On Friday morning sometime after 10 I received a phone call from my dad. The son of a mutual friend of ours was doing a school paper or something, and wished to ask me a few questions. I arranged to have the young man call my home around 11 a.m., when I would be there.
The call was fairly prompt. The young man was most polite, I did not ask his age, but assumed he was at the junior college level. He may have been a mere high school student. I can’t say for sure. His subject was provocative: are the athletes and teams Belize sends to international competitions being properly prepared? I think the young man’s thesis was that they were not. But, as I said before, he was very polite, so that if that indeed was his thesis, he was certainly not aggressive with it.
Overall, for years now I avoid serious conversations about serious subjects. If you say what about the Kremandala Show, I would say, well, there’s a certain formula there. The chairman’s responsibility is such that oversight is my primary function. Yes, sometimes things become heated. Yes, sometimes I do become personally involved, but the Tuesday night show does not really present a situation where I would get worked up to the point of frustration. That is what happens, however, when I become involved in serious conversations about serious subjects.
This young man got me into a serious conversation about a serious subject. I did the best I could for him. I could feel when I began to become angry thinking and talking about certain things, like Medellin 1978 and volleyball entitlements. Fortunately, the young man did not force the issue. I suppose that if he were a professional interviewer, that is what he would have done – force the issue. No, the young man, after a while, let me off the hook, so to speak. I resumed my Friday routine, somewhat relieved, to be sure.
The powerful and wealthy people who run Belize have maintained and increased their power during the forty plus years of my public life. I put “powerful” before “wealthy,” because the Roman Catholic and Anglican prelates and clerics take vows of personal poverty, I believe. But the prelates and clerics are probably the real power in this land, although they do act in concert with, and for and on behalf of the wealthy. And there are wealthy people in Belize, people whose wealth is obscene when you consider certain social realities/disgraces.
I am grateful for those mercies which I and my family enjoy. How could I not be? I recall sometimes the various travails of my years past. But I cannot dwell on these pains, because other men in other countries and in other times have suffered far, far worse than I. I do avoid serious conversations, and I only travel certain roads, still, because there are things going on in Belize which will reap a bitter harvest, as sure as the night follows the day.
There are certain individuals and certain institutions whose job/responsibility is to paint the kind of picture of Belize which the powerful and the wealthy wish to see. As you listen, over a period of time, to those individuals and institutions perform the assignments and sing the songs for which they are paid, sometimes you wonder if they are skilled robots or if they actually believe in the version of reality which they portray so repeatedly and so faithfully.
I think that the anger of many Belizeans is beginning to turn to rage. Now there are various potions we use to “satter” ourselves, as it is said. We drink; we smoke; we gamble; we talk on the telephone; we watch television; we scream at our spouses and our children; we pray and sing in church. We do things to maintain function. Above all, we must remain sane.
Last Christmas, a man went home and asked his wife for a piece of the ham. If he had been drinking, the ham would have been even more desirable. This is what they call “boca,” or “sal’ mouth.” His mouth must have been watering for that ham. She refused him. The situation became more complicated. After a while, it wasn’t as if it was just a ham business. But that’s how it started. He stabbed and killed her. He is in jail, and is going to be there for a long time. What about the children? What about the innocent children?
The powerful and wealthy will reason, I suppose, that the children must suffer for the sins of their parents. Inside his jail cell, this father must ask himself still, “Why did she refuse me the ham?” My point is, life often seems normal just before it becomes a terrifying nightmare. There are many, many lives around us in Belize today which appear normal. More than that, there are people whose job it is to make sure everything seems as normal as possible. These are the doctors who prescribe for the symptoms, not for the afflictions. I do not want to be one of those people. In the words of Alan Ladd as Shane, “A man has to be what he is.”
Power to the people. Power in the struggle.