For my mother, C. Hauze

Almost every morning for the last few weeks I have been compelled to listen to “Jerusalem”, a hymn taken from the poetic work of William Blake. It is a hymn often used as an alternative to the British national anthem, and as the citizen of a former colony of the United Kingdom, I maybe ought not to be indulging in any version of the anthem my mother and grandmother had to sing in the years before 1981. Alas, this is the great conundrum a fanatic lover of art, history, identity and Blackness must grapple with. The lyrics that stick with me are:

“Bring me my bow of burning gold:
Bring me my arrows of desire:
Bring me my spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire.
“I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand…”

These verses make me think of war, envisaged as an avenue to achieving glory. It prescribes the preparedness required to engage war, defines the mindset that must be had, and makes clear the perseverance and discipline required. Belizeans are not a war people; our history has not granted us that muscle memory, but we are a praying people. The war with COVID-19 requires that we multitask, requires that we embody the duality of war. We must recognize the danger, but also the poetic beauty and symbolisms within this very moment of Belizean history.

While we are not a war-people, we are not excluded from the memory of collective tragedy. Our soaring deaths caused by this virus are no doubt set to replace in our collective memory the natural disasters we have known to cause Belizean carnage, the hurricanes of 1931 and 1961. The only difference is that the season for bio-disaster of SARS-CoV—2 is all year round. It is a disease that at the point of the writing of this piece has taken the lives of 195 Belizeans.

In poetic tragedy, this virus has taken the life of a new member of the political directorate, Hon. David Vega, who won an election on November 11th 2020 and then passed away on the day when he would’ve first sat in the House of Representatives, December 11th 2020. It is on this same day that the Governor-General, Sir Colville Young, who happens to be the longest sitting governor-general in the Commonwealth, removed his mask to give a throne speech. In the middle of a war, the head of state removed the archaic yet effective armour we have against the invisible enemy. He did it in the same way that the Prime Minister, Hon. John Briceno, who had also contracted the virus, removed his mask to give his address. I remind our people that mask-wearing is not optional or conditional, and that the virus does not care about nor need the permission of the House to find a body to gut.

Next, we hear of the infection and the passing of the two Guerra doctors, twin brothers, who departed this world just as they had arrived in it: together. Finally, Dr. Marvin Manzanero —the man who has been at the helm of Belize’s public health response to Covid-19 —has himself been infected by SARS-CoV-2. The poetic value of this war is abundant, and yet we continue onward in a death march. The reminder from the Belizean Away from Home at War Time is that our frontline workers are us, you and I, all of us. Our doctors, nurses, and healthcare professionals are our last line of defence. A line of defence that is weakened by the death of colleagues, fear of infection, long working hours and everyday socioeconomic stresses of being Belizean. We owe it to them and to ourselves to recognize the realness, divorce from path dependency and take a stand by staying home, masking up, and sanitizing. We cannot surrender to the anaesthesia of times gone by. We must become a war people, stand shoulder to shoulder, and with haste.

Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum.

Stay Curious.