by Colin Hyde
I can’t let Pehreh get off for that paltry show on La Isla Bonita. I don’t study people, I just let things jump out, and what did was that this is a man who would have been better if he had gotten a gud bos ass in primary school. I don’t need to do any research; his present says clear as day that he was the reigning bully in his school days. Boy, if he had got a good humbling one gud Friday afternoon, we would have had a real solid, sober man at the fore. Put on your belt, Pehreh. Oh no, don’t get bex. You made Barrow shift you out of Queen’s Square, and you made Finnegan shift you out of Mesopotamia.
The story “UDP Chairman Vindicated By The Belize Economy” in last week’s UDP Guardian is not without substance. In that story, Pehreh is supposed to have rightly claimed that the 2020 PUP government inherited a good thing, a “strong and robust economy”. You don’t spend 13 years in government and have nothing to show for it, but anyone who says the 2020 government inherited a good economy doesn’t know basic arithmetic. But Pehreh was only the AG. The Minister of Finance, D. Barrow, said only prayers would save us. Therein you see why Barrow was able to slide Brother Pehreh out of Queen’s Square, bah, for his sister who didn’t want it.
The UDP claims the credit for the emerging coconut industry, and says the PUP new growth industry, weed, has fizzled, poof. My gudnis, to the lasting pain of Patrick Faber, John Briceño leapt to world fame because of the Blue Bond. The UDP, with wringing hands and copious tears, swear to the Almighty that it is Red conception, entirely their concoction. Me noh know; all me know is that it is a good thing, far better than the Ralph Bond we were bound by before.
In the piece there was also mention of a number of projects the UDP had borrowed money for, projects that the PUP keeps cutting ribbons for, as if they are their invention. Julius has said the projects were full to the gills of fat, bloat, as Jorge Espat would describe it. My, that Faber baal like a big baby every time Briceño and his crowd break out the champagne.
Whoa there, I think I’m getting too in-between Hilly and Fonso, too in-between balls being batted from the red court to the blue court, so let me at the something in the piece that we paid for, the part where we have full license to input. The UDP really should be careful, more selective about what it regurgitates. They should stay off heaping praise on themselves for BTL, because, while they have points for the taking back of our business, big points, on one side of the ledger it was a very disappointing show. Ouch, they love Dean Barrow, and every time they get on that phone to talk about BTL, his backside is exposed. The old adage said some things are best left alone.
The UDP argues that if we hadn’t taken back BTL, the BPO industry wouldn’t have taken off. It is for sure that BPOs wouldn’t exist the way they do now if Godfrey Smith’s friend had remained with BTL. Where the UDP crashes is the cost of the nationalization, and the fault being all theirs. But before getting to that, let me scold Darrell (Carter) and Troy. About BTL, either you are the dummy, or Said Musa is the dummy; and I say the finger points at you.
Those two brothers insist that there was no need to take back BTL; all we needed to do was regulate it with the PUC. Said Musa showed that couldn’t be done. I am tired of going into the details here. Briefly, it’s a story about when someone gets too big in your economy. If you haven’t a copy of Said’s book, with malice toward none, get one, all the details are there.
Dean Barrow can’t explain the cost of that nationalization. He can’t, and for that reason the UDP should let the dog lie. They/we could have had a reasonable resolution, and their/our leader fumbled the ball.
You have to be seriously cynical to believe that Barrow wasn’t sincere in the negotiations with the Alliance. But it takes some explaining, his ignoring the advice of former PM, Esquivel, a proven mathematical mind; his making our respected democracy look like a petty dictatorship—putting one of his sons in charge of BTL, hiring his brother and ex-wife to lead the nationalization legal team, and painting BTL in his party’s colors; his not reading or understanding how easily that “promise” for community projects could become a hoax; his timing the finalization of the deal to coincide with his dream to become a 3-term prime minister.
The very interesting Simon Lamb led the way
Did Simon Lamb give up 1888 for 1898, and if he did, why did he? The story is that he and his friends moved to mark the 50th anniversary of emancipation, which came in full in 1838, but the colonial rulers were lukewarm to that effort. Ten years later, in 1898 the rulers came out full force for the 100th anniversary of the 10th. Bah, after a time they lost interest, but Simon wouldn’t let it go. Yap, Simon Lamb who led efforts to commemorate Emancipation Day, the 50th anniversary in 1888, later on we find him at the head of the 10th celebrations.
The evidence we have says Lamb was a serious guy, but the bad being so often interred with bones, who knows if he wasn’t a party animal too. We’ve got our share of those, Belizeans who are looking for an excuse to make an occasion to roast a hog an draa cork from numerous batl. What the hell, it’s in our DNA. Our non-white ancestors knew hardship. Our male ancestors slaved for months in the bush, cutting mahogany and bleeding sapodilla. Away from their families their only solace was cheecha and spuddy. It was natural that dehn brok out fu real when they came home.
Ah, some say the slaves were forced into battle, but that’s no easy thing to do. That’s like cannon behind you and cannon in front of you, what the hell? We saw that mercenary group working for the Russians in the Ukraine War. That kind of thing doesn’t work out.
Don’t get carried away by the Emory King blunder that there was a family affair here. King, a junior historian, probably misinterpreted the work of senior historian O. Nigel Bolland, in the story, Slavery in Belize, in which he said that “the actions of the slaves in Belize succeeded to some extent in affecting the masters’ treatment of them” and that “the slaves maintained a degree of control over their family and community life…”
It is the other extreme to see life in Belize for the slaves as if they were in the hold of the ships, in chains, making the journey across the Atlantic. Some slaves never made that trip; many were born here. It was rough, but some slave men went fishing to catch barracudas and snappers, their children bathed in the rivers, and slave women went to church and supervised christenings and birthdays. They had lives. The rulers tried, but they couldn’t stop the music.
If it makes you happy to say Simon Lamb was just out to party, then we’ll just stick with the fact that the 10th saw the Kriols digging in, feeling ownership of their home. 1888 was remembering the suffering of our ancestors. The 10th was the place in the country we had won, because it was our slave ancestors who were the deciders of the Battle. If not for them, the Baymen heroes and the reluctant Potts would have been dragged off to Cuba once more, this time maybe to never set foot again on the Jewel.