August 8, 2014
Dear Editor,
Belize is at a crucial point in her development and hard issues have to be put forth and carefully dealt with in detail. Egos will be bruised in the process. Let’s call it collateral damage, cold like that, because tiptoeing won’t get the mission accomplished.
I write once again to encourage those Belizeans who are closely scrutinizing the country’s leadership to not be intimidated or distracted from putting under the microscope the positions and views taken by those who put themselves forward to lead or influence. I invite Belizeans to seriously consider the following.
Leadership is a serious issue; unity is a serious issue. They make or break a nation and a people.
In my July 28 letter I highlighted, and highlight once again, what I refer to here as Diaspora-bashing, the positing of negative assumptions and opinions, even unprobed facts, as ugly truth about the group as a whole. I talked about the ways in which Major Lloyd Jones in his writing lost an opportunity to offer Belize good leadership.
In his latest, the Major seems to be avoiding contemplation of that missed opportunity, at least publicly. That’s understandable. He’s human. Introspection can be painful.
Moving the conversation forward, let’s not fail to see that, in addition to poor leadership, the putting down of the Diaspora, along with the blame game being played on the Diaspora, is in fact the overriding issue in the dual citizen voting rights discourse. This is a crucial situation.
Diaspora-bashing is distorting the facts and twisting the attitudes that are informing the dual citizen debate. Case in point: Major Jones, representatively, injected the bashing directly into the discourse by stating he has already received too many negatives (paraphrasing) from the Diaspora.
This maligning of the Diaspora distorts in the same way cancer ravages normal healthy tissue, rendering it dysfunctional. Cancer is a malignancy. Malignancy, malign…. Get it? Cancer is your own body turning against you. Cancer kills.
At this point in our history we need to confront this insidious cancer for what it is and root it out. It is metastasizing deep in the rifts and painful issues which separate Belizeans at home from those who have gone abroad, returnees included.
We need to identify and speak to those issues because we have become an unhealthy, dysfunctional nation. The alternative is the cancer spreads. Belize loses. We all lose.
This rooting out will take guts. It too calls for the right leadership. You see, there are those who will resist. The grievances and grudges they nurse have become a functioning, albeit dysfunctional, part of them: note how Major Jones could not resist continuing to voice his disdain for the Diaspora in his latest letter. I’m sure expressing disdain for the Diaspora makes for sensational copy.
It is also what bigotry looks like. This brings me to the third reason for bringing the issue of Diaspora- bashing to the forefront. People suffer and pay a big price, often their lives, because of bigotry.
It is a dangerous road to set Belize on. It is chillingly reminiscent of the terrible injustices being perpetrated in this world, instigated and upheld by leaders, and those in a position to influence, who fan the flames of discontent, insecurities and misunderstandings and spread fear, doubt and ignorance with negative, prejudicial assumptions and uninformed opinions presented as facts. Many times it’s because they want to preserve the status quo. Other times it’s because they’re looking for a scapegoat, somebody to blame. Sometimes it’s both.
In some cases those injustices have even been legalized and institutionalized, by direct action or by default, as part and parcel of the fabric of societies. I give you the plight of black and brown people in the Americas, the United States in particular, South Africa and Israel/Palestine. I give you the exploitation of women and the poor, by design to serve the more powerful and wealthy. I give you the Hutus and Tutsis of Rwanda, people born in the same country, of the same race, seeing the other as foreigner.
Yesterday in Belize it was the Garifuna. Those who have spoken candidly with me still carry the psychological scars. I believe they are representative of that group in that regard. Now, we have some who find it expedient to embrace the common African ancestry they share with the Garifuna – a different topic, so let me not digress.
Today it’s the “aliens” and the “BelAms,” Belizean-Americans.
Tomorrow who will it be? The Mestizo, the East Indian, the Mayan, the Mennonite?
I too received Mrs. Laing-Arthurs’ e-mail. I’m glad she shared the Latin proverb, evil the operative word that caught Major Jones’ attention. That word should scare the Major. It should scare us all. No joke.
The Major did attempt to redeem himself, finding refuge in “nuggets” he found in another response, in the admissions by Mrs. Laing-Arthurs (very upstanding of the lady – that is leadership!), and in what seems as interjecting, on second thought, serious topics such as fragmentation of the family. Redemption is a good thing.
Bottom line, it’s about leadership, leadership, leadership, whether the issue is rosewood, Penner, etc., etc. The Diaspora is being called upon to speak on these things loudly and often. Thing is, they’d only be blowing hot air. See, the Diaspora doesn’t choose the nation’s leaders. The Diaspora has no political rights.
Belize needs all the people who love her. She is in a fragile, vulnerable and naïve phase of her development, a pivotal point. Look around, folks. We are indeed lucky to be at a place in time where we can see the mistakes other nations have made and sidestep them.
Otherwise, we perish. The John Crows are circling.
Sincerely,
Beryl Young
