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From A Little Room in an Unpainted Building
by Yasser Musa, 19 September 2014
Address at Fordyce Memorial Chapel,
Landivar Campus, St. John’s College, Belize City, Belize
33 Years of Belizean Independence
2 “If the past has nothing to say to the present, history may go on sleeping undisturbed in the closet where the system keeps its old disguises.” ― Eduardo Galeano “If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” – African proverb A Spanish expedition setting out from Yucatán to Chetumal in 1531, faces fierce Maya resistance from leader Nachankan who announced the tribute he would pay would be turkeys in the shape of spears and corn in the shape of arrows. Powerful British of the Bay in 1787 began to pass laws, which resulted in them owning four-‐fifths of all the land. This settlement was 86% African, just two years after the infamous St. George’s Caye battle, a distorted figure since no one counted the indigenous Maya on the register, and the main reason they counted Africans was that they were still enslaved assets. In the 19th century the mahogany lords band their slaves from cultivating this land, a historical African tradition; and instead structured the economy on exploitation and extraction feeding the headquarters of the British Empire 5200 miles away. My young brothers this is a land of struggle and resistance to oppression. The British were constantly in fear of revolts and escapes. One such revolt in 1773 lasted five months and was only suppressed with help from a British naval force from Jamaica. In 1820 the British reported “two Slave Towns – long formed in the Mountains to the northward of the Sibun.” On the white paper it says that slavery was finally abolished in 1838, but who still owned the land, and who controlled the power and wealth of the economic system that had been established and entrenched by empire? It is important for us to look to our resistance heritage as a wellspring of a nation moving forward. Look to Joseph Chatoyer, the Garifuna paramount chief who defended his people to the death against the Spanish, the French, and the English. Important to understand Marcus Canul, the Icaiche leader who fought a fearless struggle against British aggression, and exploitation in the north of this land we now call home. We entered the 20th century a backwater colonial outpost. The great poet, activist and freedom fighter Samuel Haynes rose up in riot against the oligarchy and challenged us to take responsibility for our land, to Arise, to drive back the tyrants so that freedom’s noon could be possible. The seeds of national deliverance having been sown would sprout with the agitation of the workers leaders like Clifford Betson and Antonio Soberanis in the 1940s.
3 But the full bloom of our liberation stated in 1950 when George Price, a graduate of St. John’s College, joined forces with Leigh Richardson and Phillip Goldson and others around a small mahogany table at #3 Pickstock Street, Belize City to crystalize a real political national consciousness – setting out a clear destiny – self-‐ government and Belizean Independence. In the 1970s we Belizeans used diplomacy to convince the world that this small nation in the hurricane zone deserved its freedom with full sovereignty and territorial integrity. And from a little room in an unpainted building in Belmopan, a small team led the internationalization process courting poets, generals, revolutionaries, diplomats, world leaders and friendly brokers from Africa to Caricom, Cuba to Panama. So young brothers I come to ask that we not bend, or betray the legacy of our ancestors. I call on all of you to recognize our new appointment with history, to reflect on and own 1981 – the process, the struggle, the opposition, the unfounded Guatemalan claim in order to understand the true aspiration of the Belizean people. Fast forward to September 21, 2014. We will march uniformed this Sunday as an SJC family, not because we have to, but because the journey is still on. The Father of our Independence George Price always said, “we’ve come a long way, but we still have a long way to go…” It is no coincidence that in our current House of the people’s Representatives we have 30 men and 1 woman. That is perhaps the most extreme absurdity of our journey 33 years on, but it is real. It speaks loud, and it means that at 33 we must still resist, fight, and struggle. Independence is not just an idea or a dream deferred. It is a state of mind and conscience that must find action. Independence can be creative experience. Let us think about how we can make it so. Happy birthday beloved! Happy birthday Belize!