There are people in Belize who think they are pretty cute, because they are always doing things which are elitist, nepotist and discriminatory, and getting away with those things. No one in “society” says anything, because the individuals who are responsible for these injustices, injustices which have become institutionalized, are well dressed, well behaved, and well placed.
The Belize Olympic Association, a completely non-democratic organization, last month took their mandatory delegation to the 2007 Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. To remain in good regional and international standing, Belize has to send a delegation to these meets and games, so that is why we describe the delegation as “mandatory.”
But last month’s delegation was so feeble and nepotist, the BOA came up with a cute ploy to cover the bogus nature of the delegation. The Belize Olympic Association sent out a press release announcing that James Adderly, the Channel 5 sports reporter, and William Ysaguirre, the sports reporter/photographer for THE REPORTER, would be accompanying the Belize delegation at the special invitation of the Pan American Games Committee.
This was disingenuous, if not downright dishonest, because nobody in the Pan American Games Committee knows who James Adderly and William Ysaguirre are. Clearly, the Belize Olympic Committee lobbied with the committee to have the special invitation sent for two Belizean sports journalists who are completely in the private sector competition called “the media.”
The result of the discriminatory act by the BOA was that our newspaper competition, THE REPORTER, enjoyed two weeks of exclusive coverage of the Brazil Pan American Games. Normally, we would say nothing. Amandala is from the ghetto. Amandala is used to this type of snub, this type of discrimination, and this type of favoritism.
But it’s more than that. Belize is a society which is becoming more and more elitist, more and more nepotist, and even racist. At the base of our population pyramid, the vast majority of poor Belizeans experience suffering from a reality which condemns them to despair. This despair derives from the fact that the organizations and institutions which are supposed to provide a modicum of opportunities for our young citizens who show talent and have merit, have become locked down. Opportunity is steered to the members of elite and privileged families.
The way the Pan American Games delegation from Belize was put together is a perfect example of how things are done in Belize. The same people have been running the Belize Olympics Committee/Association for more than three decades, and they are so complacent and disinterested they have failed to raise funds for modern track facilities for Belize. Belizeans therefore have to travel to every single Central American meet. We cannot host anything, because all we have is dirt.
In this country, we have the talent, but the talent is mostly at the base of the pyramid. The sports power and international connections, however, are at the elitist, nepotist tip of the pyramid. These are people who are always trying to force their relatives and friends into opportunities they don’t always deserve. Colonialism was bad in Belize, but what we are seeing here is worse. Under colonialism, it was expatriate Englishmen doing it to us. But now, it’s our own who are doing us in. This is worse.