“A man once said: ‘A race which does not know its history is condemned to repeat it.’ AMANDALA will be publishing extracts of African and Indian history so that we can gain greater knowledge of self and kind.”

“It is impossible to return to the past. But we believe that a knowledge of the past, a knowledge of self and kind, will give us a mandate to revolutionize this corrupt, white-washed society in which we live.”

– pg. 1, AMANDALA No. 1, Wednesday, 13th August, 1969

“The ancient Maya civilization was one of the greatest the world ever saw. From about 250 to 900 A.D. they lived in the Golden Era, the ‘Classic Period’ of their wonderful yet mysterious civilization. By 900 A.D. and beyond, for reasons not yet clear to Maya scholars and laymen alike, they abandoned their great cities, some buildings still under construction, only to be shrouded in jungle.”

– pg. vii, THE SACRED MAYA SMOKING SHELL, Manuel M. Novelo, Belize, 2012

“Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth, where dust and moth consume, and where thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither dust or moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break in nor steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

– MATTHEW, Chapter 6, verses 19 to 21

There are many people who say that they believe in God, but they live their lives in such a way as to show that what they really believe in, is man, and in material things. In Belize, the God most people believe in is the God Who originated, in specific description, from Rome and Canterbury, who, in turn, had followed basic prescriptions which came from Judaism. There are scholars who have argued and scholars who continue to argue that many of the precepts of Judaism were derived from the Egyptians, under whose rule the Jews were confined for more than four hundred years. As you go further back in time, things become more hazy.

Religion is a huge subject, a broad subject. Some scholars spend their entire lives studying this subject, but most of the faithful, in Belize as in other places, do not know all that much about religion as a subject of study and research. What most of us think we know, is really what we believe, and what we believe, in the case of Christians, largely comes out of the Bible, more so from the New Testament rather than the Old.

The Jews themselves have a sacred book called the Torah, which guides them. Remember, the Jews were expecting a Messiah, as prophesied in the Old Testament, and they did not accept Jesus Christ as the Messiah or as the Son of God. So, the Jews do not pay attention to the New Testament, whose four Gospels are about the life of Jesus Christ. For the Jews, knowledge, wisdom, and faith come from the Torah.

For reasons of historical continuity and, I suppose, international realpolitik, reference is very often made to what is called Judeo-Christianity. The clear suggestion is that the one – Christianity, grew out of the other – Judaism, and yet, their radically different positions on Jesus Christ establish a fundamental divide between Judaism and Christianity.

At the time when Christ walked the earth two thousand years ago, there were human beings living in Asia, Africa, and America who knew nothing of Him. These Asians, Africans, and Americans had their own religious beliefs, for thousands of years, which had sustained and were sustaining them spiritually, until the Europeans began to penetrate these non-Judeo-Christian continents five hundred and more years ago.

To a large extent, the Europeans conquered these continents, especially Africa and America. They did so militarily, in the first instance, and then they began to introduce and impose their religion – Christianity. These Europeans included the Portuguese, the Spanish, the English, the French, the Dutch, and later the Germans and the Belgians.

So now, the modern world of Africa and America is dominated by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which is a military alliance of the Europeans and the North Americans, and by Christianity, whose two centers of power are in Rome and Canterbury. The land in and around Jerusalem, is known today as Israel and is considered the Holy Land by both Jews and Christians. So, modern Israel is an integral part of that Judeo-Christianity which, in pragmatic terms, is the religious arm of NATO.

For myself, I have said to you that my God does not dwell in Rome or Canterbury, but in Addis Ababa and in the Black Hills of the Lakota Sioux. In this wise, I am trying to say to you that I am an African and American in my ancestry, and I do not accept the subjugation to Europe which has crushed my people. I reject that subjugation, and I have done so for all of my adult life.

Because of my resistance to NATO, Rome and Canterbury, I have experienced punishment from these rulers of the world and their representatives in Belize. This punishment has been going on for all of my adult life, and how I have survived is through the support of those Belizeans who think in ancestral African and American terms, as I do.

During my struggle to survive, I fathered children. I made a conscious decision not to impose my way of thinking upon my children. They were raised by their mothers, and all my children attended Christian schools and churches.

In my struggle to survive and to contribute to my community and society, I became the head of an institution which we call Kremandala. Kremandala includes a newspaper, a radio station, a television station, a library, and a couple small investments. Aside from the Bowen and Bowen group, Kremandala is probably the largest employer on the Southside of Belize City.

Kremandala is bigger than I, and Kremandala will continue after I am gone. Because my children do not all think as I think, Kremandala will change, inevitably. But, two of my younger brothers and one of my brothers-in-law are senior employees at Kremandala, and they will have a say in where Kremandala goes. For sure my two younger brothers think very much as I do.

For today, however, where Kremandala’s position on the Sarstoon-Temash is concerned, this is my call. And it is a call which you can trace all the way back to the editorial statement in the very first edition of this newspaper, published on August 13, 1969. I do not believe in the way of life (or death) which has been imposed on our people in the modern era. This that we are experiencing is a system which exalts man and material things. It is a system which is doomed, because man is dust, and unto dust he shall return. Only God is eternal, and God dwelt in Africa and America before the Europeans came. This is my message to you today, and it has been my message to you from the beginning.

Power to the people.