BELIZE IS MATURING

Belize is changing rapidly. It is a popular destination county for tourists. As such, it also attracts a large number of expatriates; people who choose to make their homes outside the native country including some who had no choice, such as the Zimbabweans fleeing Robert Mugabe. Because it was a colonial country and had a British military presence, which explains a number of ex soldiers and airmen, who had met and married local girls or those who like the Belize and returned with there wives. The sixties brought the flower children, who were adventurous people without an income along with the peace core from the U.S. that were adventurous people with an income. Along with the flower children came those with a hand full of money that were going to strike it rich in this or that business and most often but not invariable failed: air lines, resorts, farms, etc. One of the gringos coined the phase, “If you want to make a small fortune in Belize, bring a big one”.  In this group were those who were going to make it rich but they wanted to use other peoples money.

Against this background, there were those who were fleeing one thing or the other including the Chinese. Among the demons they were fleeing, some were real like an arrest warrant, while another was high taxes or what they thought was a vaguely defined loss of their freedoms. There were those who were fleeing their own reputations. This was summed up nicely in a common expression; a gringo is in Belize for one of two reasons, either “he is wanted or not wanted”. Regardless, it made for and interesting community.

One of the astonishing things I found was that radical right wing conservatives initially made up a big percentage of these people. Belize has laws just like any other British Commonwealth nation. It is not a rich country, which means the laws are enacted but they are not rigorously enforced. There were speed limits but they lack police cars or were there speed guns or breathalyzers. There were stop signs but no one stopped. Now, as Belize is developing, they are starting to enforce their laws. They have more and more police cars. This has resulted in a strange cultural phenomenon. The new class of immigrant is no longer made up of flower children and fly-by night entrepreneurs, radical conservative elements but are solid business people.

Belizeans are not only learning how to cope with the rapidly changing times but also are joining in the development of their country. They have always said they wanted to from the day of Independence and now they are doing it. I can remember back in 1977 when I first came to Belize when we talked to the people in the fishing village of San Pedro about how important education of Belizean young people was for the future of the country. That is now paying off. San Pedro is no longer a fishing village tittering on the brink of poverty; it is booming active city.

Belize is no longer like a modern version of the lawless Wild West in the United States that the white-hat cowboy conservatives liked so well. It has only taken the people of Belize thirty-six and not 360 years. The radical immigrant American conservatives operate in their own little world more and more isolated from the growing Belizean business class of solid citizens. Percentage wise, fewer and fewer gringo expatriates are isolating themselves by huddling around their TV’s listen to FOX News rave about water fluoridation, supposed loss of civil rights, about their rights to own guns, GMO’s,  kill people, and hating Obama who is telling them what to do and when to do it; as if that is the real world—it is not. The Honorable Dean Barrows, not Obama, is the Prime Minister who is trying to build his country, while they are busy denigrating Obama and trying to shred their home country. The best thing that could happen to Belize would be if these kinds of people were to become fewer and fewer until they become extinct and leave the hard working American immigrants to work with the Belizeans.  

  

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