“UBAD’s politics were more unpredictable than PAC’s – one former activist claimed that ‘nothing was thought out’ – but did employ a provocative gender analysis of PUP rule, party politics, and civil society that had strong elements of homophobia and antifeminism.”
– pg. 258, FROM COLONY TO NATION, Anne S. Macpherson, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln and London, 2007.
When the international power structure and mainstream academicians can’t fit you into one of their analytical models, then they use their academic, media and political power to make you look like a buffoon or an incompetent.
In the United States of America, this is what has happened to Minister Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam. African American grassroots support has remained for Farrakhan, however, and it is what has enabled him to survive. The fact of the matter is that his Nation of Islam derives its financial support from those same grassroots African Americans, and because of that, none of the power structure moguls, or the media and academic apologists for same, can pick up the telephone, call Farrakhan and tell him what to think or what to say. To too great an extent, they can do this to the leaders of the NAACP, the Urban League, CORE, the Rainbow Coalition and other African American organizations which depend on non-grassroots financing for their operations.
UBAD was a democratic organization which held elections for its executive. Because UBAD was democratic, when the Unity Congress wished to control UBAD in early 1973, then they had to finance what political scientists would call a “palace coup.” The Unity Congress decided to overthrow the presidency of Evan X Hyde from within the UBAD executive itself. The result of that attempted putsch was a power struggle which divided and destroyed UBAD. The pro-Unity Congress faction of UBAD then became part of the group which founded the United Democratic Party (UDP) in September of 1973.
The Evan X Hyde faction of UBAD is the faction which built Amandala, the UBAD newspaper, into the leading newspaper in Belize, then freed the radio waves in the nation with the establishment of KREM Radio in November of 1989. Kremandala became the largest black business on the Southside of Belize City, but according to the unnamed “activist” (he is identified on page 339 in Anne S. Macpherson’s NOTES), “nothing was thought out.” This is how the power structure amplifies the arrogant opinion of a professional academic and international public officer who spent a couple weeks around UBAD in 1972, and is now their authority on UBAD.
We are remarking on these things because Belizean general elections are now here, general elections being the one time every five years when the masses of the Belizean people get to have a say in who rules us. General elections are an exciting time, and they have great impact in terms of the fact that thousands of jobs are on the line. The winning party gets to hire thousands of their people, while thousands of the losing party’s supporters will have to do “the best they can” until 2013.
Where the overall economic policy guidelines for the nation are concerned, however, there is not enough debate. The reason there is not enough debate is because the power structure does not want that debate. The power structure wants the mindless emotional circus which will decide whether it is the red or the blue which will continue the Lord of Chichester’s neoliberal policies. At Kremandala, what we want to be debated is the nature of the economic policy guidelines which will be implemented in Belize for the next five years.
To a certain extent, people like us were deceived by the PUP. We thought we were voting for Said Musa, an apparent centrist with a populist history, but we were putting Ralph Fonseca into power, and he is an extreme, unabashed, unapologetic neoliberal. This game was orchestrated by the puppetmaster at #60 Market Square. Chichester played the carrots and sticks game to perfection. We Belizeans fell for it.
Now there are many Belizeans who are looking at the UDP’s Dean Barrow as the option. But there are ominous economic indicators which have to concern Belizeans, especially the fact that oil reached $100 a barrel this week. The inflationary trends in the Belizean economy are being exaggerated even as we speak, and they have already had a frightening impact on the price of foodstuffs. As a politician, Mr. Barrow can’t lay all his cards on the table, but the anti-corruption platform in and of itself is not enough for Partridge Street.
For us, neoliberalism is only a sophisticated form of white supremacy. It means, inter alia, that there are no national borders where the movement of international capital is concerned, but workers can’t cross those same borders except as illegal immigrants. Corporate money enters Belize in the form of general election carrots, but the telecommunications, electricity and other corporate profits will be transferred abroad wholesale after the voting game is played. This is the stick across our backs which has punished the Belizean economy. All the politicians talk about foreign investment. None of them tell us about “repatriation of profits.”
We would like to know that the UDP has some plans to look at the crisis which our economy is now entering. Neoliberalism has failed the people of Belize. That is the opinion of those of us who may not be thinking things through, as they say. Enlighten us please, Mr. UDP.
Power to the people.