The people who came into British Honduras/Belize from older cultures and civilizations in the first part of the twentieth century, looked at money differently from the way our local people did. Our people generally looked at money as just something you used to buy stuff. People from older societies, by contrast, considered money as something you organized in order to create power, whereupon that power would enable you to generate more money, which would create more power, and so on and so forth.
What happened in Belize in the latter part of the twentieth century was that the children of the immigrants from across the seas began to get more and more wealthy, while we roots people fell backwards, because we were committed to a high standard of consumption even at the same time as our traditional industries – forestry, sawmilling and waterfront, were fading.
Industries which surged here after World War II included banking and insurance. Later on, telecommunications and the tourism service industry became giants.
Inside the Southside educational system, the adjustments to an economy based on business and finance and service, were not being made fast enough. The Catholic educators, respect to them, jumped the gun with their business and finance stream (what they called “commercial”), while the Southside largely remained traditional, which is to say, “academic.”
So the new economy in the old capital was dominated by Catholic graduates, who were largely mestizo because that is what their religion was – Catholic, and some of us started to see our decline as a matter of race. Yes, racism has existed and exists in Belize, but we made decisions which contributed to our decline, while other people were making decisions which contributed to their success.
As a people, we developed two kinds of mentality in the second half of the twentieth century which we had not encouraged before. We developed a gangster mentality and we developed a beggar mentality. Some of us wanted to take by force what we saw other people accumulating, and others of us wanted people to feel sorry for us and give us handouts from their hard-earned revenues.
Remember now, that when we came out of World War II, we roots Belizeans were the highest ranking, socio-politically speaking, amongst the natives of Belize. The one area we can point to which is a benefit of that previous ranking is the area of law, which has become an exceedingly wealthy profession in the last three, four decades. Whatever racism operates here to bring pressure on roots, does not appear to apply to the legal profession.
When, out of nowhere, the UBAD organization came on the scene in 1969, we had absolutely no funding. There was a rich man by the name of Wilhelm Arnold in our original executive, but he never gave us anything, and he quickly jumped ship. UBAD’s credibility allowed us to raise funds from poor people to purchase a Gestetner stenciling machine, which is how we began this newspaper in August of 1969.
Over the years we have not gotten credit for transforming $250 worth of 1969 donations into the Kremandala organization which employs 60 Belizeans in 2007. Remember now, there were other people at that time who were receiving tax free and duty fee concessions to “grow” their businesses. We never got any such assistance or ease. In fact, the reverse was the case. We were arrested and persecuted and sabotaged. This is how it remains to this day, because we are black and we declare that we are black. We have met and we have confronted this racism which is practiced by the white supremacy oligarchy in Belize. We fought against the racism, and we continue to fight against it.
We spent many years fighting for the enlightenment of our people where our history and culture were concerned. But it is possible for a new party to come into government and dismantle the African and Mayan history program. That would not be hard to do, because the two most powerful Christian churches here are opposed to the program. But, we have done as much as we can do.
Our people now need to learn about finance and economics. This gangster and beggar mentality is a losing proposition. Look, what separates man from beasts is man’s mind. There is nothing wrong with our people’s minds. There is where we need to get serious.
Our people are not lazy. We work hard and we make money. The problem is that all we do with our money, is spend it. That’s because we don’t know any better.
So our lives are feast and famine, so to speak. Christmas feast, famine afterwards. Easter feast, famine afterwards. September feast, famine afterwards. Our lives are seasonal, and cyclical. When they say party, we party. But when we are broke, they have money. That’s because we are pawns in this game, and they have chosen and appointed our “leaders” for us. We have to start thinking now instead of just bumping and grinding.
Power to the people.