If a society loses the ability to discipline its children, then that society will be devoured by its own. In the days of British colonialism, the law was very strict, especially with regard to murder and rape. The thing is that the colonized people of British Honduras were free to impose harsh discipline on our own children in order to ensure that they avoided the gallows and the cat-‘o-nine- tails, which were the fates for murderers and rapists, respectively.
It is our understanding that independent Belize cannot discipline its adults and its children in the ways we believe were successful in past colonial days, because we are being dictated to by European nations. They hold Belize to ransom, in the sense of saying that if you do this or do that where disciplining of your children and adults is concerned, then you will not be eligible for this loan or that grant.
Belize is at the stage where we really have to become serious in analysis of some fundamental issues. The Europeans have described the community life they met five hundred years ago in Africa and the Americas as primitive. What can be more primitive, however, than what is happening in Belize City today, where young thugs chase each other shooting automatic weapons, sometimes in broad daylight and sometimes where children and innocent civilians become casualties? What is more primitive than this way of life, where we cannot shop in the streets or walk in the night? Isn’t this a form of imprisonment for the populace? Perhaps more important, where is this leading?
There is a letter writer to this newspaper who is worried about belief in God. He argues that if people didn’t believe in God, then all hell would break loose because the people would be uninhibited. All hell has already broken loose in Belize, a country where everybody believes in God, or at least everybody claims so to do. So then, what is the problem?
We have explained to you that the people of Belize participated in a so-called “peaceful, constructive Belizean revolution” shortly after the end of World War II. The masses of the people of Belize believed that this revolution would right some socio-political injustices and would prepare our society for modern economic realities. Remember, the foundation of the People’s United Party was the 12,000 member General Workers Union (GWU). And remember, in construction the foundation is the most important work of all.
There was a good foundation, then, but the PUP failed along the way. The muggers and murderers in Belize City are the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the members of the General Workers Union. The People’s United Party became hijacked by an inside cartel of relatives and cronies as Belize approached political independence in 1981.
When the PUP was replaced by the United Democratic Party in 1984, the UDP fulfilled the conservative, unimaginative destiny which was expected from the class of privilege which had established their National Party foundation in 1951. The most imaginative of all the UDP Cabinet Ministers was the former PUP, Hon. Philip Goldson. The rest of them took instructions from the Americans, the British, and the new kids on the block – the Taiwanese.
The UDP opened up the economic system to foreigners, through the economic citizenship program, wide-open real estate deals, and foreign investment. All that happened was that the macro growth rate of the country soared, but the masses of the Belizean people simultaneously became trapped by crack cocaine and gang warfare. Belize, at one and the same time during the first UDP term, exposed how rich the country was and how poor the people were.
That is the contradiction we can see even more clearly today, in the third millennium. This is a socio-economic model we have copied from pre-revolutionary Cuba and from neighbouring Guatemala. It involves a small and wealthy ruling elite lording it over a large base of sufferers. This was the trend Fidel Castro broke in 1959 in Cuba. This is the trend Hugo Chavez is trying to change in Venezuela. In Belize, no one’s really trying to do anything, except for the red replacing the blue, and the blue fighting to replace the red.
The Europeans are happy with Belize’s version of two-party parliamentary democracy. The UDP and PUP politicians are happy with it – one fu me, one fu you. But there is burning frustration and roiling anger amongst the masses of the Belizean people. There’s something seriously wrong, and we can’t figure out what it is. We submit one explanation for this crisis: we, the Belizean people, are being told what to do at every turn; we, the Belizean people, are never free to decide for ourselves. Why is this so? Who is responsible? All we know is that there are people who are happy in the middle of all Belize’s stress, and these happy people are the Europeans and the Belizean politicians. Happy, happy, happy.
Power to the people. Power in the struggle.