SEATTLE – A Roman Catholic religious order in the Northwest has agreed to pay $166 million to more than 500 victims of sexual abuse, many of whom are American Indians and Alaska Natives who were abused decades ago at Indian boarding schools and in remote villages, lawyers for the plaintiffs said Friday.
The settlement, with the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus, known as the Northwest Jesuits, is the largest abuse settlement by far from a Catholic religious order, as opposed to a diocese, and it is one of the largest abuse settlements of any kind by the Catholic Church. The Jesuits are the church’s largest religious order, and their focus is education. The Oregon Province includes Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and Alaska.
“There is a huge number of victims, in part because these Native American communities were remote and vulnerable, and in part because of a policy by the Jesuits, even though they deny it, of sending problem priests to these far-off regions,” said Terry McKiernan, co-director of Bishopaccountability.org, a victims’ advocacy group that tracks abuse cases.
– Pg. A14, THE NEW YORK TIMES, Saturday, March 26, 2011
At Kremandala, the decision-making processes are now largely out of my hands. Way back in 2001, Jacinta Hyde Garnett began to run this newspaper overall, and she does so working closely with senior people like Russell Vellos, Adele Ramos, Odessa Smith, and Jason Barrera. Sometimes I am consulted, but most often I am not.
Quite recently, Virginia Echols and Ya Ya Marin Coleman took over the decision-making at the UBAD Educational Foundation (UEF) and the Library of African and Indigenous Studies.
Also quite recently, Eleanor Kelly took charge of operations at KREM Radio, freeing up Michael Hyde to pay more attention to the business of the Tropicana Lounge.
At KREM Television, the decisions are made by Mose Hyde in consultation with his “accountant,” who is also his uncle, Nelson Hyde.
Kremandala security, and this is a very important department because of our physical location, is led by Jason Barrera.
Personally, I now have enough non-assignment time where I could begin work on the Belizean novel I have always thought of writing. But, the days dwindle down … There is a famous jazz song called I can’t get started, and it describes my situation perfectly.
Belize is a small place, and when you go against the establishment, they will cause you to feel pain. I don’t want to exaggerate. The pain that I felt during the early and middle 1970s was nothing compared to what they did to Nelson Mandela and Steve Biko. The worst thing about this kind of pain is how it affects your children, who are innocent. One very difficult thing about my personal pain was that I had been high on the totem pole in my youth and early manhood, and then I became a loser, so to speak. The drop downwards was rough.
Late in 1977, after a particularly humiliating experience, I decided that I had to make a total effort to change things. This is a crossroads almost all artists face in their lifetime. Miles Davis must be the greatest jazz trumpeter who ever lived, and in the 1950s and 1960s he made some music which will absolutely make him immortal. But there were years during the 1970s where he did some work which compromised his artistic purity. I don’t know that much about Miles’ biography, but one presumes he was trying to make some money, move a little mainstream.
The indispensable ingredient in all things artistic is truth, total truth. But that same truth is something which plays no role in electoral politics. But, you will see many of our Belizean musicians and composers do political work at election time. Politics is where the money is jumping at election time, and no matter how artistic you consider yourself to be, your children have to eat.
The power realities are crushing. I know that our children and grandchildren go to schools where they are not taught the truth. Why is this so? This is so because there was a time when our ancestors were conquered, subjugated by European people, and that conquest has never really been reversed. Slavery became colonialism, which became independence, but the paradigm remains the same: some of our African and Indigenous children are taught European truth out of European textbooks. The rest of our children fight each other in the streets for territory and survival. In Belize, the truth is a lie.
A couple weeks ago the American media began to sideline the Japan earthquake/tsunami/Fukushima story, and they turned their focus on Libya. Libya is a sovereign state which became “independent” half a century ago. What gives the European nations and the United States of America the “right” to intervene militarily in Libya? Their power gives them the right to do so. Might constitutes right in the European world. Our Belizean children are not being taught that.
Fukushima, however, remains the situation which completely fascinates me. The Japanese code of honor and duty is in contrast to how we Belizeans think and behave. At the Fukushima nuclear plant, there are workers who are essentially committing suicide because of their Japanese sense of duty. These workers will surely die in two or three years. Chernobyl proves that.
There are no Belizeans who would do what the Fukushima workers are doing. This is because we do not love our country. We Belizeans are skeptics and cynics. We have reason to be. Ours is an elitist, nepotist way of life which denies opportunity to the base of the social pyramid. We honor ourselves with the Queen of England’s awards, and we will become excited when William and Kate exchange wedding vows. Phooey.
Four decades ago, I said, let’s deal with this. The establishment decided like this. Oh yeah? We’ll deal with you. The evidence of their success in dealing with yours truly is right before all of our eyes. Those Belizean children who are educated, are not educated. And those Belizean children who are not educated, are condemned. The power belongs to the churches. They abuse the children, and we adults close our eyes. In Belize, because we closed our eyes, it didn’t happen. Think “sophistry.” Life goes on …