by Colin Hyde
This Wendy-Perez story is the kind that the attention starved Americans play up, and the kind of story that used to make Belizeans say, ‘noh everyting gud fu taak’. Maybe it couldn’t disappear because the UDP, for little more than political gain, had complicated matters.
There are things we never used to air out in Belize, until television came along and a former US presidential candidate, for the money or because he so believed in the cause of old men, started appearing on the midday and evening news from America championing the stiffening powers of a blue pill. No, we weren’t exactly saints. In Belize we passed by Vida Alegre, which shouldn’t have been on such a prominent street. Aha, a former PM, the immensely popular George, had to pass that club with loose women every morning to and from church. But whatever its popularity, that place was exclusively adult pillow talk. It was also pillow talk that George didn’t sneer at such joints.
In interviews on Channel 7, Ms. Wendy said she didn’t post pictures of the Minister in his birth clothes. She said she wasn’t into such bullying. She said the AG hadn’t reached out to her to hear her side of the story. Bully for her if she didn’t post the picture or pictures. Unfortunately, she’ll have a very hard time convincing anyone that she didn’t.
Hn, I don’t know why the AG hasn’t taken my advice. Is my counsel being ignored because I’m not a lawyer? I think the lady seems nice enough. Give her the requested parcel, from the people, if it doesn’t already have the crowfoot markers at the corners. We have given dirty, rotten crooks huge tracts, so we can give that. And after humiliating the Minister by taking away his portfolio, and cutting his tidy pay, dammit, what’s with this obsession for more punishment? Please give the brother his job back.
Ai, that story, it played out in public, most unfortunately. The only reward there is as a guide to all leaders of what could befall them when they get lost in the excitement of business and the extracurricular. Bah, it will never be forgotten. Unless Francis Fonseca, Albert Vaughan, and Kareem Musa come along with their expunging brush, and make it disappear, like Yasser did Paslow. But they weren’t the ones who burned down the building.
What would The Christ say?
Some Jewish leaders who are opposed to the present leadership in Israel, and many independent observers say that the present president of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his crowd, cultivated, nurtured, and encouraged Hamas, for the purpose of weakening the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), the objective there being to evade, dissuade, beat back any discussion of a Palestinian State. Israel, because of their greed, ambition to own the West Bank, and Gaza, played footsi with Hamas to get at the PLO. Muslims and Christians who don’t support Israel’s expansionism say the same thing.
The US is tied to Israel for big business reasons. But even if US president, Joe Biden wanted to stop Israel’s vicious bombing of Gaza, his hands are fettered by the Christian Zionists, just as his hands are bound by Cuban Americans who insist on the embargo, no matter the suffering it brings to the people of Cuba.
These people live by the Mosaic Law, an eye for an eye. It’s lost in history who took out an eye first. Jesus isn’t present here.
There are a few moments when Jesus expressed anger. One of them was when He referred to certain Jewish leaders as whitéd sepulchers, and another was when He chased the money changers out of the temple. Few times was He more forceful than when He spoke of those of us who would harm the children. He said it was better that a millstone be tied around our necks before we bring harm to the little ones.
When we Christians think of what is happening in Gaza, we must ask what The Christ would say about the murder of the little ones. The answer to that is in Matthew 18:6.
Food, not profit
Well, you all know I don’t agree with these symbolic days being celebrated midweek. The hog weh baal da di one weh noh happy about things. So, I di register my complaint.
I will not enter the divide and conquer, but really, pray, what were Francis Fonseca, Kareem Musa, and Albert Vaughan about when they gave in to UEF with Emancipation Day and did not give in to the St. George’s Caye Day Committee, with the 10th? Also, Garifuna Settlement Day 2024 is to be celebrated on a Tuesday. I really don’t want to get into the minds of those brothers at this time, but we have to watch things in this world.
I really think Belizean minds are plenty creative enough to enjoy on a Monday what falls on a Wednesday. These holidays are symbolic. We are creative enough to FEEL it on a Monday or a Friday.
In celebrating the victory of getting the government to commemorate Emancipation Day on Thursday (hn, I’m not aware that the majority of emancipated Belizeans were clamoring for Thursday, breaking up the work week), the UEF president said, among other things, that it was a triumph … for people over profits. Okay, it is good that all appreciate that it is an added cost to the nation when we celebrate these already costly symbolic days in the middle of the week.
When we look at the cliché, profits over people, I believe it was coined as a call-out of giant, rapacious corporations that exploit everything, even war, to fatten their bank accounts.
I am making a general comment, not aiming at anyone in particular, when I say there are people who are socialist until they win the Lotto, and when they do make that score, they rush out to buy the best spoils of the capitalist system. The capitalist system is a savage thing, but many people, and maybe 100% of our lawyers, love it to the bone. Oh, those trinkets! I forget which popular writer wrote that there’s a sordid business behind every great fortune. Well, few of those trinkets we’re chasing after would exist without those wicked, vicious, rarely altruistic ones who make great fortunes.
In our case, if we peel back the saying, we’ll see that we’re really talking about food, and we can’t blame anyone for putting food over people, because really, people are food. The God of our Mayan ancestors said that we were made out of corn. We are a struggling little country. Daily, our people cry out about the high cost of living.
On the triumph of Thursday being the product of agitation, I remember when the churches stood up against the gambling lobby. I remember Brother Sedi Elrington saying that the victor would be the one that brought the greatest pressure. I have wondered which side Mr. Elrington was on. I have heard that he has a big share in one of those Lotto things. Me noh noa, and I’m not about harassing him if he throws dice. I don’t play piti pat, but I wouldn’t vote against it.
Aha, I think this battle between the churches and the gambling houses, which the gambling houses won by blowout, I think it was prior to Belize getting a Referendum Act. My memory says the PUP introduced that Act in its 1998 to 2003 government.
Returning to agitation, I think it’s great and necessary, but we cannot ignore that its fruits are both good and bad. When agitation is misguided or flat out wrong, it must be resisted. The anti-Cuba agitation in the US must be resisted, the pro-massacre-Palestinians agitation must be resisted, and LGBT agitation that forces Leviticus Christians to violate their sacred beliefs must get “brakes”.
On the day being renamed African Emancipation Day, I think the UEF president must realize by now that is an error. We all make mistakes, sometimes.