It doesn’t matter what your religion is: if you are roots Belizean, if you’ve got a sense of Belize’s history, Krismos is huge in your life. Can there be anything more special than Pa, Breda, Uncle, Grampa, coming home with money in their pockets after long months working in the forest? Geng brok…batl pahn taybl, draa di kaak…pass mi, mi # 6 handkerchief.

I’m not brave enough to declare my favourite Krismos album on the local scene, but I noh shy about who’s the boss from foreign…It’s the great man himself…the one and only Mr. El Rancho Grande, aka Freddy Fender…and I’ll be watching for Roodolf with his nose so bright…

No good neighbours

The Reporter deserves to be applauded for calling on our government to call out the Guatemalans about this map which includes Belize as one of their departments. It is not often that The Reporter calls out the government. When they do so we have to cheer them. A government which isn’t challenged will very quickly become sickened by the unfettered power.

To an extent, this map is ha, ha funny business. Sometime ago, the Guatemalans sent one of their guys, with a video camera, to make a documentary of all the plums they would pick when the ICJ favoured their claim. It was highly entertaining. It was the kind of show that made you fold your arms and say: Well, I be damned!

But, a shine eye gyal is a trobl fu wahn man. There is a dark side to these exercises, as pointed out by The Reporter. It is propaganda, and we know how evil men can manipulate little minds. Six thousand years out of the caves, the essential human being hasn’t changed one iota. We are still gullible, prone to be controlled by the next devious mind around the corner.

The religious people know this about us human beings, that we are weak. They know if they sit by, the forces of darkness will steal our hearts and little minds with their wikidnis. Well, if there’s any stealing to be done, there’s no better deal than the forces of light winning out.

Many Belizeans don’t countenance going to the ICJ because they consider it an affront, an insult. The United Nations ruled that we should exist as a nation. Any thought of us giving up land to Guatemala went away on September 21, 1981. The only reason why there is a discussion here is because the Guatemalans insist on being a bully nation.

On the matter of this ICJ, we must demand that Guatemalans are respectful in the way they go about getting their people to participate in their referendum. Belizean leaders shouldn’t be sleeping on this. If Guatemala goes unchecked, it will encourage unrealistic dreams. That doesn’t make for neighbourly love.

He spoiled it all, for us

Belize’s economy is reeling after we lost another case in court. Somebody’s lawyers are running rings around ours. Our Fin Sec, God bless his hopeful self, said that with good luck we could regroup in a couple years after the last beating we took, the one on the BTL. We knew and he knew that the odds were better for a wishful beggar to gain a horse. I wonder what he is thinking now.

This Ashcroft is kind of ungrateful. He can’t forget that our PM called him, a Good Samaritan. Remember that nearly gave Audrey Matura Shepherd fits? True, it isn’t very hard to get Audrey all fired up. But I hear that after she heard about this Good Samaritan business she had to go outside and spit. Look, it is worth something to get someone as big as our PM to exalt you.

Instead of gratitude, Ashcroft sneezes on us. He really makes us wonder about the British. Was that wicked Joe Erales (God rest his soul) right about them? Oh no, we never thought they were saints. We knew that their celebrated diplomacy ended when they didn’t have their way. We knew, but maybe we didn’t core believe it, ‘til along came Ashcroft. He had to show us, to the last penny.

Did Belize treat his dad badly when he lived here? I suppose his mom was here too. Was something sour about her experience while she lived among us? And Ashcroft, was he at the wrong end of a good William Brown-type pummelling after school let out for the July-August holidays?

We, we’ve got some long, hard summers ahead of us. He’s got no reason to hate; he got his. We have reason to hate, but I don’t think we do.

We just want Ashcroft and his local fans to get the full sense of the deal. When he got exalted to the status of a Good Samaritan, he was to share some of the winnings on projects for the people. But he is not to blame. We are. That company should never have been his. All was well and good when he was in the minority. And then someone allowed him to gain majority shares. Then he went and spoiled it all, for us.

Stories that make capitalism go gaga

I’m not sure what type of movies this guy, Dwayne Johnson, stars in. I’m into old movies…When I was a child I spent the vast majority of my weekends at the football field, not at the matinee, and when I grew up I spent my weekends working, mostly, so a lot that happened in the cinema industry passed me by. I’m doing a lot of catching up now. People of my generation will find it hard to believe that I didn’t know who Audie Murphy was, until last week. I’d seen him in movies (Westerns) before, but I didn’t know his name until I saw the credits flash on the screen last week. Wow!

Of course I knew John Wayne, and Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep and Julie Andrews. No, I don’t’ know who Dwayne Johnson is, and what kind of movies he stars in. Obviously, he’s into the big money. But according to this story, things weren’t always so good in the Johnson household.

In a recent Yahoo excerpt from the Huffington Post, we learn of those bad times. The story is titled, Dwayne Johnson Remembers When His Family Couldn’t Afford Thanksgiving Dinner. In the story, Johnson says, “There was a time back in ’87 when we couldn’t even afford Thanksgiving dinner and was praying someone would invite us over their house to eat”… “We were in a tough spot back then, but we got thru it.”

Johnson once told The Associated Press that “growing up poor helped drive his success in Hollywood.”

It is, of course, wonderful for Mr. Johnson and his family that he is now so rich. Anyone who has overcome hardship is deserving of praise. However, it is a bad thing, a very bad thing, when people, especially people in countries like ours, bite in wholesale on these victories. Far too many people suffer in a capitalist system, especially in countries like ours. We don’t have the hopes of people who live in rich, capitalist systems, and, even in the best capitalist system, there is economic suffering. For Krismos, we want a system in which Santa doesn’t forget ANY children.