When a community or society experiences a situation wherein the grown men cannot control or discipline the young boys and young men, that is a community/society which is in crisis. I know that this did not have to be the way it is in Belize today, and I would like to look at what has happened here since UBAD ruled the streets of Belize City in the early 1970?s.

There is a great misconception among the black bourgeoisie of Belize, and it is that the UDP is a black organization. This misconception is a legacy of the NIP days, in the late 1950?s and the early/middle 1960?s, when it appeared that the PUP had been Latinized and that the NIP represented a kind of black reaction, a black hope.

This is a delicate and complex issue, the issue of ethnicity in the history of Belize party politics, and it is never discussed by educated Belizeans, who are the citizens who have been trained to think. Educated Belizeans do not discuss this issue because they are afraid, for various reasons.

Gun violence is not an ethnic issue, but it is for sure that the community which is most affected is Belize City?s Southside, a largely black community. Gun violence came along with crack cocaine and the organization of gangs (the basic Crips and Bloods) around 1987.

No matter what I say or how I say it, this essay will be treated as hostile by UDP people. But I need to establish that I myself, like all nationalistic Belizeans, have a recognition of, and respect for, the constitutional importance of the UDP, which is the nation?s Opposition party and has served as Belize?s government in two different five-year terms within the last 22 years. Without an Opposition, the country does not have a democracy, at least democracy as we have been taught to know it, and all of us consider democracy to be the best system of government.

Thomas Jefferson did say that if he had to decide between a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, he would prefer the latter. I don?t believe that anyone else would share Jefferson?s view, and it is for sure that I am not that preposterously arrogant as to consider our Kremandala yard to have equal importance with the nationally organized UDP.

But there is a history here, and it is a history which involves me in such a way that it affects my perspective and opinion. As a black activist when I entered public life in 1969 at the age of 21, I had reasons to be hostile to the PUP and friendly to the NIP. But the NIP became the UDP four years later, and thus it was that by 1975, I was in a personal alliance with the PUP.

In 1977, this newspaper publicly changed from a philosophy of black nationalism to one of Belizean nationalism. Remember that in 1977, there was only Amandala, no KREM Radio or KREM TV. UBAD had been dissolved in November of 1974, so with Amandala having gone Belizean nationalist, who was there to stand for oppressed blacks in an organized way?

As the Southside began its unraveling in the late 1980?s then, there was no adult black leadership to bring black youth ?under manners?. In fact, when the unraveling of our social fabric began to have its homicidal/suicidal manifestations, it was the UDP which was in power. And they returned to power between 1993 and 1998. In 1998, the UDP ended up with a black Leader, but he is a black Leader of a non-black mass party.

Here?s my point. There are several black activist organizations and leaders out there. What they need to do is establish an umbrella organization similar to the National Trade Union Congress (NTUCB) which has brought all the trade unions of Belize under its unifying tent. These black organizations have to come together, write a constitution, and then hold elections for officers. The elected leaders of such an umbrella organization would be able to speak with more authority and ?backative?. They would be able to ?represent? to the leaders of the two mass parties ? PUP and UDP.

I am not interested in offering myself for office in such an organization. I would support such an organization with the resources controlled by Kremandala, but I do not propose the concept of the umbrella organization because I want to be a leader. Still, black people need strong, credible advocates, and the UDP is not a black party. Because the UDP is not a black party, a change of government will not result in any material changes in the way this craziness is coming down in the streets.

All power to the people.