Everyone saw PM Barrow batting at the Business Forum for government underlings who were verbally checked by a judge. The judge reportedly had no concern for their precious lee human feelings. My, I just can’t grasp this age we are living in. Bah, all the fret these days is about women, and children, and young people.

Really, I think the PM’s sympathy is misplaced. On this matter, my tears are for the judges. I can’t imagine the extent of their disappointment when the government sends pups to court to fight big money cases.

A judge must put in hours and hours of preparation, and their anticipation before a big money case must be like the fever in an athlete before a big game. And then they go to court and who shows up, but underlings, junior staff. Bah, all that stomach nerves for nothing.

When Barrow and Vega and John wanted BGYEA out of the corn field, Barrow sent for the third best lawyer in the country, Rodwell Williams. (Denys Barrow and Lois Young Barrow were otherwise occupied.)

Williams was sent to fight down BGYEA, and using all his court wiles and experience-produced savvy, he did just that. That organization has not been the same since. You can imagine the confusion and the hurt of those dedicated brothers and sisters when the government pulled out all the stops, threw the best available in their arsenal, just to stop them from growing corn to feed their families. We did not hear anybody in government crying then.

But for big money cases, cases for millions and millions of dollars, we send underlings. No one in their right mind sends a boy to do a man’s job.

I mean no disrespect to the young lawyers who got their little behinds whipped, their little spirits sapped. The vitriol from here is all for Pere and Barrow, their bosses who threw them out there to fight big cases while they were still in the milk teeth stage. Properly, they should have been cocooned, until dehn were ready fu this. I think that when Barrow and Pere were young, their bosses gave them itty-bitty cases to cut their teeth on, and then, gradually, they eased them into mainstream traffic.

Minnows stay inside the mangroves until they are big enough to head to the reef. A lot of fish are spawned in deep waters, but the ones that survive are the ones that make it to the mangroves. There they find food and they get protection from predator fishes.

Thanks to the television we’ve seen the care animals in the wild give to their young. My, years ago we depended on the circus for up-close shots of strange animals. The movie, Born Free, was a real smash hit because of the up close shots of the lions. I haven’t seen that movie but I believe some things that I am told. Another big hit was a movie called, Free Willy. Hn, I haven’t seen that one either.

The world is flat out littered with people who were sent out to fight battles when they weren’t ready.

David, yea, had the element of surprise on his side when the cowardly Saul sent him out to fight Goliath. You recall the “You send a boy to fight me” story. But you have to be naïve to believe that anyone can get away with that same hand, playing that very same card again.

We don’t have to look further than the old Bible to find prime examples of people who didn’t have the game for battles they engaged in. Adam was a big hero, among men, but versus Eve he was out of his water. You can’t find a bigger pushover than that. Eve said, “Jump”, and Adam asked, “Off which cliff?” Eve said, “Eat this”, and Adam, did. Samson was the strongest man, among men. Delilah had him like a puppy dog. Pharaoh had all the power in the world, and then he met a man who had God on his side — Moses.

I ask, what about old folk, aren’t they to have any fun? Judges are mostly oldsters. You don’t sit on the judge’s bench if your hair is black. You’ve got to have tenure, experience. Age doesn’t mean people are stuffy, and like boredom. Old people want to have some fun in this world too. Old folk particularly need stimulation. What could junior lawyers bring to court to invigorate the minds of the older generation?

Stress is terrible, but boredom is worse. In Quo Vadis we saw Petronius drink poison so he didn’t have to listen to Nero’s ghastly poetry. What are judges to do when they are not challenged intellectually? Young lawyers can’t bring the heat. They only qualify to carry the briefs.

There is no insult in being young. They might even be envied by some people because of their fresh looks. But up there, above the eyebrows, youth are not the full package, experience is not yet come. Subordinates, subordinates are what Barrow and Pere sent out to fight the big money case. Forget that we lost, again. They are weeping all over the place because the whippersnappers they sent got their little egos bruised.

Neri doesn’t deserve that label

Neri Briceño, who writes a column in the Reporter, sometimes, wrote a piece last week that was titled, “A Response to Lee Mark”, which had to do with a comment Lee Mark Chan reportedly made about an article Neri wrote a few weeks ago in one of his columns. I read that column and I’m pretty sure I recall Neri making a tough comment about some members of the Chinese community and the stranglehold they have on certain businesses in our country. I also heard a snippet from the response Lee Mark made about what Neri wrote.

I don’t need the full details of the “offensive” article, or the response. What Neri wrote in his column last week is plenty sufficient. The topic is volatile, but it is one we in Belize must stop shying away from.

Neri said that Lee Mark charged that his comment was racist. Neri takes exception to that. Essentially, Lee Mark was protecting turf.  Neri had no complaints about that. Neri wrote (last week): “By your response to my letter you are clearly advocating for your people and there is nothing wrong with that. As a matter of fact it is totally commendable, so why when I do it for my people I am labeled a racist?”

I don’t see Neri as any kind of racist. What I see is a man who comes home and sees that his people are backed up on a cliff, and many are falling over. The fact is that the Chinese (and I add the Mennonites) are absolutely dominating Belize at this time. And roots Belizeans are becoming more and more marginalized each day. Our youth are becoming violent and many of them are in jail.

A government is for all the people in a country, but a government must have special concern for those who are not getting a sufficient share of the pie. We elect popular men (and a few women) and they seem to have no expanse in their thinking.

The UDP had to be out of their minds to hand over the entire Boledo to the Chinese community, even though they might have thought that that group would run that business more efficiently. Bad things happen to a people when they control no businesses in a country. That’s the harsh state of life for roots Belizean tribes here.

Lee Mark has to be concerned because the Chinese community is targeted by some people in our country. Yes, Neri could have been more “gentle” about what he had to say. But it is not a “gentle” subject.

I hope to add to this, and I hope others add to it too. I write on this matter today because things have a way of slipping to the backburner. There’s so much going on in Belize right now. I just want Neri to know that I respect him for tackling such a tough subject. And I want Lee Mark to know that we have things to work out.

We cannot ask the Chinese and the Mennonites to be less aggressive, maybe just a little less tribal. We can ask our government to recognize what is happening, and give roots Belizeans more support. The fact is that in the Western capitalist state, some people are better able to compete than others. They have greater knowledge of the system and they have greater wealth and they have more cohesive tribes. The Chinese and the Mennonites are better equipped to compete in this country. Maybe they would dominate anywhere in the world.