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The Battle myth put to rest; reluctant Mestizo Belizeans should celebrate

FeaturesThe Battle myth put to rest; reluctant Mestizo Belizeans should celebrate

by Colin Hyde

There is something in the 10th for every Belizean. We all know much has been lost, that much of the glory has faded. It shouldn’t have happened, it is wrong what has happened, and I’m calling on Belizeans all over who don’t embrace it to give truth a chance to seep in. If they did, they would understand why generations past expressed themselves so heartily in music, and they would get in the march. The erosion, it all started under Price.

Price is an interesting guy. Okay, well, father of the nation and all that, there has to be many stories about him. I’ve read almost everything written about him; I am yet to read Godfrey Smith’s biography. I’m kind of afraid that he fawned, and that’s what scares me away. I wonder what good can come out of a man who has no qualms about doing any bidding of the Ashcroft Group.

I’m very interested in Price’s relationship with his dad, a white British Kriol. We know that Price’s boss, Bob Turton, launched him into politics. We know that Bob Turton’s dad, a British man, abandoned his mother. I can’t find my Bob Turton book, but my memory is that Mr. Bob wasn’t too fond of his pa. There is the story about Price’s disappointing comment about the Queen in parade, and yes, just to complete that tale, how close he came to being put in the penitentiary for that. And lest ye forgot, he also nearly got some cooling-off time in the slammer for, of all things, being too friendly with the enemy.

The message that jumps out is that Price’s relationship with the British wasn’t the best. There is no question that he was pro-US. I’ll have to go through Assad’s book to find out who was behind the US flag flying in our parade.

Anyway, the fact is that Price was huge in the erosion of the 10th’s glory. There’s this declaration of his that the 10th battle was a myth. Assad, in his 13 Chapters, said the PUP renamed the 10th, called it “National Day”, but Price only “questioned” the myth. Shoman said Price didn’t question the “historical event’s occurrence”, and after charges were levied by we Kriol that the PUP was discriminating against us, the party backed off that position.

The “truth” out there was that George called the Battle a myth, and that he did so because Mestizo Belizeans, his mother’s people in the north, weren’t feeling it. We know that Assad and Richard the lawyer, overzealous minions, you know how these sorts do it, maybe because it makes them feel macho, ran with the myth story and wala, gudnis grayshos me, the battl didn’t happen ataal! That devil, Clinton Canul Luna, who is holding beef over the defeat of Marcus Canul, well I’d rather you didn’t read anything he writes on the subject.

This myth business, they say there’s nothing new under the sun. What could be the parallel here? Aha, we can start with Diego de Landa and other religious zealots burning the scrolls of our Mayan ancestors, for the purpose of erasing their knowledge and history from the face of the earth. The job on our enslaved African ancestors by the Europeans was so complete that for a while there we thought that our story began with us serving them.

Brothers and sisters, it took more than half a century for truth that was crushed to earth to rise. Forget the tricky remnant that counts the casualties in the war, not the spoils of victory. The only explanation I have for those types is that they be rotten atheists. For them, God never made the waters of the Red Sea part, and once when Philistines gathered up an army to attack an innocent nation an earthquake didn’t cause them to rethink their foul ambition.

Aha, we have that George Price was trying to get the Kriols to ease up on their exuberance, so the Mestizos could become more into the fabric.

Looking at the case for Mestizo Belizeans to bram on the 10th, we have to ask: if there was no JEWEL, if the Spaniards and that devil Irishman, Arturo O’Neill, had won, where would the Caste War refugees have run to? Braa, there would have been no peaceful haven here! You’ve heard about jumping out of frying pan and landing in frying pan.

Whoa there, the 10th has its faults, and really, in this world what doesn’t? In a country with many tribes there’s no limit to things to pull us apart. Don’t let perfection be the enemy of a good thing. Those Mestizo Belizeans who have been reluctant to celebrate, if they look past the Philistines they will see the true glory of the Battle, its place in the lives of everyone who calls the Jewel home. Hip, hip, hooray!

Don’t leave it lying there, Kareem

I understand the reasons why the GOB wants to push marijuana as an export industry. That’s about creating jobs and earning foreign exchange. The decision to hold off because of fears that pressure would come down on our banking system, well, it is not unjustified. Okay, while we take a breather I think it’s beyond a good idea, it’s imperative for us to expose this hypocrisy toward marijuana by wine- and coffee-drinking Belizeans.

It’s so absurd to condemn weed as a gateway drug. You go to every village in our country and you will find numerous middle-aged people and oldsters who smoked a little weed when they were younger, and just walked away from it. Many of them don’t even drink rum. I don’t know what weed is supposed to be a gateway to, but all of us having the capacity to be criminals, I will say that wine is the precursor to rum. My evidence is that I once drank a little wine. Oh, before I drank wine I did the coffee thing, and before that I drank cocoa, and before that I drank my mom’s milk.

The horror out there is that people who smoke a little weed are exposed to being poisoned by unscrupulous dealers who want to expand their trade, or are just sadistic. If our leaders leave the status of weed to lie as it is, then they are uncaring. How can you leave your brother to this kind of exposure? When it was pointed out to the criminal prohibitionists that people were being exposed to dangerously adulterated alcohol because of the law, those callous beasts said hurray, deaths and blindness are good deterrents.

The three primary prerequisites for teachers

The first requirement for a teacher is knowledge of subject. It goes without saying that you can’t teach what you don’t know. The second requirement isn’t pedagogical skills. Yes, it is important to know how to impart knowledge, there’s a technique there, but I want Francis and Dr. Zab to know that’s only in the third slot. The second requirement is the leadership package.

From the age of five until they complete high school, teachers will be some of the most important persons in the lives of children and youth. We daam well better make sure that these teachers have capacity, and that they are wholesome, the kinds of examples we want for our young ones.

Bah, I’ll have to pause here, so I can segweh to what, hair trouble? Ai, the state I would be in if this hair story in schools consumed me would be the definition of befuddlement. Schools should have the right to make a hair rule, or not make a hair rule. Children and youth go to school to learn the prescribed lessons, not to preen or honor their parents’ religion. But nothing is all bad. No hair rule in school is big news for barberos who can make art out of haircuts.

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