We cut off the hand the could have fed us.
England is celebrating Queen Elizabeth’s 60 years of rule with a grand show of pageantry and seemingly genuine sentiments of gratitude and pride. I’m going to say something that is NOT going to be popular but I have long held this opinion, even as a child. One could accuse me of being influenced by my father who opposed independence in 1981. While his son, Henry Jr., was meeting the Duke, my dad was at the cayes building his house, refusing to be a part of what he saw as a premature move on George Price’s part.
However, I am unwilling to say that it is his influence which makes me have this very strong conclusion still to this day: we should not have asked for independence when we did. I really believe that we were unprepared as a people to take over the role of leadership. I believe that it was a very self serving agenda upon which George Price embarked. He cared more about his legacy than the shambles in which his decision would leave us.
See, what we refuse to admit is that we did not have the tools for rule. Not yet. We are a small nation with a small population with little and poor infrastructure. Old George asked us to enter the game very late and compete globally with economic giants. We didn’t have roads; functioning medical clinics; developed industries; an educated and experienced pool of people from which to chose our new government; an army; a proper airport….and the list goes on. You can say to me now: “Well we have all of that now.”
Really? At what cost? Our crime rate is ASTRONOMICAL! We owe sooooooo much money and our people are suffering with a truly disgraceful number of 50% BELOW the poverty level. Our justice system is a JOKE. Yeah. I said it. There is NO justice when lawyers run our country into the ground, using their knowledge to intimidate and STEAL from our people.
We should have prepared ourselves BEFORE jumping up and down like impatient children waiting for the ice cream truck. We did not need to get independence in order to develop as a nation. We should have made the British Empire develop allllll that stuff for us first. After all they owed us. They took all of our resources and left us with nothing. And we let them because we had stupid, blind, false pride. We were gonna show them we didn’t need ’em. So we kicked them out and left ourselves stranded and struggling. Nowhere is safe in Belize anymore. Is this what we imagined? Was our precious independence worth all this killing and strife?
Our best minds keep leaving, never to return, afraid, because the risk hardly seems worth it. Our children are raped and murdered with no recourse. Our people are dying in record numbers from all kinds of diseases and cancer is ravaging our population. Guatemala is still claiming us and forcing us to have a referendum over something that should be moot by now. Our citizens are having to fight ignorance and archaic laws to just establish basic rights. Children are going to school hungry or none at all. Our land is soon to be ours no longer since the only way to make money is to sell the one asset we do have to the Americans or the Chinese.
Don’t get it twisted people. I have no love for colonialism nor any allegiance to royalty but I sure as shit would have preferred making them give us what we deserved as their subjects before kicking their asses out because now we sure are in the crapper and I don’t know how we are going to get out of shit hole we dug ourselves into.
Twocanview LLC 
I just stumbled on this. Sorry, I don’t mean to be rude but do you honestly think England was going to do anything for us? That’s exactly the reason the Nationalist Movement was born because our Colonial Officials were totally indifferent to our struggles and concerns for development. Mr. Price believed we shouldn’t sit back and depend on England, but get up and work and build this nation! Selfish? Really? Please go back and learn your history – the Movement was not started by Mr. Price alone. England has never cared about Belize – ever. We were never of value like Jamaica for instance. What we were was poor and a burden to get rid of or left to wallow in our backwardness. There was no improvement or growth taking place. Don’t blame Mr. Price and the other patriots who paved the way for us if we fail today to continue the work they started.
Mr. Price had his own agenda….he wanted us to be like Guatemala…’nuff said….if you’ve never lived there, you wouldn’t understand why I don’t find that to be even remotely smart. I have lived there and their society is very racist…the irony in that is amazing to me. How could we aspire to be like a society who hates the colour of our skin?
if we were truly independent we could have fed and educate ourselves freely,what investments do the queen still have in belize ,why do we need a governor general, why is this woman face still on our money , why is she still paying us her face on the money
Great minds think alike or fools seldom differ Faye. I was just having this conversation with my hubby as he teased about Belize’s love affair with mother England. I explained to him that if Belize would have followed the path of Cayman, which is one of the most successful Caribbean nations, we would probably be in a better position today. Also England wanted to cut the fat as Belize became more like a liabiltiy than an asset, so they handed us a carbon copy of a constitution circulated among the colonies and gave us a false sense of accomplishment and kick us to the curb..much like a bird kicks its young out of the nest. Only problem is that they never taught us to be independent…so we transitioned into a nation of beggars…You could just listen to the people cry about the need for investors, instead of looking around and seeing the potential that lies before our eyes… I believe that with all the pagentry that is going on in England, nations like the Caribbean should be offended at the wealth being displayed at our expense… and that is why I didnt tune in…60 years later, how many of the independent commonwealth nations especially in the Caribbean are prosperous? Most are suffering the same effects..so why would I celebrate a rule of 60 years when only the ruler benefited? AL
It makes me truly sad because we were given the dirty end of the stick and it will be a hard road ahead to undo the damage, repair and re-build. I really wonder if we understand how delicate this situation is and how on the edge we are as a nation…
Even in the wave of strong anti-labour seinmtents, my constituency today rejected Kemi Adegoke and her brand of unpleasant politics. I will have more to say about this later. I hope she now commits herself to building the character and capabilities that could enable her win in future.Democracy does work from time to time.