For many months now a conversation has been taking place in the pages of this newspaper between two writers – Clinton Uh Luna from Finca Solana (outside of Corozal Town) and Colin Hyde from Camalote (a few miles west of Belmopan). This is a serious conversation. Sometimes, it is so heated it becomes close to personal.
There was a time late last year when we thought that the time had come for a national conference of Belizean writers, scholars, and academics. We thought the 40th anniversary of the founding of UBAD would have been a suitable occasion for such a conference. As elders, however, our energy level is not as high as it used to be. The response, or lack thereof, to our call for a second Belizean black summit (the first having been held in September of 2003) had been discouraging. We gave up both ideas, because they involved fund raising, national organizing, and no reward except intellectual satisfaction.
The conversation between Clinton and Colin is a very important conversation, notwithstanding. It strikes at the heart of a dichotomy which is fundamental to Belize. That dichotomy has always been submerged, or subterranean, but politicians in the modern era here have used that dichotomy, cynically, to install and entrench themselves.
There is a successful politician in Corozal, for example, who is very diligent about “protecting” his villagers from the discourse which takes place in the media capital about national issues. He rules like a Pope, and his word is unilateral Gospel in his constituency where national issues are concerned.
In Belize City, on the other hand, which was the center of public administration, and everything else in colonial British Honduras, generations of Belizeans grew up with a superiority complex, looking down on Belizeans who farmed and fished and lived in the so-called districts.
Clinton and Colin are not perfect representatives of Corozal Town and Camalote, respectively. If they were, perhaps their conversation would have become incendiary already, confrontational. Clinton Uh Luna left Belize as a child and spent most of his adult life in the Mexican resort cities of Acapulco and Cancun. Colin bh left Belize City as a child and attended high school in the new capital of Belmopan. After that, he studied at the Belize School of Agriculture, following which he has farmed, fished, and written.
The Right Hon. George Price believed that he could weld the different strands of Belizeans into a cohesive whole, but he was a limited man in some respects, and he was always very jealous of his political power. In a sense, it was all he had.
The perfect vehicle for the journey to national unity would have been the national football selection. You remember what happened when the UDP spent money on the national basketball selection in 1998? That gimmick did not save the UDP politically, because they had sabotaged semi-pro basketball and everybody knew it. But the Belize basketball selection, CARICOM champions in 1998, forged crazy national unity in Belize. It was temporary, but it was real.
The first-past-the-post electoral system we have in Belize was designed to give you exactly what you have – two major political parties which put their party welfare ahead of the national good. This is why the role of the writers and scholars is so important in a post-colonial society such as ours. The colonialists designed the population and the colonial administration in such a way as to establish and maintain disunity in the populace. The Roman and English religions accentuated that disunity, as a matter of self-interest. It was only from the musicians and artists and athletes that national unity could have been nurtured. Throw in the writers and the scholars.
Belize is a divided country. Those who are patently intent on dividing us, are our enemies. Those who seek a real national unity, those are the true patriots. Belize became a nation in September of 1981 only in name. The real nationhood we will have to earn.
All power to the people.