by Colin Hyde

The Germany that became an atrocity under the leadership of Adolf Hitler is referred to as Nazi Germany. It’s an important distinction.

In regard to leaders/leadership, wherever you are, be it on a boat, in a sports club, with a scout troop, on a farm, success or failure is mostly a factor of who’s at the helm. Countries have survived bad ones, with the time they take to recover depending on the extent of the failure and the capacity of the new leader, leaders. Focusing on bad or ugly ones, it is a question: should a people be blamed for them? My answer is no, because the majority of us are, like it or noh like it, sheep—we are easily led.

People will be led and, at least for a time, they may get away with tolerating risky, bad, or ugly leaders. But, just as we are punished if we make a bad play at cards, punishment will come in some form in a country that is under poor leadership. People certainly pay for their leaders’ decisions. It isn’t farfetched that if the people of Iraq had marched on Saddam and his risky leadership, they would have saved their country from obliteration.

When evil rules, it’s not because the people are evil; it’s because the good leaders are weak. Neri says it’s all about the people. Boy, the poor people, they are so dependent on wise leaders.

The Old Testament in the Good Book is about leadership. Many times, what the writers in the Good Book say is good, is bad, terrible. There are instances in that Good Book where starvation, murder, annihilation, genocide, blood-spilling, even lying like the devil is good. That’s because for those writers, those scourges advanced the end they sought, Israel under one God.

The ends being sought by Netanyahu and his far-right friends are about ugly expansionism, revenge, and hatred. We must not be fooled by their claim of justifiable defense. Justifiable defense has its merit, but Netanyahu Israel took that to the depths of hell. Netanyahu Israel is guilty of an ugly slaughter.

From a gud family, eh?

Compol Williams liked the sound of “good family” so much, he said it twice when explaining the dismissal of an officer who shot the GG’s dog. You know, that entire episode can be blamed on the Briceño government for their not telling the GG to not bring country life to the palace. GG Froyla took one look at the GG acres and saw escape from the concrete jungle Belmopan. I have heard – before I go on I must say I don’t believe everything I hear – that the GG has a chikin kub. Personally, I don’t care for local chikins. I don’t eat cow fut either. I am my mom’s son. My dad loved his cow fut soup. Bah.

The officer said that the man of the house was aggressive with him after he shot the dog. It’s great fortune that the police officer comes from a “good family.” Putting down the gun was the best thing to do in that heati situation. When you’re dealing with any kind of “insanity”, temporary or long-term, one must take the sensible path. I know a thousand people who would have lost it if someone shot their dog, especially if they thought the force was unnecessary.

A dog is family. They carry the apellido of their owners. If the family is Williams, the man dog is Bully Williams; if it’s Musa, the man dog is Macho Musa. If the dog gets away on the street and puppies result, all the pups get the family name, until they are sold or given away. Going down memory lane, old stories, there’s a Brenda Lee song, “All Alone Am I” – whenever I hear that specific Brenda, I am transported to a very sad morning when my younger brother lost his dog. I remember that when he and I passed Rick’s Club on our way to school, some broken soul upstairs was crying in his quita goma along with those haunting sounds.

We lived a stone’s throw from Holy Redeemer, just across the river. We lived so close that if we were out of our yard when the first bell rang at 8:25, we could make it to school in the five minutes between that and the call-in bell at 8:30. When we were on the school ground at 8:20, we were way early; that morning when we got to school it was 7:30.

Looking at another old story, there’s this one about a dog that transgressed, and his owner’s pocket burned for his deeds. If the dog owner told you the story and you’re the type for whom one side is enough for a conviction, you would say shame on me. This world can be really wicked sometimes.

The owner, a lettered guy I was acquainted with from my time in the agriculture field, his face went through a series of changes as he peeled off the blue notes, 5, for his dog’s mess. His look when he slowly peeled off the third note said he expected me to say, okay, that’s enough, and incredulity was the look when he handed over the 5th one. He came oh so close to a reprieve. A cousin negotiated the fee, and I had steeled myself beforehand to not go back on it.

I had invested in sheep wire and a shed, and good stock – I had 6 ewes and a breed ram – and the guy’s dog, a huge, vicious fellow, jumped my 5-foot high fence and killed my pregnant ewe.

The payment decided on was to cover my direct loss, but the owner might not have known that it extended far beyond that. The dog was a special breed, a pampered high-priced beast. It was just leaving the scene when I arrived with an in-law to see the damage. My in-law, a dog lover, thought this one was too dangerous for the neighborhood. When he cranked his gun to put it down, I told him, “no”. Yes, I was very angry. But I told him to spare it. A part of the payment was for that mercy. He and his family got back their dog. After extracting that pound of flesh, that steep price, I thought he wouldn’t let it out of its pen again. But I still shut down my sheep business. Good fences make good neighbors. No fence was high or strong enough to keep out a dog as huge as a near mature jaguar. Oh, all that compensation didn’t stay with me. 

Oh no, the ComPol hasn’t escaped. Gud family!? What the heck! What bias!  That’s reverse profiling. Good family, hell! Some produce some real horrors.  “Gud family” people get away with a helava lot of things. Sir, human beings are not only products of the environment. Sir, in every gud family’s ancestral line you will find racists, liars, murderers, thieves, and, ehm, gays too. Watch it there, Compol!

Other ICJ news from The Hague

I looked in The Belize Times for this announcement that Belize has joined a South Africa-led initiative at the ICJ to see Netanyahu Israel damned for its genocide in Gaza, and found nada. Anadolu Agency (AA) said that on Friday we joined Nicaragua, Colombia, Cuba, Libya, Mexico, Palestine, Spain, and Türkiye in proceedings instituted by South Africa in December 2023 “against Israel, claiming violations of the Genocide Convention in relation to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.” AA said “Israel’s genocidal war has killed more than 47,400 Palestinians, most of them women and children, and injured more than 111,000 since Oct. 7, 2023.”

Danielle Greyman-Kennard said in The Jerusalem Post that Ireland, which is among “a number of other countries with less-than-warm relations with Israel” had “requested that the definition of genocide be broadened so Israel could be found guilty.” The Post said “Ireland’s Foreign Affairs Department said in a December statement, ‘We are concerned that a very narrow interpretation of what constitutes genocide leads to a culture of impunity in which the protection of civilians is minimized.’”

As noted, The Belize Times had no story on it. In December 2023, a month after Netanyahu Israel started pounding Gaza with no regard for sacred human life, Belize let its condemnation be heard, AND then broke off diplomatic ties with Israel. Lead Evangelical voices here howled about the broken diplomatic ties. They howled because they astoundingly believe that God blesses the slaughter in Gaza. Some Belizeans who supported the condemnation of Netanyahu Israel were caught by surprise, thought we went too far.