A while back my younger brother, Colin, took issue with Clinton Uh Luna because he felt that Uh Luna was one-sided in his “savaging” of the British Baymen, and perhaps letting the Spanish invaders off the hook.
Then last week our editor-in-chief, Russell Vellos, complained to me that sometimes he didn’t understand what Uh Luna was saying in his missives.
I decided that I simply had to address the matter of Clinton Uh Luna, and for the benefit of all our readers. I’ve never met the man. I’ve taken the road to the Finca Solana (Corozal Town) more than once, and traveled past the radio station all the way to the writer’s mobile home. No one has ever been at home. Mr. Jesus Ken, who lives in Xaibe, outside of Corozal Town on the southern side, has explained to me that Mr. Clinton could have been at the market, where he assists his wife.
I can’t say for sure when the Amandala saga of Clinton Uh Luna began. I am always very interested in letters from the districts. For example, there’s a lady who writes us from Dangriga by the name of Ruth Martinez. She has lived in the United States, and she has an American impatience with public agencies, public officials, and public utilities. One time she almost got us into a libel suit when she hassled a medical official. But, personally, I will go the extra mile for letter writers from the districts.
It must have been during the time of the uproar in early 2005 that Mr. Uh Luna began to write. It is he who would have to say. All I know is that I took special charge of his letters where editing was concerned. He had lived and worked somewhere in Mexico (at a tourist resort) for a long time, and was therefore more experienced and sophisticated than the average Belizean. Uh Luna was also socialist in his thinking, and at times even radical. I liked that.
In one of his most recent letters, Clinton Uh Luna said, “… I have decided to be a philosophical and spiritual Maya.” He referred to a Maya religious ceremony in which he was “initiated” on April 23, 2006. The matter of a “decision” for him comes in because he is of mixed ancestry – African, European and Maya. He has chosen the Maya way.
A few weeks ago, he made reference to the fact that “we Maya are secretive,” or words to that effect. I smiled on reading that, because I’ve found it to be true. Secrecy is part of the Maya survival package. The Maya are also, of course, brilliant people, and they are patient, determined, and perhaps even fatalistic. I am not an expert on the Maya, mind you, but I know more than Colin and Russell do.
If Colin knew about the Maya, then he would never have accused Clinton Uh Luna of “powdering” the Spanish. The Maya hate the Spanish for what the Spanish did to them, from the time of Cortes in 1519. It only appears to Colin that Uh Luna is throwing more barbs at the British than he is at the Spanish, because Belize is a land which has been under British hegemony for centuries, and here is where, he, Uh Luna, is. (Mexico and Belize were both Maya land. Their ancestors knew no boundaries drawn by the Europeans. I have heard Maya in Guinea Grass refer to the Yucatan simply as “the old country.”)
There are things Clinton Uh Luna writes which can be taken as insulting by the Baymen Giao. For me, his strong words are usually not a problem, because I have a good idea where he is coming from. Many times, the average Giao has no idea what Uh Luna is writing about, because we were raised in ignorance in Belize. We were not taught about the Caste War, and the school system did not pay respect to the Maya. It was the same way the white supremacist school system did not pay attention to the African, so much so that the darkest-skinned of the Giao people will argue and fight with you if you call them “African.”
When the historic Belize Black Summit was held in September of 2003, it ended with some emotional exchanges between Garifuna and Giao citizens, who lamented the ignorance that had existed in and between their communities. I think a forum should be held where Giao and Maya thinkers and leaders can address each other in stark terms. There are some sincere Giao patriots, like Sharon Pitts Robateau, for instance, who would benefit from exchanges with men like Mateo Ayuso and Clinton Uh Luna (and, of course, the charismatic Jesus Ken), and vice versa.
You must understand that the most effective tool of the invader and the colonialist was always division of the native peoples. This remains true today. The colonialist controlled the schools, and the colonialist institutionalized ignorance where history and ethnicity were concerned. We Belizeans supposedly took over the educational system in the 1960’s, but it was European churches which remained in control of the schools.
Finally, it is a great irony that the first Belizean political figure to pay respect to the Maya, Rt. Hon. George C. Price, unilaterally chose a national anthem for Belize which glorifies the Baymen as “our fathers.” This is a bone which sticks in Uh Luna’s throat. It is for you to try to figure out why.
Power to the people.