by Colin Hyde

If the present leaders of the UDP had paid any attention to history, they would have been the last to crow down the Caribbean Community (Free Movement of Skilled Persons) (Amendment) Bill, 2023. This government-in-waiting is letting us down way too often. Dehn noh ready fu this.

After WWII, led by India, the former colonies of the British started moving toward independence. That terrible war had decimated the British empire, colonialism was done, and we were entering the world of neo-colonialism. The British, bully for them, saw the need for her colonies in this part of the world to hang together, because they were mostly too small to go it alone.

The British tried to federate her colonies in the Caribbean and Belize, but the PUP’s George Price and a number of his key friends were against it. Federation would fall apart unaided by British Honduras. Sparrow said Federation didn’t make it because of the Jamaicans, who sang, “We noh want no Bayjan Premier, Trinidad can’t be capital for here”, and how much of that is true, me noh noa. I think, I think Ms. Sandra Coye has said we would have gotten a university if the Federation plan had gone through.

Federation divided the PUP. Some out there downplay the role of Federation in the split. What is fact is that Philip Goldson and Leigh Richardson were supportive of Federation, and Price and his friends were not. One story in the countryside was that Price said the aggressive islanders, particularly the Jamaicans, would outcompete Belizeans.

Now it is a fact that Belizeans weren’t very competitive. Arabian Belizeans, Asian Belizeans, Indian Belizeans, and Mennonite Belizeans don’t have to tell us that. Their bank accounts tell the story. They came here and Roots Belizeans became their employees. For his words and his actions about Federation, Price earned the racist label from the NIP.

Well look how the world turns. Shyne and Tracy stood up in the House and worried that if we proceed with this Bill it would be a direct threat to less skilled Belizeans. The Opposition pointed out that all the Caribbean islands aren’t hurrying to sign up. Indeed, to date it is only Barbados, Belize, and Trinidad that are pushing ahead. There’s a physical story there. I guess some islands are a little cautious because they are very close, within reach by dory. Because of the proximity thing, islanders can hop from island to island, the same way our Central American brothers and sisters can walk across our border anytime and “threaten” the jobs of less skilled Belizeans.

The Treaty of Chaguaramas allowed for the educated elite, the doctors and engineers and lawyers to come to Belize, and made no space for people of my skill level. Yaa, if people like me wanted to go and experience an island in the Caribbean, we were out. In fact, it is easier for people on my tier to go to the US. This amendment will allow for hardworking, not-so-book-educated individuals to get a space.

Brother Hart Tillett showed last week in a letter to the Amandala editor that this amendment will still be restrictive. He said a lot has changed in the 50 years since the original agreement, and a carpenter now isn’t “someone with a tape measure, a hand saw and a plumb-line who ‘did some work’”, a carpenter now “is a graduate of Technical or some other trade school”, someone who “has done computer-aided draughting and knows some geometry.”

Disappointing and disgraceful, is how education minister Francis Fonseca described the Opposition’s stance. I bet Sedi Elrington must have gone on his verandah and spit on the street when he heard their disappointing speeches. Mark my words, if the UDP keeps up this low-grade performance the entire Elrington family will start voting PUP, all the way.

Because of the distance factor, it’s not likely that our country would open up to thousands of Haitians, as we did to Guatemalans and El Salvadorans during their civil wars, even though the situations are similar. Belize did experience shocks during those years, and did all it could to absorb the desperate refugees.

There won’t be any mass exodus to Belize from the Caribbean. But if we eased the pressure, islanders will come, and apart from becoming good citizens of Belize they will boost our Caribbean flavor. We can use an injection of that. We are proud to be the world’s wonderful melting pot.

Talking Caribbean flavor, Belize’s Ms. Dominique Noralez is over in Barbados soaking up the land of Joseph Niles. But last week she was representing in London, over there as the Caribbean representative on the Commonwealth Youth Council. Go Dominique, go Commonwealth!

There should be TWO penalty spots

Play would be fairer in football if there were two penalty spots, one from 12 yards away, where it is at present, and one from 10 yards away. Goals are sometimes very hard to come by, thus the need for a closer look at these PKs. Numbers are excellent, sometimes essential to support arguments, so I went looking for some. Bah, football isn’t as deep into numbers as baseball is. I wanted to find out how many games are decided by one goal, and couldn’t. You plug in a question like that in baseball and for sure the numbers are going to come up.

There are three parts to a penalty: the goal, the portero, and the kicker. Okay, if you want to make an excuse for somebody there’s also the quality of the pitch, and I bet there is also a case where somebody’s laces actually broke. I got an answer when I asked about the percentage of successful attempts from the penalty spot: the answer there is 85%. Goalkeepers stop 11%, and 4% are kicked off.

Ah, the portero; some are absolutely phenomenal at stopping penalties. Nishith Nair on Quora says Brazilian goalkeeper Diego Alves, who played for Valencia in La Liga “faced 45 penalties in his career and has saved a staggering 22 of them, having a success rate of 48.88%!” Jeffrey Wang (Quora) says Alves stopped 3 of 4 from Cristiano Ronaldo. Kofi Appiah (Quora) says Lev Yashin stopped an incredible 150 penalties.

I’ve told you it would be no surprise to me that Zenidine Zidane earned himself a red card in the 2006 World Cup Finals between France and Italy, because he didn’t want to face Gianluigi Buffon in a looming penalty shootout for the cup. At the time Zidane made his exit, just a few minutes before the end of extra time, the score was knotted one to one, with the French goal coming from a penalty kick by Zidane, a panenka that came within a centimeter of getting too much of the cross bar. Zidane had a chance to win the game late, off a header, but he didn’t cut it mean enough, and the incredible Buffon stopped him.

A penalty is not a sure thing, and in modern football it is even less sure, since they now allow the goalkeeper to move before the kick, as long as they stay on the goal line. Ha, the great All Belize portero, Tony Wagner, used to stop them anyway. And Noel “The Flying Fargo” Ferguson must have the record for the number of penalty stops in a single year. I can’t leave off talking about great penalty stoppers without mentioning the mighty Peeta!

Getting back to my main point, some penalties are clear cut, and some are very iffy. The reward shouldn’t be the same. If, for example, a defender grabs the ball, denying a clear goal, the shot should be moved up, to 10 yards from goal. And the iffy ones, they remain at 12 yards from goal. And the super iffy ones, they should be spotted farther back, 14 yards. Goals are not like baskets, goals aren’t a dime a dozen. Some penalties deserve greater odds.