The day of Rosa Parks’ trial – Monday, December 5, 1955 – the Women’s Political Council distributed the 35,000 leaflets. The handbill read, “We are asking every Negro to stay off the buses Monday in protest of the arrest and trial … You can afford to stay out of school for one day. If you work, take a cab, or walk. But please, children and grown-ups, don’t ride the bus at all on Monday. Please stay off the buses Monday.
It rained that day, but the black community of Montgomery, Alabama, persevered in their boycott. Some rode in carpools, while others traveled in black-operated cabs that charged the same fare as the bus – 10 cents. Most of the remainder of the 40,000 black commuters walked, some as far away as 20 miles. In the end, the boycott lasted for 381 days. Dozens of public buses stood idle for months, severely damaging the bus transit company’s finances, until the law requiring segregation on public buses was lifted.
Some segregationists retaliated with terrorism. Black churches were bombed or dynamited. Martin Luther King’s home was bombed in the early morning hours of January 30, 1956, and E. D. Nixon’s home was also attacked. However, the black community’s bus boycott marked one of the biggest and most successful mass movements against racial segregation. It sparked many other protests, and it catapulted King to the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement.
– from WIKIPEDIA Free Encyclopedia on Rosa Parks
In last weekend’s issue of the Opposition PUP newspaper, one of their featured columnists spent his time and space attacking Kremandala and praising Michael Ashcroft. To a certain extent, that columnist has made some of his living as a hard core critic of Kremandala, but he felt he had to insist as follows: “…let me state categorically that I do not know Michael Ashcroft, have never met Michael Ashcroft, nor have I even spoken to the gentleman. What I happen to know of him is a result of research and from conversations with persons whom (sic) have had direct contact with him.
It is for sure, however, but the aforementioned columnist knows Ralph and Luke, has met Ralph and Luke, and has spoken with Ralph and Luke. To know Ralph and Luke is to know Ashcroft, it is as simple as that. This guy is fooling nobody. He’s been on Ralph’s payroll for years and years, and basically there is only one tune that he knows how to pipe.
His column, then, was part of a public relations blitz by the Ashcroft people organized to defend Telemedia against the cell phone shutdown planned by COLA for this coming weekend.
Now personally, I hate telephones, the reason being that as someone considered an opponent of the established order of things for most of my adult life, I must always assume that there are powerful people who are interested in my conversations and will pay other people to listen to these conversations, and even tape them. I particularly hate cell phones, not only because I believe they are a health and traffic risk, but because they are like broadcasting your business to the world. There are things called scanners which inquisitive people can “tune” to your cell phone and listen to you day and night. At least, that’s how it used to be. The cell phone, you see, is just like a miniature radio station. Someone with the correct equipment only needs to find your “signal.”
Amongst younger Belizeans, however, cell phones are a way of life. There’s a whole different world the young people are living in – text messages, voice mail, “blue toot” and a whole lot of technology and gadgetry old geezers like the I can only muse at. Telemedia, the telephone company which is refusing to pay its taxes, makes a ton of money off cell phones, and the weekend of boycotts by COLA will send a message to the Lord, in the classic words of Millie Jackson, wherever he is.
For me, the cell phone is more of an emergency asset. I used to have one of the old analog cell phones. When BTL upgraded to the digital technology, I got one of the Digicell specials, but, old fashioned and slow moving as I am, I kept my old analog boys too. I almost never used the analog, just paid the monthly rental.
The boys (and girls) at BTL are really, really clever, though. People like me don’t take that much on cells. My monthly bill for the digital was averaging like $45.00. So BTL came up with this game where you have to pay a minimum of $111.00 a month for the post-paid, regardless of how little you use the phone. In partial retaliation, I got rid of my beloved analog, but I’m still being ripped that $111.00, and by a company that doesn’t want to pay its taxes!
Anyhow, the move by COLA is a third millennium move – high tech and young generation. It makes me feel old just thinking about this COLA tactic. In our UBAD days, basically all we could do was hold public meetings and march. My support for COLA won’t make much difference, because I seldom use the cell. This is a younger generation thing – Musical Youth.
As a people, our resolve will now be tested. In 1955 or so, the people of Montgomery, Alabama didn’t use the buses for a whole year to protest in support of Rosa Parks. Montgomery was no small town like Belize City. Black people there had to do a whole lot of walking for a long time to make their point.
We’re gonna find out soon if this COLA is for real. Walk the walk. Or, in this weekend’s case, don’t talk the talk. Can you shut your mouth for 48 hours? We’ll see.