There are things about life which are mysterious and mystifying, things which are actually frightening. And, of course, the most frightening thing of all is death, a destination we begin to travel towards as soon as we are born.
Most human beings belong to some kind of religious organization, religions being man-made institutions which claim divine inspiration and seek to explain life and death in terms which are comforting to their congregations.
Almost all religions are run by professional clergy, who interpret dogma, preach the “Word”, and receive boarding and lodging, sometimes salaries, from the specific religion in its business manifestation. Since religions fulfill a human need of man, then their functions as businesses are understandable. Religions provide a supply for a demand, and they should be able to charge for their spiritual commodity.
Problems arise, however, when religions take on political roles, because it is in the nature and function of religions to be fanatic. Remember, most religions are promising salvation after death if their faithful are true to the faith in question. Most humans desire this salvation in the most desperate way, especially as their human bodies begin to deteriorate. They can therefore be programmed and manipulated by their clerics in dangerous ways and to extreme extents.
We often hear about a Judeo-Christian tradition, and the religious relationship between Judaism and Christianity has political implications for Belize because of the Guatemalan claim to Belize. The nation states of Israel and Guatemala are the closest of friends, and have been so from the moment of Israel’s founding in 1948, and even before. Israel is a Jewish state, and Guatemala is a Roman Catholic one.
The common denominator which explains their political affinity for each other is the United States of America. Guatemala is the most faithful U.S. ally in Central America, and Israel is America’s most important ally in the Middle East. Israel is a U.S. surrogate in the Middle East. America’s loyalty to Israel is extraordinary, and explains the hostility to Washington which has been provoked in Arab and Islamic states in the region.
The land which Israel calls its territory and which Jews refer to as “The Holy Land,” was actually occupied by Muslims for fourteen hundred years before Israel was founded sixty years ago. Following the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, two thousand years ago, the Jewish people were essentially scattered all over the known world (Africa, Europe, and Eastern Europe). So the Jews became again a nomadic people, as they had been before and after the time of their captivity in Egypt, and they were a persecuted people, persecuted in the first instance by the Christian peoples who revered Jesus Christ, a Jew, as the Son of God.
The survival and success of the Jewish people, against terrible odds, are a story which all oppressed minorities should consider and study. That survival and success are due, in no small part, to the religion of Judaism, and its various sects, which provided cohesiveness for the Jewish people. The Jews, the children of Abraham through Isaac, believed that they were the “Chosen People of God.”
But the Arabs were also the children of Abraham, through Ismail, and so the Arabs and Jews are really first cousins, so to speak. The Middle East is a harsh environment, compared to the lushness of a territory like Belize, and the people who live there have to be tough in order to survive. The Arabs and the Jews, relatives and neighbours, became implacable foes over the centuries.
Under the pressure of persecution and homelessness, the Jewish people became experts in money, banking and business. The city of New York is the most powerful city in the most powerful nation of the world, because New York City is the financial capital of the United States. In an article in the April 14, 2008 issue of THE NEW YORKER, Jane Kramer writes, “A million Jews live in New York, more than in any other city in the world except Tel Aviv … There is, of course, no such thing as a New York Jewish vote. There is an Israel vote. Israel is the cause that can raise a constituency out of an otherwise fractious, and famously skeptical, Jewish population, and push it into a kind of collective panic.” (It would be interesting to find out if the New York lawyer, the late Bethuel Webster, who drafted the Seventeen Proposals, was Jewish.)
There is a paradox here. The Israelis, and Jews worldwide, are fanatic about preserving the territory of Israel, which is claimed by the Palestinians, but they support Guatemala, a nation which has made and is making an aggressive claim to the territory of Belize. And those Belizeans who instinctively support Israel because of religious reasons, have a problem. If Guatemala ever invaded Belize, the arms they would use are Israeli weapons. Their army and air force are trained by Israeli military experts. The real Belizean nationalist has to consider Israel an enemy because of the Israelis’ relationship with the Guatemalan oligarchy.
You’re in a difficult situation, Senator. In geopolitical terms, you believe in a reality which is an Israeli one. I don’t have that problem. The Great Spirit lives in Addis Ababa and the Black Hills of the Lakota Sioux.
Long live Belize.