There is a story in Mexico which says that the Mariscal-Spenser Treaty of 1893, which regularized the border between Mexico and British Honduras while transferring San Pedro Ambergris Caye from Mexican sovereignty to British, was signed because Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom was visiting Mexico at the time, and she and their Mexican dictator, Porfirio Diaz, “hit it off.” The story is what scholars call “apocryphal.”
There is a relevance to this story, true or not, as we enter what is the month of patriotism in both Mexico and Belize – September. When the grito is heard throughout Mexico on September 15, their Independence Day, it will remind Mexicans of the first pro-independence rebellion of 1810, led by a priest, yes, a priest, by the name of Miguel Hidalgo. All Mexicans will thrill to the sound of their nation’s inspiring reality. If Mexico’s nationalism is as strong as any nation’s on planet earth, then Belizean nationalism is as weak as weak can be.
There are many differences between Mexico and Belize. One of the most important differences is that Mexico, which has been independent since 1821, is much larger than Belize, maybe 300 times larger in population. But another serious difference is that Mexicans fought and shed blood for their independence, and they did so repeatedly between 1810 and 1821; they shed blood for their constitutional freedoms, and they did so repeatedly from 1821 onwards, until the great Mexican Revolution from 1910 to 1940 ended up establishing the foundation of what we know as the modern Mexican state.
We know, and you must admit, that our Belizean nationalism is weak, because there are so many Belizeans, too many Belizeans, who give priority to their sub-groups, whether those sub-groups be ethnic, religious, political or otherwise. Remember, Belize has only been a nation for 29 years, and it suited our colonial masters, the British, to have us be as divided as possible. Those divisions made colonial rule an easier proposition. Remember, again, the nation of Belize was actually born in political division on September 21, 1981.
The centerpiece of modern colonial rule in British Honduras was the dominance of the Creole majority in the public service. To a visible extent, the British used the Creole public servants as their surrogates during colonialism, colonialism being a subordinate status which the Belizean people began to rebel against in a passionate way on New Year’s Day of 1950.
As a result of that rebellion against colonialism, and the ascension of Rt. Hon. George Price to leadership of the anti-colonial People’s United Party (PUP) in 1956, an attempt was made to involve the other major ethnic groups – Mestizo, Maya and Garinagu, in the drive to independence and the development process.
There were Creoles who believed themselves threatened by Mr. Price’s PUP, and they reacted in various ways, one important reaction being migration to the United States. In the preliminary migration euphoria, Creoles in the United States cities conceived of themselves as superior to their brethren and sistren back home, and they celebrated their escape from The Swamp, as the famous New York City-based “Ticks” referred to the land of his birth. So then, there was a significant Americanization process which was affecting the psyche of Belizean Creoles. They were not really sure, after Hurricane Hattie in 1961 and the exodus of the 1960’s, whether they were Belizeans or Americans.
The Garifuna uncertainty was worse. A definite demographic minority in Belize, many Belizean Garinagu believed their primary loyalty was owed to the Garifuna nation, a concept to the south of Belize which featured the hundreds of Garifuna thousands in Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua, and a concept which has also come to include the large amount of Garinagu who themselves migrated to America, and succeeded.
That said, you can imagine the ambivalence in our Mestizo and Maya brethren and sistren in the Corozal and Orange Walk Districts. Their daily lives were and are much influenced by the shining light of the overpowering Mexican nationalism just across the border. In fact, if you speak to older Maya and Mestizos from the villages in the North of Belize, some refer to Mexico as “the old country.” This is because their grandparents and great grandparents came here from the Yucatán in the second half of the nineteenth century to take refuge from the Caste War. Please remember, the Maya never took very seriously the often invisible border lines which the European powers, Spain and Britain, had drawn to divide land which the Maya had ruled before Cortés brought disaster in 1519.
It is ironic that the Mestizos and Maya may actually be Belize’s most nationalistic citizens, even though they have the most tangible of reasons to hedge their bets, so to speak, and that most tangible of reasons is their Mexican ancestry. Consider, the shining light of Mexican nationalism is only the Santa Elena bridge away.
Under the circumstances which we have described and discussed in the previous paragraphs, you must realize that it should have been paramount, critical yea, for Belizean children, if not at self-government in 1964, then certainly at independence in 1981, to begin to receive heavy nationalism instruction in Belize’s government-subsidized schools. The reason this has not been the case is because Belize’s schools are controlled by religion, and Belizean politicians are afraid of European gods. Straight up.
Power to the people. Power in the struggle.