are identified as a  setting where children and adolescents live and learn, linked to the family and embedded within the wider community. They   have an important influence on every student's health. Many health interventions have used schools as a platform, often for standalone programmatic initiatives to reduce health risks, and sometimes for more comprehensive approaches. The authors provide evidence to show that the interventions, uptake, and sustainability of these approaches are generally disappointing. They argue that to improve health and to reduce inequality, all students must attend school from a young age and for as long as possible, and their educational success therein must be maximized. Thus, beyond educational benefits, schools are also important for health. Coherence between each school's policies, structures and systems, human resources, and practices is required to advance both academic and health outcomes. "Beyond simply implementing ready-made programmes into schools, health professionals can position themselves as catalysts for structural change as they have many opportunities to advocate for, and participate in, the intersectoral implementation of reforms and innovations in school systems to promote the health of all students".
 
 
In support of this view, UN Secretary General,  Antonio Guterres aptly proclaims that education is a basic need of every person. Its importance is  described in the SDG #4 ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all.    Through this  aspirational goal  the UN General Assembly promotes a message of global vigilance  to every corner of the world.  It sounds the clarion call for  the betterment and welfare that education keeps inside itself: " an educated individual, a civilized individual and hence a civilized society, blessed with opportunities and optimism"
 
COVID-19 and the Moral Imagination  

Once again it is the Lancet January 22, 2021, and reference to the moral imagination that has placed the issue squarely on the  agenda,  It refers to a  "cosmopolitan moment", when the existing order is destabilized to open up a new arena of moral and political responsibility.
                  
In this cosmopolitan moment, the global community could come together
 to create new institutions or mechanisms to address the structural causes 
of global inequity and promote the wellbeing of people and the planet.
 
The argument is  that the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the dysfunctional system of global governance that  exacerbate  barriers and bottlenecks to achieving global reforms such as  SDGs and the Paris Agreement. Why?:  because they conflict with powerful global actors pursuing their own economic goals, national security, and sovereignty. Yet there is a possible recovery path through international cooperation and multilateralism which GOFAD previously addressed  pointing to need for innovative approaches to debt relief , expanding  funding for development assistance, and  investments in  technological solutions and emergency preparedness and response. 
https://www.globalonefrontier.org/blog/as-the-un-celebrates-its-75th-anniversary-multilateralism-is-at-the-crossroads
 
 
How to drive our moral imagination for the COVID -19 generation must preoccupy educators, health practitioners and policy makers. It must also draw on the perspectives of what Lancet refers to as 'Influential idea-generators', multilateral agencies, advocacy coalitions, and philanthropists. The aim is to achieve   viable pathways to recovery for a healthier and more equal future for people and the planet while revitalizing education for the COVID 19 generation.  
 
 
References 
 
Prof Didier Jourdan, PhD Nicola J Gray, PhD Prof Margaret M Barry, PhD Sonja Caffe, PhD Christophe Cornu, MA Fatou Diagne,  "Supporting every school to become a foundation for healthy lives"  
The Lancet: January 21, 2021
 
Mahomed Said Patel, Christine Beatrice Phillips  "COVID 19 and the Moral Imagination" The Lancet, January 22, 2021 
 
Garfield Barnwell, " As the UN Celebrates its 75th Anniversary Multilateralism at the Cross Roads"  GOFAD Blog  September 7, 2020


 
Eddie Greene 

What an extraordinary day! This week's blog is being written minutes after the official transition of the American Administration with the swearing in of 46th  President,  Joseph Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.  No doubt,  newspapers and columnists  commentaries around the world will abound with celebratory messages of hope that the dark days are about to be vanquished and  illumined by an era of civility and a revival of  America’s international image. That Unity was the prevailing message of President Biden's  inaugural address was predictable.  He was emphatic that uniting people is the prerequisite to fighting the cascading challenges of extremism and violent  forces that divide the nation.  His cautious optimism resonated in  the pronouncement that this was indeed America’s day to celebrate "the triumph of the cause of democracy". Yet  no words, no matter how inspiring as was President Biden’s could disguise the looming shadows of a fractured society with the underlying gloom of over  400,000 deaths from COVID-19 for which the gathering at the ceremony  appropriately honored with  a moment of silence.
 
 
MLK Celebrations: Casting light on Caribbean Leadership and a Stunning Rebuke of White Supremacy 
 
This Inauguration follows the celebrations on January 18 , commemorating the birthday of the slain civil rights leader,  Martin Luther King, Jr.  Washington Post columnist Colbert King aptly recognizes the    significant overlap with the ascension of Kamala Harris as America’s first Black woman and  Asian Vice President with Caribbean ancestry. Of significance too,   is that the 2021 MLK Global award was bestowed on Sir Hilary Beckles, Vice Chancellor of UWI for his international contribution  to social and  reparatory  justice.  
 
It is worth noting that  the annual Martin Luther King Jr.  commemorative service  at the Washington National Cathedral, where Dr. King gave his last sermon on March 31, 1968, four days before he was assassinated  in Memphis. This year,  the sermon given from the same Canterbury Pulpit on Sunday January 17, 2021  by   Rev. Dr. Michael Eric Dyson,  was a riveting denunciation of ‘white Evangelical bigotry’, ‘American exceptionalism as white supremacy’ and “those who honour the 2nd Amendment and dishonor  2nd Commandment  on the road to perdition”. Under the theme,  St Paul’s letter to America, mirroring  St Paul's letter to the Romans,  Dr. Dyson's message  is   the  Roman Road from insurrection  to salvation  provides  options for the reemergence of the American dream that foreshadowed Biden's Inaugural address with bylines:
 

• Truth cannot be brought about by lying
• Good cannot be brought about by committing Evil
• Justice demands accountability 
• Integrity demands consistency
• Hope starts in lament

 
Rev. Dr. Dyson’s sermon listed under the Resources link  on GOFAD's  website is one for the ages which we highly commend to your attention.  Also for your convenience the link is attached below:
 
Rekindling the American Dream 
 
President Biden, recognizing the impediments to which Rev. Dr. Dyson referred, urged the  nation  to move beyond the  aberration of the insurrection in the  arc of American history. But the  President’s optimism cannot as with a wand erase the fact that the American Dream may have long lost its sheen, except, perhaps to immigrants. The rebuilding process will have to deal with the cynicism of competing ideologies.  First, to the people on the left, the American Dream is now mentioned only as a lost Golden Age of relative social mobility that was destroyed by neoliberal, anti-worker policies. To those on the far right, the American Dream is one that liberals have taken from whites through all sorts of affirmative action programs and given to racial and ethnic minorities. The subtext of the Trumpian counterrevolution has been, in fact, restoring the American dream, the bright prospects of social ascent, to its rightful owners — that is, to white Americans, and to them only.
 
The prevailing narrative of white supremacy is itself fodder to dislodging American exceptionalism. This is a major challenge, despite the President's best efforts to revise the stature of United States democracy around the world that had become a convention. Much has changed from the era of American politics in the 1950s,  when it was more or less assumed that democracy, that is, electoral democracy combined with private ownership and civil liberties, was what the United States had to offer the Third World. Then, democracy provided not only the basis for opposition to Communism but the practical method to make sure that opposition worked.
 
Increasingly and mostly over the past four years,  the fragility of  both the American Dream and American exceptionalism has been exposed.  The Fragile States Index by the nonprofit organization, Fund for Peace,  shows  that the United States is among 20 countries where pressures have grown significantly in the past decade in ways that potentially undermine stability. The U.S. has suffered a stark drop in what the index labels as cohesion, an indicator that reflects growing internal divisions.  David Frum argues for Trump’s impeachment for fueling the insurrection at the Capitol,  even though this state of affairs predates the last four years in American politics. It rather harks back to  a pervasive tendency of stoking mob violence against people of color as typically how rich whites channel poor whites’ grievances away from themselves.  What was unusual this time is that the white mob at the Capitol turned on the white politicians, rather than the people of color who are usually the victims. The United States has a long history of mob violence stoked by white politicians in the service of rich white Americans. 
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/01/remove-trump-tonight/617576/
 
Conclusion: From Eloquent Prose to Soulful Poetry
 
Amanda Gorman the 22 year old Afro American poet, following Maya Angelou's tradition at President Obama's inauguration in 2009, brought  a fitting climax to the ceremony by reformulating Biden's  hopefulness  from eloquent prose to soulful poetry: 

Somehow we have weathered and witnessed 
A nation that isn't broken 
but  simply unfinished 
There is always light 
if we are brave enough to see it
If we are brave enough to be it 
 
Listen to the entire poem here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jp9pyMqnBzk


Rev. Dr. Dyson’s sermon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYMzTGmY5tQ
 
 
Eddie Greene 
 

​This week we crave the indulgence of our readers and provide a diversion from our normal blog which would have followed the path of analysing the outcome of the impeachment of Donald Trump, yesterday by the US Congress.
 
In 2019, GOFAD introduced a track on Caribbean Heroes in which it has so far highlighted Sir George Alleyne, the late Sir Alister McIntyre, the late Leo Edwards, the late Honourable Owen Arthur, and most recently, The Most Honourable P.J Patterson. 
 
This week we introduce a new track to our blog, Discovering Emerging Transformative New World Leaders from the Caribbean. It features a podcast by Kwamé Ryan in a different genre, a haunting audio rendition of what he refers to as “an eight-minute idea”. It is also intended to introduce you to Season 1 of his weekly podcast, launched on December 28, 2020 and released every Wednesday.
 
Kwamé explains the catalyst for his new venture: 
 
“When the first lockdown happened, I was determined not to let any notion of lost opportunities take hold of me, and since the world was moving online even more than it had been prior, I resolved to boost my own presence there.  What is far more important, however, was a feeling that I wanted to show some sides of myself I had previously hidden - my writing and my enthusiasm as a communicator in particular.  I don’t know what I was waiting for, but everything has it’s time!  All the more energising to get support from close family friends as I step out.”
 
The topic to which this blog refers, The Cowardice of Conviction: Self Image as Friend or Foe was carried on Wednesday, January 6, 2021, the same day as the amplified crisis of democracy in the USA through the ‘attempted coup’ at the US Capitol.  It resulted in the unprecedented second impeachment of an America President yesterday (Wednesday, January 13, 2021) by the US Congress. That podcast recorded before the insurrection by Trump’s mob and the desecration of the US Capitol is indeed the triumph of an idea and the prescience of Kwamé. Please listen to the (January 6th) podcast via the link which also provides access to all currently released episodes:    https://anchor.fm/eightminuteidea 
 
For those of you who do not know who Kwamé Ryan is: He is the son of Professor Selwyn Ryan and Joya Gomez of Trinidad and Tobago; an internationally renowned conductor who has held symphonic and operatic Artistic Directorships in Germany and France and is regularly invited to lead many of the world’s finest professional ensembles as a guest.  Among his professional attachments, Kwamé is Professor and Director of the University of Trinidad and Tobago’s Academy for the Performing Arts and Founding Chairman of the Youth Art NGO Searchlight International, which has, since 2015, provided opportunities for young Caribbean musicians to network and perform with their peers worldwide via the organisation’s Youth Music Exchange (YMX) platform.   
 
A passionate educator, he has been Music Director of the National Youth Orchestra of France, for which work he was made an Officer in the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Ministry of Culture and is currently an Associate Conductor of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. He is also a laureate of the prestigious Sabga Award for Caribbean Excellence (2017) and conducted the 2019 BBC Children’s Prom at the Royal Albert Hall.  You will find an extensive interview with Kwamé entitled Perfect Circle in the Brunswick Review (September 17, 2020), and further information on his website, links for which are provided below.   It is suggested that you first listen to the podcast.
 
I am sure Kwame would appreciate your feedback via the contact form on his website.
 
Eddie Greene 
 
 
Perfect Circle - Interview with Carlton Wilkinson for Brunswick Review:
 
 https://www.brunswickgroup.com/conductor-inspiration-interview-i16679/ 
 
 
Website:
 
www.kwameryan.com
 
 
 
 

I had intended  to start this New Year writing a message of hope.  This is following the festive greetings on December 20, 2020 with the aspirations of  #Hallelujah. I had planned   to highlight the prevailing transition of GOFAD perspectives by using  references to ten (10)  most popular of our fifty 50 blogs in 2020 listed below.   After witnessing an attempted coup against the USA Constitution by a delusional president and insurrectionist attempts by a pro Trump mob on Capitol Hill,  it transformed my normal optimistic zeal into reflective sadness. It brought back the imagery of the  emblematic problem posed in my  blog (10/29/2020) The 2020 US Elections and a Post American World in the Balance. It is an image of  the diminished global presence and stature of America under Donald Trump. It cast  gloom on what the prospect of another Trump term  could mean for the erosion of America’s democratic governance structure         and even the American civilization envisaged by the Founding Fathers. https://www.globalonefrontier.org/blog/the-2020-elections-and-a-post-american-world-in-the-balance
 
 
While we celebrate the certification of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as President and Vice President at the Joint congressional session this morning, and while the Democrats now control the White House, Senate and House,  the reality is that  the scars of divisiveness and the existential crisis of identity will prevail.  The unfolding of events over the last 4 years demonstrates that politics is no longer about finding compromises that can address common problems but about winning a war for one’s own side. 
 
In his book, Why We’re Polarized, Ezra Klein is of the view that America is polarized by identity.  This is due to the fact   that over the past fifty years, partisan identities have merged with racial, religious, geographic, ideological, and cultural identities. The tragedy as he puts it: “An identity, once adopted, is harder to change than an opinion. An identity that binds you into a community you care about is costly and painful to abandon, and the mind will go to great lengths to avoid abandoning it.”
 
Trumpism has evolved into a  new form of identity in "tribalism" based on conspiracy theories, and abundance of lies.  It is consequently  irrational and emotionally driven. Moreover, it establishes a politics that is  now close to a religion—or is intertwined with religion. According to a Washington Post News Poll  (February 14, 2020)   an astonishing  half of Republicans believe that God chose Trump to save the country from liberalism. And Trump was caught on tape for over an hour angrily spouting QAnon conspiracy theories about voter fraud in an attempt to pressure Georgia state officials to overturn the election result. 
 
These  merged identities have nurtured Trumpism as a brand that has hijacked the  Republican Party.  One TV commentator sadistically referred to Trump's  ardent sycophants in the House and Senate as  having  sealed themselves in a tomb that Donald Trump built.  Nowhere is this better illustrated than  the  6 and 7  Senators and 100-131 Congresspersons who supported the efforts to overturn the results of the electoral College  in the Arizona and Pennsylvania respectively, even after witnessing the dastardly acts of the Pro Trump mob a few hours before. Lawmakers were expected to count and recognize Biden’s victory—as a final “loyalty test”: You’re either with Trump, or you’re against him, no matter the cost.  Now that the Presidency has been finally settled,  does this mean that there is a foreboding  'civil war' within the Republican Party?. Or is there a more enduring outcome of the political culture which   has attained a weight that is breaking much  of the  politics of the US  and tearing  the bonds that hold the country together.? 
 
Maybe the answer  to these questions is simple. Nancy Pelosi has just signified  her intention to invoke the 25th Amendment for immediately removing President Trump from Office.  Columnist Bret Stephens 'Impeach and Convict Right Now" New York Times (December 6, 2020) goes  further, calling for the president to be removed from office and barred from ever holding office again. “To allow Trump to serve out his term, however brief it may be, puts the nation’s safety at risk, leaves our reputation as a democracy in tatters and evades the inescapable truth that the assault on Congress was an act of violent sedition aided and abetted by a lawless, immoral and terrifying president”
 
The Props  of Social Media, Security and Prayer  
 
There are emerging grey areas. First the digital marketplace of ideas where most people and in particular Trump's base   now get their news, is pervasive. Trump fully understands that falsehoods  seeded from the White House tweets circulate through the public’s own posts and tweets.  But now this prop is being dismantled. Twitter and Facebook have placed a temporary ban on Trumps access to their services.  In addition,  those who have been cocooned in Facebook groups and fed a steady diet of lies from election-denial outlets like Newsmax and One America News are coming to a realization that especially with the confirmation of Biden as President,  there is no grand plan for Mr. Trump to magically retain office.  
 
Second, the lax security  for  the Pro Trump mob that attacked and desecrated  the  hallowed halls at the Capitol did not escape attention. Their treatment as patriots  is in stark contrast to the massive police-military presence of  Black Lives Matter protestors in summer 2020 in Washington DC. Does this have anything to do with institutionalized perceptions of "Black" and "White" ?
    
Third,  as we look to the future, we turn to prayer to stem the tide of  chaos displayed on  Capitol Hill  and of a deeply divided and fractured nation that is the legacy of Trumpism.  Bishop Budde of the Washington National Cathedral provides that straw of hope:  "we must see the brokenness of our body politic and as President-elect Biden just called each of us to do, we must step up and do what we can to repair the breaches in our life together" 
 
Ten (10) Most Popular of GOFAD's 50 Blogs in 2020
 
January 9 
Caribbean Leadership at the UN: Grasping Opportunities to enhance Profile and Influence
March 19 
Fighting The Contagion of COVID 19: A Different Kind of War
March 26
The Contagion of COVID 19: What's Next ?
April 16
Caribbean COVID 19:  Virtual Reality among Sovereign States
July 3
Celebrating Paloma Mohamed Martin: 11th Vice Chancellor of University of Guyana
July 30
Remembering  Owen Arthur while Highlighting Health Economics in these  COVID 19 times.   
August 7
Electoral Drama Unfolding  in the US  while Tribalism Persists
October 29
The 2020  Elections and a Post American World in the Balance
November 4
Can Trump Be Prosecuted?
December 3
Dumbfounded!  How did  Trump get so many Votes?
 
 
Eddie Greene