On Sunday, September 21, 2008, Brother Charles X wrote an article in the Amandala entitled “Respect our Maya citizens , and bring back ‘Land of the Gods’”. Brother Charles X, that is a very, very good, structured piece of work.
The first reading I gave it was about 3 p.m. on Friday 19th of the same month, and I must admit that it struck me like a lightning. Yes, Brother Charles X, it is a master work. I like to see how you got into Brother Samuel Haynes’ mind and explained what he probably meant in his poem “Land of the Gods.” My people, the Maya, will love it for the way how you had explained and interlaced “Kinich Ahau” with the Most High, the lesser gods with the Roman Catholic saints. Even Nachan Can would have been convinced.
If only my people would have understood the Spaniards and the British God, they wouldn’t have been slaughtered. The Tipuans would still be mixing themselves with the Itzas and the Icaiches. Cecilio Chi wouldn’t have rebelled against the white supremacists of the day. Would you believe that?
To write a poem is to put the mind in its highest stage. So, I would never condemn the beauty of the poem. “Land of the Gods” is an art. Brother Samuel Haynes had his reasons why he wrote it the way he did. But as a Belizean national anthem, there are wordings in there which we, the Maya, shall not accept. Those words cannot even be translated in our Yucatec Maya: they do not exist.
I am very proud to be a Maya, a native of this soil called Belize. That poem was written in a time when it was a must for the writer to glorify the Baymen, the white supremacists. He was living on the white man’s land - call it Belize or USA. Today, it’s the same thing: all teachers must bow down to the system, even the P.M.
Before I continue, let me tell you a little more of my other roots. One of my ancestors, Pedro de Luna, was a Spanish Cardinal in 1394 and he was called Benedict XIII. He created the University of San Andrés in Scotland, overthrown by the General Council of Constance in 1414. He was a rebel. The Lunas were in high military posts during the time of the Inquisition and also in the slaughtering of my people, the Maya, during the Conquest.
At this moment, it is 9:25 a.m. on Saturday 20th 2008, while I am writing this missive. I am thinking on how my people were massacred - first by the Spaniards, then after by the British. There are tears down my throat. There are many unknown things to us in this present, not so in the past. My ancestors, the Maya, whose spirit is in me, said that we shall come back, because this war hasn’t finished.
After taking a five minutes to control my emotions, let me continue to tell you about my other biological ancestors - the “Scottish Cadle Clan,” which also is known as Cadell, Caddell, Cadel and Cadwell. They were first found in Banffshire where they were seated from very ancient times, some say well before the Norman Conquest and the arrival of Duke William at Hastings in 1066 A.D. They had their own coat of arms and their motto was “Vigilantia Non Cadet,” translated “Vigilance will not miscarry.”
Let me take you to what is considered a “Clan” according to the “Scottish Clan System.” “A clan is a social group made up of a number of distinct branch-families that actually descended from, or accepted themselves as descendants of, a common ancestor. The word clan means simple children. The idea of the clan as a community is necessarily based around this idea of heredity and is most often ruled according to a patriarchal structure. For instance, the clan chief represented the hereditary ‘Parent’ of the entire clan.”
I am not proud and I want no part of them. My body is a material vehicle with a Maya spirit. The descendants of the “Baymen Clan Slaves” can consider themselves as “sons of the Baymen Clan.” We, the Maya and descendants, have no problem with that. After all, it is said in the book “The Baymen of Belize,” written by a Bayman for his grandchildren, that the slaves loved them with “dog like devotion.” Those were not my words. Slaves were slaves, brother, just as how we were bastards Satan’s children.
Today, dogs are better treated by the white men and their colonial apologists than you and me and our ill starving brothers. 299,990 Belizeans can glorify the “sons of the Baymen’s Clan.” I am positive sure that 10 of us shall not.
Brother, I don’t have the words how to be polite and at the same time say that you and those of you brainwashed by the white supremacist system are blind to the fact that you cannot even understand your own history. In what kind of mind do you expect for us, the Maya and descendants, to forgive the faults and glorify and respect the so-called bravery of the masters, when they were trembling like leaves and were expecting the 1,200 slaves to run away the heavy Spanish squadrons with sticks in dories? And then you turn around and kneel down on your knees, bend down your head and say “Yes, Massa, you are valiant and bold.” Now you want us to join you with that … how can I call it?
Brother, please analyze the following that was sent to me through “Letters to the Editor” in the Amandala on September 17th 2008. “We live in and are governed by Mitolt. The church, the state, and most recently, the multinational corporations of greedmongers, feed us a steady diet of lies that we readily gobble up because we have never learned how to think. We accept lies told for generations and centuries and continue to believe them, in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The powers that be are delighted by this situation and see no reason to change the system. Long live the Queen and her barons.”
It so happens that Belize is NOT an independent nation. Belize has its political independence and is still under the British rule with a representative as a Governor General. Yet the leaders of the system lie to us. The same was Mexico, Cuba, etc. under the colonial Spanish reign. They have passed that stage: we are yet in the making. Long Live the “Sons Of The Belizean Soil.”
October 10th 2008
Finca Solana
Corozal Town
http://www.amandala.com.bz/index.php?id=7558
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