What's in a name?

It's become commonplace to refer to people from the Caribbean/West Indies as Caribbeans, Caribbeaners, even Antillians, in addition to the historical label of West Indians.

More recently Afro-Caribbean and African-Caribbean have been added to the lexicon, to describe those who are of African descent.

Some argue that the people of the region had no input in coining those labels and that those terms are for the most part irrelevant and inaccurate.

A former Caribbean diplomat has gone a step further in challenging those labels, especially as the relate to Black people in the area.

In his new book Democracy by Diplomacy Lionel Hurst, a former Antigua and Barbuda Ambassador to the United Nations, argues that "though in appearance the transplanted person looks every inch an African, these modern persons have been re-engineered to behave more like the people who enslaved them."

He's put forward the term "Afro-Saxon" as a more fitting description.

"The Afro-Saxon moniker", Mr Hurst asserts, "seems apropos, for it combines the two elements that constitute the new person, more so than 'West Indian'."

But University of the West Indies historian Dr Lennox Honychurch approaches the subject with caution.

And he doubts the validity of the term Afro-Saxon.

"The Caribbean is a confluence of cultures. We had multiculturalism long before it reached Europe," he told BBC Caribbean.

In this 250-page treatise, a former Ambassador from the Caribbean country of Antigua and Barbuda shares a superb narrative of the recent history of the diplomatic achievements of the English-speaking Caribbean.

The inter-state relations between the Caribbean states and the United States provides the major backdrop to this well-written book. Having served as Ambassador to the United Nations, to the Organization of American States, and to the USA for fifteen cumulative years, Ambassador Lionel Hurst brings a rich knowledge of the relations of small island-states to their most powerful neighbor. It is worth the time and will fill in many gaps in the knowledge of most readers about a region committed to a tradition of democratic government.

Book is available at Barnes and Noble and Amazon.com
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E-mail: Maxhurst@aol.com