Friday, June 23, 2023

I was watching an interview with Dr. Angel Cal regarding the teaching of Belizean history in all its forms, and the part religion plays in it. It was a very interesting interview; he knows his stuff, obviously, but I am very confused as to why any religion should have a say in how we explore and teach our history, our own history. He was also asked about world history. Of course world history has to be taught, all history is important, but who we are, where we came from, what has happened to us and our country since the time of the Mayas, should be the most important parts of any history! And history is about the past; without being keenly aware of the past, how can we be expected to love and cherish our present and future?

One of the most painful things in my life, maybe regretful should be a better word, is that I was denied the right as a student in primary and secondary schools to know, to learn, and understand the history of Belize! I watched an interview yesterday with Yasser Musa, where he gave praises to Evan X Hyde for pushing and lobbying for the teaching of Mayan and African history in the schools! This was in the 1970s, long after people of my age had left academia to become parents and to find a way to make a living. I feel like an adopted child, not knowing who my parents are, or were, and I still don’t know. I feel cheated and abandoned, living in a foster home with people who don’t care about me. That is what it feels like, being unaware of our history, and what caused some of us not to cherish our homeland, our property, our people, the way we should.

Sometimes I wonder if Belize is a secular, or theocratic country? I know that all our representatives have to face the public and win elections. So why haven’t we legalized marijuana? The elected representatives of our country decided we should, but noooo, the church stepped in and whoa, it has gone nowhere, hindering our economic progress. The last organizations that should have any say in how we teach our country’s history should be the religious institutions. The first thing they did when they arrived in our part of the world was to forcibly remove all the gods the Mayas worshipped! Banned their customs and traditions and brought them to heel and made them kneel, while stealing their lands! Those were the Catholics! The Protestants, the evangelicals, brought and taught us how to hate one another, at least those who are different from the rest of us, while they squeeze every cent out of those who don’t want to burn in hell! So, no, they should have no say in the curriculum, the historical curriculum being taught in our schools! Jesus told his people that they were to give onto Caesar what was Caesar’s, and to God what was God’s.

I have always believed that you cannot love anyone else if you don’t love yourself! The same goes for your country, in my opinion. How can you love something or someone if you don’t know anything, or everything, about them? There are more Belizeans living in the diaspora than those who live in the country! Cause and effect? We didn’t know our history, so we left? Our history, our true, unvarnished history, should make us proud, defiant, resilient, in the face of whatever adversity comes our way. It should be taught, beginning with the Mayas, and extending to colonialism, the Spanish and British, the Slave Trade, the Africans and the Mestizos and Garinagu and the East Indians and Chinese, and all the others who have made the Jewel their homeland! Unapologetic, unwashed, naked history! I mean, even about when there was no Central America! That land bridge between North and South America was formed 100 million years ago. Before that, there was only wide open waters between Mexico and Columbia! See? History!

Our history should not be incidental, not based on those who see benefit from degrading it. There’s a saying that history is written by those who win the battle. Who will win our battle: the happy slaves, or the 1919 insurrectionists? Just asking.

Glen