“The history of the American continent does not begin with Christopher Columbus, or even Leif the Lucky, but with those Maya scribes in the Central American jungles who first began to record the deeds of their rulers some two thousand years ago. Of all the peoples of the pre-Columbian New World, only the ancient Maya had a complete script: they could write down anything they wanted to, in their own language.
“In the last century, following the discovery of the ruined Maya cities, almost none of these records could be read by Western scholars. Except for the Maya calendar, which has been understood for over a hundred years, the situation was not much better than this when I was a student at Harvard in the 1950s. Today, thanks to some remarkable advances made by epigraphers on both sides of the Atlantic, we can now read most of what those long-dead scribes carved on their stone monuments.”
– pg. 7, Breaking the Maya Code, by Michael D. Coe, Thames & Hudson, 1992.
Students from Dangriga’s Ecumenical College Sixth Form were in the Kremandala yard on Thursday afternoon. I don’t know why they were there, and I guess they must have visited other places in the old capital on their trip. I was in my office when Adele Ramos called to say that the students wanted to meet me.
I would have made excuses to avoid the “meet,” except that this was Adele Ramos, and these students had traveled a long way to come here. I agreed to meet the students on the rooftop for a ten or fifteen minute exchange.
One of the students asked me about a quote from me in Assad Shoman’s 13 Chapters, where I was speaking about the Battle of St. George’s Caye. I didn’t remember the specifics, but I told him that I was presently reading about the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, and, by comparison, it was very difficult for me to conceive of 1798 as a “battle.” The student was sharp. So, he said, are you calling it a myth? No, I replied. But, nobody died.
I then remarked to the teacher who had brought the students to town, that it was primarily because of the Tenth of September issue that I had conceived of a national conference of Belizean writers, artists and intellectuals. The logistics of such an undertaking are forbidding, but there is a need in Belize for those Belizeans on opposite sides of the “Baymen’s clan” fence to face off in an open forum. The Battle of St. George’s Caye is the most controversial issue in our history and our ethno-politics.
Seven years ago, the September 2003 Belize Black Summit opened new lines of personal communication at a scholarly level between, primarily, the Garifuna and Giao peoples of Belize. There was Maya representation at that unprecedented Summit, but not enough, and there was no substantial Mestizo representation.
The Mestizos of Belize, who had been discriminated against under British colonialism, probably became the economic elite of Belize, where productivity was concerned, about three or four decades ago. Then, two decades ago, it became clear that the Mestizos had become the demographic majority in the nation. The implications of these important changes in our society have never been confronted in an academic or intellectual setting.
As he moved to open up the economy and the society to the hard working Belizean Mestizos in the 1960s, Maximum Leader George Price was using Mayan themes, motifs and references to create a national legitimacy which would antedate British colonialism in Belize. No one in Belize, indeed the world, knew as much about Mayan history as we do now, not by a long shot. In fact, miseducated and undereducated as I had been by the system in Belize, and even though Nelson Reed had published his breakthrough Caste War history in 1964, in 1969 I personally knew nothing about the Caste War, and almost nothing about the Maya. In the early UBAD as I was making demands for African history, I commented negatively on Mr. Price’s Mayanization campaign. The negativity was partially the result of ignorance.
As you know, the Mayan nationalist, Clinton Uh Luna, has been contributing to Amandala for some years now. On several occasions, he has referred to Mr. Price as a member and adherent of the “Baymen’s clan.” But that was not how Mr. Price was perceived by us in Belize City forty years ago. Hard core Mayan activists, however, believe that Mr. Price was playing games with his Maya rhetoric and references, that he was in truth working along with the British, whom the Maya view as deadly colonizers.
Belize is small enough for us to educate our multi-ethnic population about controversial realities. But the people who control the educational system are not real nationalists. They are afraid of national fora where delicate issues would be debated in an open and public way. It is the universities and the junior colleges of Belize who should be leading the way where topical national discussions are concerned. They have not done their jobs, and my job, as a Belizean writer/nationalist, is to expose them to the people.
At the level of citizens complaining about corruption, victimization, police brutality, and the like, we have a lot of chatter going on in the media. This is good, but there is a higher level of discourse required in this country. That higher level of discourse does not exist. In Belize, the intellectuals are afraid of the politicians, and the politicians are afraid of the financial oligarchy who support the PUP and the UDP.
I suppose that what I should do is go ahead and ask guys like Clinton Uh and Pen Cayetano to help set up a national conference, on a modest level. There is a problem for me, however, in that if I do anything which is not on a top shelf level, then I will be ridiculed by my political and media competition. They have me exactly where they want. I can’t go big, because I don’t have the resources, and if I go small, they will snicker.
Meanwhile, things remain the way they are here – ignorant in the true sense of the word. In a few weeks, thousands and thousands of Belizean students will be graduating from secondary and tertiary institutions. They will know nothing about the Caste War or Africa’s glorious civilizations. In 2010, this is a pity. Sure enough this is a real pity.