by Colin Hyde

The Europeans corralled the definition of beauty when they created a blond, blue-eyed, white man with narrow features and said he was the likeness of the Son of God. Of course, having the world’s biggest guns, and having no qualms in using them, even on their own when they considered it necessary, cemented the white place on this planet. If not consciously, then subliminally it is in the minds of people of African ancestry that the phenotype the Europeans established is the standard. I don’t know to what extent, or if Mestizos, East Indian and Chinese Belizeans too, are victims in any way of this indoctrination. But people of African ancestry certainly are.

Marcus’s phenotype is as far as you get from the presented ideal. But Marcus could not be indoctrinated, brainwashed to think others were more beautiful than himself and his people. He accepted white people who believed they were “it” because he believed he was “it”. Jamaica Information Service, in the story, “‘Black is Beautiful’ – Garvey’s Message of Racial Pride”, said he encouraged people of Afro heritage to teach their children to love their physical features.

History.com, in the story, “Legacy of Marcus Garvey”, said his “supporters prefer to focus on his key message, which was steeped in Black pride. He is credited with coining the phrase ‘Black is beautiful’. His philosophy is perhaps best exemplified in the following quote: ‘We must canonize our own saints, create our own martyrs, and elevate to positions of fame and honor Black men and women who have made their distinct contributions to our racial history … I am the equal of any white man; I want you to feel the same way.’”

I’ll pick up this story at a later date. We are in the midst of our Black week. On Tuesday we celebrated the birthday of the Amandala, and on Saturday we celebrate the birthday of the great Marcus, born August 17, 1887. Up, you mighty race, accomplish what you will; Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds!

Sandra and Narda

We have this story that our Mrs. Narda Garcia and divorcee Sandra Torres, who was in a runoff 3 times for the presidency of Guatemala and came up short, are sisters. There is also a story that Sandra grew up in Melchor, which if true would make her, ehm, eligible for citizenship in the “23rd department”. Both the towns of Melchor, in Guatemala, and Chetumal, in Mexico, are as Belizean as it gets. If we add north Honduras to the mix, well, you can’t find a roots Belizean who doesn’t have family connections with one, two, or all of those places.

Sandra Torres

Sandra has garnered the most votes in the first round of Guatemala’s presidential elections, and has been dusted off badly in the runoffs. The runoff is a feature in Guatemala’s electoral process when no candidate gets 50% or more of the vote. Ambition is a hell of a thing. We know how much Ms. Sandra wanted that big prize. She wanted it so much she spit on love. There is a clause in Guatemala’s Constitution that prevented her from climbing to the top because of sharing a pillow with a former president, and she mustn’t have blinked when she filed for divorce from Alvaro Colom, her poor husband. My, my, she just walked out of that man’s bed.

Taking a look at Sandra, Jonathan Blitzer, in a New Yorker story prior to the last election titled, “Is Guatemala about to see an upset win for Democracy”, described Sandra as “an ideologically malleable figure.” Sonia Perez D. of the Associated Press said Sandra told a crowd that she wanted “to run this country with the fear of God,” that she “told several hundred supporters that she wanted the government to respect life from conception”, and that “she promised she would never accept same-sex marriage, quickly adding that she wasn’t homophobic.” Perez D. said Sandra’s party, National Unity of Hope, “once was considered the country’s social democratic party, but has moved rightward with Torres, though she also promises many social programs to benefit the country’s ‘forgotten’ poor.’” Her stance against same-sex marriage and abortion, and the fact that her opponent is left wing, gained the anti-communist Sandra the support of the Evangelicals going into the last election.

Returning to Blitzer, he said that “in 2019, she [Sandra] was arrested for violating campaign-finance laws, but the case was later dismissed”, and that “Guatemalans of diverse political persuasions use a single phrase to explain how such people become front-runners: el pacto de corruptos, the pact of the corrupt.”

That story said that Sandra said her opponent, the now president of Guatemala, Bernardo Arévalo, was just like his father — “a communist who will expropriate people’s land and upend the social order”; and that Sandra was backed by “a powerful association of some three-hundred eighty thousand military veterans who are notorious for their obdurate conservatism and belligerence.” Earlier, this group had opposed her, but they definitely preferred her to Arevalo. “Today, more than ever, Guatemala is in danger … We don’t want communism in Guatemala,” Blitzer said Sandra told the group at a meeting.

Narda Garcia

Not a few vocal non-aligned Belizeans who were fed up with the UDP and had voted for the PUP, were disappointed when one of the first announcements of the new government was that the very talented but controversial Narda was taking up a high post in the Ministry of Finance, the PM’s ministry, and they made their alarm known. In the peak privatization years, between 1998 and 2003, a period when our major public assets – BTL, BEL, BWSL, and PBL – were sold to private foreign and local friends of the government, Narda was the boss at SSB, presiding over hundreds of millions of the people’s dollars. To be viable, the SSB has to invest a considerable portion of its funds, and the SSB under her leadership made a few suspect investments.

I did not join in with the clamor against Narda. I didn’t do so because I am slow to concluding the story on anyone. Everything isn’t on the surface. The PUP 1998 to 2003 went wholesale Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan—trickle-down instead of mixed economy. There are believers in privatization. Some of them are educated. I think they are parrots. Privatization is simply the transfer of the people’s wealth into private hands with the hope that private hands will be brilliant and conscientious and the crumbs that fall from their tables will be sufficient to satisfy the masses. It is the prescription for poverty south of the Rio Grande.

I said, our Ms. Narda oversaw the people’s funds at SSB into the hands of a number of private operations, some of them suspect. I am not aware that she acted based on her own brilliance. She quite likely was under direction. It was the misguided age of privatization, and she delivered for her bosses.

One can’t say, she is “like” her sister, and sometimes sisters or brothers are diametric opposites. A mi, Narda looks some like Sandra, like a privatization/capitalist girl too. I’m looking at her because BTL is selling prime land, and she recently joined the BTL Board. And the Ministry of Finance has reportedly just paid $6.9 million for a parcel in Belmopan. We shouldn’t jump to conclusions, but we have to watch these things

But Caleb, if you win, we lose

I heard Caleb calling out the government in an infomercial, saying that GoB promised that all of us would win, and some agenda of theirs is being neglected. That brother reminds me of the drinker who doesn’t understand that when he is drunk he needs to haul R to his corner or closet and sleep it off.

When questioned about their rigid position to keep Section 53 on the books, the number one response of those against the LGBT is that they wouldn’t stop there. The anti-gay “told us so”; we accepted it was “the thin edge of the wedge”, but those of us against any furthering of the agenda just couldn’t deny a human being the legal right to their closet. Guy, have a conscience. You and your crowd are asking for too much.