“But whosoever shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depths of the sea.”
– MATTTHEW 18:6
Belize is a country which each year spends more and more of its national budget on education, but watches the situation at the base of our sociological pyramid simultaneously becoming worse and worse. Every August and September, when the new school year opens with great promise for a certain section of the society, thousands of our children have their educations abruptly ended, and they are thrown into the streets. The mill of crime begins to grind them to pieces.
At the top of the pyramid, the shining graduate and post-graduate products of the Belizean educational system have been practically homogeneous over the last three decades where their selfishness and cowardice are concerned. There is little intellectual debate in Belize. There is party politics, and there are talk shows, but the vast majority of the best educated people in Belize do not rock the boat.
The clear indications are that there are people who are happy with the education system of Belize the way it is. More than that, there are people who have structured the system the way it is, and who are seriously dedicated to having that system remain this way until death do us part. These people are the various clergy of Belize. Where education is concerned, Belize, one of the most violent, materialistic and hedonistic countries in the world, is a theocracy. Belize is ruled by God, which is to say, by those who say that they represent God. UDP for Jesus. PUP for Jesus. God for us all.
The apologists for the present system say that in slavery and colonialism days, it was the churches which took on the responsibility of educating the people, the vast majority of whom, incidentally, were black. The implicit suggestion is that the state was not interested in education. The fact of the matter is that when primary school education was begun in Belize by the Anglican Church in 1814, the British monarchy and the Anglican Church were one and the same. The Queen of England is still the head of the Anglican Church. (The Methodists came in the 1830’s, and the Roman Catholics in the 1860’s.)
What is happening today is that the churches consider their primary responsibility to be educating those of the Belizean citizens who believe in their God. Believe in my god, and I will educate you. In the twentieth century, the education system became a so-called church-state system. The churches had the power, while the state paid the bills. Where we are today, and where we have been for decades, is as we said in the very first paragraph: thousands of innocent children are abandoned each August/September? The question we ask today is this: in which God do these children believe?
From these abandoned children come a growing percentage who become criminals. We don’t know which God these children believe in, but it appears that the vast majority of them are black. Because the vast majority of the criminals are black, those law-abiding Belizean citizens who are black are forced to, in effect, denounce their own children, and call for floggings and hangings to discipline them. The really big criminals, who run the show, are church-educated in Belize, and none of them ever goes to jail. The politicians, who are often lawyers, protect each other across the party lines. UDP for Jesus. PUP for Jesus. God for us all.
In the United States of America, there are church schools just as there are in Belize. In the United States, as in Belize, the church schools are very good. In fact, they are often the best. The difference between the United States and Belize, is that in the U.S. it is the parents who pay for their church schools to educate their children. But in Belize, the state pays the churches to educate their church members. The state then prays for as many of the other children to get a place in the church schools. But it is always only a few. This is why we say this place is a theocracy. The people pay for those who represent God to educate their congregations. Unfortunately, in that process thousands of the people’s children are lost. But, everything is all good. It’s all in the name of God.