By Dylan Vernon, TIMECOME #12, 10 September 2024.
During the long bacchanal this month, we can be excused for not reflecting too deeply on September’s absurd legacy of contradictions. Every year on September 10th we celebrate the British staying in what became Belize. Then just 11 days later we celebrate the British leaving. If ‘national post-colonial schizophrenia’ is a thing, Belize would be a prime candidate for collective psychotherapy. Some Belizeans embrace this unique 10th and 21st irony sin preguntas. But a few of us can’t help but ask critical questions that some deem as irritating or unpatriotic. But here goes.
In the 1990s, I spent a lot of time getting worked up over the 10th, which I viewed as damaging colonial baggage. The fact that I am now more chilled about it does not reflect a change of view; only that I decided to redirect my energies to other substantive issues. But three things spurred me recently to re-visit our ‘Septemba Kanfyoozhan’. First, I refused invitations this week to appear on talk shows to discuss the 10th. I have done one too many of these and figured it wasn’t worth increasing my blood pressure for a fluffy 10-minute chat while still waking up. But was I being too cynical? Isn’t there an education angle?
Second, and more positively, I have been impressed and encouraged by the content and quality of recent public educational initiatives by young people. An admirable example is the Access501 project. You must check it out! Finally, I have been motivated by the August 2024 move by Trinidad & Tobago to decolonize its national flag. It made me ponder why can’t we in Belize do the same – and also rethink our national anthem while at it?
Selibrayt! Di British Deh Di Stay
I won’t go into much detailed history of the 10th. Several better qualified others (for example, Evan X Hyde, Assad Shoman, Anne MacPherson) have put it all in the right perspective. But it is important to recall that the British have recorded and written most of our history, including of the 10th, and have interpreted it through Union Jack lenses.
However, I think we can all agree on some basic facts. In September 1798, the Spanish colonisers made another attempt to dislodge British settlers from part of what is now Belize. The indigenous Maya, who originally owned the land, and the enslaved Africans, who were forcibly bought and brought to clear the land, had no rights. A handful of ‘free people of colour’ (all men) had some token property rights. We know some of the stories of abusive treatment of indigenous people and slaves, but less so, of how they resisted the British.
It is not impossible that some enslaved Africans were coerced (they were, in fact, seen as property to order around) into labouring on the preparations to oppose the Spanish attempt to recover land that they believed their monarch and pope had bestowed on Spain. To cut to the chase, a combination of luck, a sick and disoriented Spanish crew, a tricky reef, a British sloop from Jamaica and some cunning defensive strategies resulted in the settlers dissuading the Spanish from engaging their full armada. On 10th September 1798, neither the Spanish, the British settlers nor the dominated peoples of the settlement assumed that 1798 was going to be the very last such attempt by the Spanish.
In the bigger picture of the global history of imperialist conquest, the 10th of September in 1798 was but a minor example of how European powers warred each other at home and across the Americas for the spoils of lands and resources that did not belong to them.
Lang, Lang Taim: Fram 1798 to 1898
For a ‘battle’ that the British settlers claimed they won so decisively against an European enemy, why did they wait 100 years before instituting annual commemorations? Very strange! Afterall, the British love celebrating military victories. So why almost zero mention of the Battle of St. George’s Caye until 1898? History tells us the answer.
In the mid-1890s, the British settler establishment was under heavy local protest by workers against the lack of freedoms, racism and the terrible social and economic conditions under which most lived. At this time, the Maya, the Kriol, the Garinagu, the Mestizo and the East Indian were all pretty much well-established. While geographically separated, they shared common oppressive conditions at the hands of the dominant British.
Some of the settlement’s non-British ‘people’ were getting restless about their oppression. As in 1949, the 1894 workers’ protests were catalysed by a devaluation that increased the costs of imports and decreased prices of exports. As is always the case in capitalist societies, one of the first measures taken was to cut the salaries of labour while raising prices. After the Governor refused to force the merchants to increase wages, some 600 labourers rioted and looted. The riot was eventually suppressed, as so often has been the case, with the timely arrival of a British warship from Jamaica. But the fact that wages were, indeed, increased illustrated the real fear the British and merchant class felt about the prospect of being overthrown by larger numbers of working men and women, including security personnel, incensed about their poor living conditions.
Based on historical reviews, I am among those convinced that the British encouraged exaggerated celebrations of the Battle of St. Georges Caye in 1898 to distract attention from the riots and unrest of the mid-1890s. In doing so, they had a few willing local collaborators. These fell into at least two camps.
One camp was what we can call the ‘I am more British than the King’ embracers of the Union Jack. A handful are still around today. In the other camp are those who viewed the commemoration of the 1798 centenary as an opportunity to generate national patriotism around a glorious story of state formation. The problem here is that the commemorations in 1898 and after were largely Trumpian mythmaking around a few facts.
Also, what we do know is that the celebration of St. George’s Caye Day was not launched until one hundred years after 1798, and that misinformation was deliberately spread to amplify its glorification. Over the decades and centuries, this developed into a normalized spectacle of celebration that converted myths into ‘facts’.
Saynt Jaajiz Kee Day: Anansi Toari?
To this day, I know of no one who has ever stated that the entire 10th is a total myth. This is either the irrational interpretation of colonial romantics and/or a deliberate ploy to silence critical debate and continue the misinformation. But, either by design or ignorance, some of the historical events around the 10th have been wrongly interpreted and embellished over time.
Let’s understand the basic revisionist argument on the creation of the myths around the 10th. First of all, no one has said or is saying, that nothing at all happened on and around the 10th in September 1798. There was a brushing encounter between the British settlers and the Spanish.
Second, when inaccuracies and misinterpretations are repeated and accepted as true over decades and then over two centuries, myths can become normalized and believed, by some, as true. For example, there are myths that the name Belize is a bastardization of Wallace (a real person) or that there were no Mayas here when the British arrived (there were) or that slavery in Belize was not that bad (all slavery is bad). Is all this any different from fooling children to believe in Santa Claus – a myth created around a real person named St. Nicolas?
But the central 10th myth goes something like this: The outnumbered British settlers and slave owners, the free coloured men and enslaved Africans, united to fight against the barbaric Spanish in an ingenious, glorious battle. They were victorious in expelling the many Spanish from ‘our’ waters – so saving the settlement again. Because of 1798, the English-speaking British ‘subjects’ and descendants of the Baymen, are superior to Spanish speakers — and we should celebrate this. (What ethnocentric and discriminatory hogwash passed down by the British and swallowed by some).
But one of the most egregious fantasies is that slaves joined ‘shoulder to shoulder’ with their enslavers on the 10th and then returned to being slaves on the 11th. Consider for a moment that not only had some slaves recently rebelled against their ‘masters’, but that others were still escaping to Mexico and Guatemala. Consider for a moment that in 1798 the abolition of slavery was still 40 years away, yet slaves are written about as if they were free. And consider for a moment that the first state-initiated celebration of the 10th was still 100 years away. It doesn’t add up.
In 2024, 226 years after 1798, the 10th remains a very sacred cow. Many citizens love their 10th music (desmasiado!), the Queen of the Bay and the ‘hear ye’ proclamations. Because of its popularity with many of the people, the 10th is also a political sacred cow for red and even blue politicians alike. To criticise the 10th is politically risky, especially in a small state where every vote counts and neither major party wants to appear to offend any segment of our multi-ethnic population. The fact that so very few politicians have raised questions, illustrates how wonderful, successful, devious and divisive a job the British did on the mythification of the 10th.
Selibrayt! Di British Dehn Gawn
So now, every year, a mere eleven days after glorifying the British staying, we have another huge party to celebrate them leaving. Well, they didn’t all leave, but they give up political power and we became independent in 1981. That Independence was supposed to represent the culmination of 31 years of pre-independence nationalist struggle, delayed only by the Guatemalan claim. It was to symbolize the beginning of the opportunity to forge a new and better nation. For many, including me, it was.
I was among the tens of thousands of Belizeans who got moist eyed at mid-night on 20th September when the Union Jack, that we were forced to wave as children, came down. I had just graduated Sixth Form and had volunteered to help out with the independence preparations. I was assigned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and had the honour of being a liaison officer for the great Caribbean giant, Rashleigh Jackson of Guyana – a stalworth supporter of Belize’s decolonisation. That gave me an opening to ‘talk’ my way into the Governor’s House to see the flag ceremony live – where I also got to meet the legendary Maurice Bishop.
So, it goes without saying that I am one of those Belizeans who takes the celebration of 21st September seriously. It still gives me great national pride. Maybe it’s only me, but I sense that, over the years, fewer Belizeans identify with the 10th than the 21st, even as many celebrate both. In the months before independence in 1981, I had won the national independence essay competition on the theme ‘Independence is the Beginning’. I wrote about the hopes and aspirations that I, as a young teenage Belizean, had for building the new, free and prosperous post-colonial nation of Belize.
There are those who have argued that independence has made us worse off as a nation and a people. While they are objectively wrong, some of us agree that we could have done better with our hard-won freedom so far. Today, I also look back at these past 43 years with a dose of disappointment about aspects of the stagnation of the nation-building and decolonisation project. However, I would never concur that our independence was a mistake or should have been delayed. In fact, it came too late. The delay contributed to our nationalist leaders ‘mellowing out’, and worse, opened the door to irrecoverable partisan divisions, starting in 1956.
Looking back to the opportunities since 1981, it is clear that we underestimated the challenges of overcoming deep colonial legacies and did not foresee the extent that international political and neoliberal forces would place severe limitations on our nation-building aspirations. And we also over-estimated the good intentions of our political leadership and, indeed, over-estimated our own capacities as a people to give our independence real meaning. Yet, there is still time to correct this.
Re-tinkin Di 10Th
While I am not ‘anti-10th’ in wanting to eliminate it from our history, I firmly believe that we need to re-educate ourselves and the nation on its true significance and how it has divided us irrelevantly around 10th myths. We have not yet effectively emancipated ourselves from this aspect of our mental slavery. Doing so requires people’s advocacy and enlightened leadership to re-educate Belizeans on the 10th.
In essence, 1798 was nothing but one of the many hundreds of military conflicts between European powers to control and exploit land and resources that never belonged to them. We, the people who became Belizeans, got caught in the middle of one of them and we can’t change that. However, we do have control over how we interpret and use that part of our history.
I propose that we seriously re-think the 10th of September and dedicate this holiday each year to collectively recalling and learning from the past vices of colonialism. These vices motivated the acts of nationalist resistance that made the 21st September 1981 possible as our true national day. The 10th can be the J’ouvert for the carnival that is the 21st – except that what we celebrate are the centuries of struggling for independence. It would also be a good day for featuring Garifuna junkanoo dancers and other symbolic representations of resistance. What can we name this new 10th day?
I will not get too deep here about how to ‘fiks’ the many things that have failed or sputtered since 1981. Nor will I list the things that are worth celebrating. Instead, I will end by discussing just a couple constitutional issues that the 10th and the 21st bring to the fore. They might not be the most important (say compared to those in my 15 Proposals for Constitutional Reform), but they are relevant to ‘Septemba’ and nationalist talk.
Fiksing di Kanstitushan
In August this year the Government of Trinidad & Tobago announced that it will soon remove the ships of Christopher Columbus from the coat of arms in its national flag and replace it with the Steelpan. How refreshingly progressive an act of decolonisation. It got me to thinking that Belize needs to consider doing the same, not only for the flag but also for our national anthem. (I can feel the level of scandalous alarm raising in some people already).
You may recall that in one of my early TIMECOME pieces, I informed that, although there was unanimous support in 1981 for Belize’s national symbols to be placed in the Constitution, it was never done. This was not that the framers rejected the popular proposal, but because, due to time constraints, there was no bi-partisan agreement on what the national symbols should be until after the Constitution was finally drafted. The framers decided that this issue should not hold up the entire process, so they settled on simply noting in the Constitution that the various national symbols would be prescribed later by the National Assembly of Belize. It was a victim of rushed timing in 1981.
Belize should fix this. I sense that people will still want to have the national symbols in a new Constitution. While I would not oppose such a move, it should not be done without using the opportunity to decolonise some of our national symbols. In 1981, a bi-partisan taskforce was hurriedly put together and given just a couple weeks to propose the national symbols. For example, a flag and an anthem had to be ready for independence. It is my view that the 1981 process was top-down and lacking in transparency. Just as the framers of the Constitution basically ran out of time to meet the 21st of September‘deadline’, so did the people of Belize not have enough time to substantively create and discuss the best options for Belize’s national symbols.
In the interest of reparatory justice, I propose that a one-month national competition be conducted by the People’s Constitution Commission (PCC) or by the National Institute of Culture and History (NICH) to receive proposals for rethinking and decolonizing all the national symbols: Do we keep them as they are? Do we revise them, create new ones, and if so, how? I will not offer any specific suggestions here; rather I will pose some questions for thought.
In the early 1990s, I led a Society for the Promotion of Education and Research (SPEAR) campaign to re-write the national anthem (but keeping the music) to remove reference to the Baymen, remove gender bias, remove language that calls for destroying the environment, rethink the reference to God, and add lines that celebrate people’s resistance to colonialism in the lead up to independence. I would offer that this 1990s SPEAR advocacy, which happened before its time, could still be food for thought.
In relation to the national flag and coat of arms, we can have a debate about removing persons (the two men) from the flag. Belize has women and men in equal numbers, we are multi-ethnic and multi-racial, so why not eliminate conflicts about sex and skin colour and have no persons at all? Why not use some neutral image of natural sceneries, for, example, the Blue Hole or the Sleeping Giant or some national symbol we all identify with?
And instead of axes, paddles and saws that evoke deforestation and colonial exploitation of labourers, why don’t we think of images more relevant to all of us – if we need any additional images at all?
And what about ‘sub umbra floreo’ as our motto? Does a motto need to be on our flag at all? If people do think yes, how about not boasting about flourishing under the shade of trees? How about using a creative combination of terms such as democracy, justice, equality, peace, freedom, self-determination, territorial integrity? The point is that there are many better options to creatively and collectively discuss and agree on.
I likely would not be writing this blog were it not for being politicized by my independence experiences in 1981. Our challenges in 2024 are not that much different from that September 21st day 43 years ago. We still need to take our Constitution back. We can still re-imagine a decolonialized 10th. We can still forge new beginnings. Independence is still what we make of it and there is much more nation building to do. Happy 43rd Birthday Belize! Adelante