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Get the sense from now, Johnny Briceño

FeaturesGet the sense from now, Johnny Briceño

I want Mr. John Briceño to know that for the next Government of Belize it won’t be like dis ya time under the UDP, and we want his commitment that he will do right, on record. He has to show from now that hihn understand, and agree, that if he is lucky enough to get the nod from the people, he will be a better person than the one who now wears the crown.
I listened keenly to the Honorable John, as I always do when these dangerous politicians are hosting the press, and the hair on the back of my neck gone up when he responded to a certain tough question put to him. Warning bells, warning bells, they say forewarned, forearmed, hence the preemptive move to ensure that next time will not be like dis ya time.

I heard him respond to a tough question put to him by Krem News’ famous Ms. Marisol, and, and…look, here’s how we will do this so we are perfectly clear about the way things are going to be. Listen carefully, and repeat after me, John: I¯I¯Prime Minister in waiting John Briceño¯ Prime Minister in waiting John Briceño¯do solemnly swear¯do solemnly swear¯that I will not be upstaat, rude¯that I will not be upstaat, rude¯to Ms. Marisol, or any journalist¯ to Ms. Marisol, or any journalist¯when she (or they) asks me tough questions¯when she (or they) asks me tough questions¯about L Ashcroft, anybody or anything¯ about L Ashcroft, anybody or anything.

PUP united for their chairman; UDP united against theirs

No surprise, really — what was all the hesitation about an old war horse heading off to pasture? I saw a credible PUP post on the Facebook saying that their chairman, Brother Henry Charles Usher, has been handpicked to replace Senior Said Musa as the man in the Fort George division. Me, I can’t wait for the PUP to form the next government, because I have some very bad things to say to them … but never mind me … how impressive the new-old PUP looks with everyone endorsing their chairman.

Oh, how different it is over in the UDP camp— nobody besides their party leader wanting their chairman, the cocky Brother Michael Peyrefitte.

Ah, I remember well the day when Comrade Sedi Elrington said that that UDP set made him feel sick to his stomach, that he couldn’t spend another day, another minute, with that dissatisfactory bunch, and those who know nothing started speculating about which UDP would get to pick up what Sedi left behind, but those in the know, like me, knew that two, Darrell and Pere, were the crowd for the top.

As the cliché goes, you could have cut the air with a butcher knife as those two brothers sparred in the Senate meeting after the Sedi announcement that there was a vacancy for a UDP in Pickstock. I know those two bohgaz are the worst kind of intellectuals, infernal lawyers who not only can, but will argue every side of a case if the price is right, but I still found myself gripping the handle of my chair in moments when things got really tense, for fear that they would get exhausted with their chats and Pere would shove over the table and rush at Darrell and pummel him, or Darrell, a la one of the many infamous lawyers in our archives, would whip out a pistol and fire at the UDP chairman.

Would you believe, would you believe that Boots Martinez — a 1950’s type politician who got wind that in 2020 he was way, way out of his era and so decided to call it quits in his division — was halfway through the door when he bolted back to snatch the division from the two? Smart people might say that to prevent a full-scale war, sober heads in the UDP decided on neither of the more fit contenders getting the nod, but me, I say that the UDP has a chairman, so why couldn’t they do it, unite by him, like the blue bohgaz did behind their hero.

Mr. Nigel Encalada

I di beg all the anti-10thers to give an ear to what Brother Encalada, the Director of Belize’s Institute for Social and Cultural Research (ISCR) at NICH, had to say on Friday to Brother Nuri Muhammad on Krem about the story of the Battle of St. George’s Caye. Brother Encalada seemed steamed up, and who wouldn’t be with all the unfair attacks on the Belizeans who celebrate on that day.

It would be good if the entire presentation was put in a booklet, and shared with everyone, including the students across the country. If after reading what Brother Encalada had to say there are still Belizeans who insist on speaking derogatorily about the Battle, then that’s what it is. But they should give him an ear.

On the side, there is a story going around that the slaves who ran away were welcomed with open arms when they arrived in Mexico, but it must be emphasized that those arms were Mayan, not the Spanish elite who ran the show over there for centuries. No, they didn’t run to Mexico, they ran to the Mayan villages.

Not in the same sentence, Mr. Alejandro Vernon

On page 6 of last week’s Amandala, there is a letter to the editor from Mr. Alejandro Vernon, in which Mr. Vernon explained that Spain and Britain ruined Belize’s future, and somehow the poor Kriol got mixed up in the villainy, the Creoles from Belize City calling the Spaniards up in the Corozal and Orange Walk districts _______, and the Garinagu ________.

Belizean intellectuals are in the habit of running this story on the same page, and it is not right. For starters, somebody has to give the maligned Kriols some respect for limiting themselves to talk when the folk from the Mosquito Shore came, and when the Garinagu came, and when the Maya returned in force, and the East Indians, and the Chinese, and the Arabians, and the Mennonites, and the new Chinese, and the Guatemalans, Salvadorans, and the Hondurans came.

The Kriols talked, and yes, words can hurt, but surely they get some points for limiting their physical expressions in this regard to intermarriage with those tribes that didn’t/don’t consider themselves racially superior, or weren’t hung up on racial purity.

Working on the white supremacist’s phenotype scale, the Garinagu and the Black Kriols are in the same boat. The Garinagu are children of Africa, one of the continents that experienced sad days when the Europeans discovered that Chinese gunpowder placed behind lead made the most lethal weapon, and they are children of the Caribs, a tribe that was driven into extinction when Columbus and his men came to the Americas. The Garinagu, just like the Kriols, came over on slave ships, but the ship or ships they came on was/were shipwrecked, and so they escaped the ignominy and pain of slavery.

From the surface, when the brown Kriols called the Garinagu names, they were looking down on the Garinagu because the brown Kriols are closer to the white supremacist’s phenotype.

The story as it involves the Mestizos of the north is different. The Mestizos are the children of Gonzalo Guerrero, a Spaniard, and the Spaniards are Europeans, just like the British.

The fact is that for the Kriols in Belize, there was the devil they knew, the British, and over there in Guatemala there were Spaniards who called us names and hated to see black people taking up leadership positions. Heck, even the Maya didn’t have enough complexion and facial features to satisfy them.

I bow out for now, leaving off with the point that the relationships between the Kriol and the Garinagu, and the Kriol and the Mestizo, are very different. Hey, I just love the analogy that for a man in a dory and a man in a ship, a storm at sea is not the same.

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