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TO GOB: PUT IN PLACE LANGUAGE/CULTURE CURRICULUM FOR ALL ETHNIC GROUPS

FeaturesTO GOB: PUT IN PLACE LANGUAGE/CULTURE CURRICULUM FOR ALL ETHNIC GROUPS

by Wellington C. Ramos

It is to the advantage of all governments in this world to have a language and culture curriculum for all the ethnic groups in their countries. This will help the ethnic groups to know more about each other’s cultures, to foster mutual respect and understanding among themselves as citizens of their nation states. Especially countries like Belize that were colonized by Great Britain and other European colonizers which took away their rights as citizens to speak their languages and practice their culture. It can also help to build the country’s nationalism and to reduce prejudice and racism. Racism exists in Belize just as it does in many other countries in this world. Many of our Belizean people do not want to accept this fact, which we experience in our daily lives in our country.

We the Garifuna people are among the 400 million people on this earth who speak one of the 6,000 indigenous languages that exist. Most of us are struggling to preserve our languages that we have been speaking for centuries before the Europeans came to our lands and established their colonial rule. They then passed decrees and laws forbidding us from speaking our native language and practicing our culture. This is what the French and the British did to us in our native land, “Yurumein,” now known as St. Vincent and the Grenadines, up until the war ended in 1796. About 5,000 of our people were removed from our mainland island and taken to one of our other islands, Balliceaux, where we were tortured, imprisoned, killed, and some of our people were buried there.

In 1797, about 2,500 of our people who survived the torturing, inhumane treatment and conditions they endured at Balliceaux, were packed up like cargoes and taken to the island of Roatan in the country of Honduras, where they were dumped on April 12, 1797. At the time our people arrived in Roatan, our language was already mixed with French. Now that we were brought to Roatan, our language was influenced by the British and the Spanish. Both the British and the Spanish did not want us to intermingle with the other ethnic groups in their colonies, so they isolated us from them.

The British hated us because of the fight we waged against them, to protect our nation and to avoid being their slaves. They also did not want to run the risk of our people assisting the slaves in Saint Vincent, the neighboring islands, Belize, Nicaragua and their colonies to rebel against them for their freedom. This was also the same for the Maya and other indigenous people in Central America who were victims of Spanish colonization and genocide.

Like the French and the British, the Spanish established their language as the official language for all their colonies. The Indians fought to retain their land and preserve their language and culture by running away from them. Yet, the Spanish pursued them and killed all those who resisted their rule. When the French, British, Spanish, and the other European colonial countries made their languages the official languages for their colonies, they did this with the intent to eradicate all the other languages that were spoken in their occupied territories. Why? Because they knew that the language of an ethnic group is the essence of their culture.

Once the native languages were removed by them, they were in a better position to control and subjugate the people. We the Garifuna people, because of our isolation from the other ethnic groups in these countries, were able to speak and maintain our language. As time went by, these countries decided to set up an educational system where everybody must go to school and learn only their languages. In schools located in Honduras, Nicaragua, and Guatemala, all the various ethnic groups were learning how to read, write and speak Spanish, and in Belize and parts of Nicaragua, English.

They introduced new languages to the Garifuna people in these territories for their economic, political, and social survival. As a result of this, Garifuna people focused on learning how to speak, write, and read these languages while some of them were neglecting their own Garifuna language. Most Garifuna people cannot write or read the words in their native language, because there were no native schools in most of their communities that taught them how to read and write Garifuna. Under international law, it is the responsibility of all governments to facilitate, accommodate, and assist the indigenous people like the Garifuna to preserve their language and culture.

UNESCO and other international organizations have been providing funds to most countries for this purpose. Most countries have signed on to these international agreements, including St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Belize, and the United States. Yet, they have no program in place for the Garifuna language and culture to be taught in their schools. This is the same for the other ethnic groups in Belize.

In order for we the Garifuna people to learn how to speak, write, read and analyze our Garifuna language in the countries where we live, we must do the following things:
• Continue to speak and teach our language to our children at home
• Open schools in all of our communities to teach our people how to speak, write, read and analyze our Garifuna language
• Bring a case against the governments in all the countries where we live who signed Treaties, Conventions, ILO-169, and other international agreements to teach our language in schools
• Interact with Garifuna people who live in other communities and countries to conduct language workshops and symposiums
• Establish an International Garifuna Language Institute (IGLI) with representatives from all the countries where we live to be responsible for the preservation, promotion, and protection of our language and culture.

This organization should be under the jurisdiction of the Garifuna Nation and it is a necessary body to preserve our language and culture, introduce new words, deal with all aspects of the language, and gain worldwide recognition. Once we establish the IGLI, the members of this organization will be able to do a thorough evaluation of the current state of our language and culture, make recommendations on how to improve, preserve, and protect it. In my research, the late Vilma Roches-Joseph, a Garifuna scholar who did extensive research on our language, said that most of our people do not want to speak our language because of shame and low self-esteem.

I also think that we should include the following among the reasons our native language was not spoken to us in our homes: acculturation with other ethnic groups; peer pressure in the communities where some of us live; absence of persons to speak the language with regularly; resentment from other Garifuna people like ourselves who know how to speak the language; while some of us do not understand the value and benefits of our rich history, language and culture. We know the obstacles we face with our history, culture, and language; now is the time for us to come together and correct the injustice.

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