The ghosts of PUP past
Posted: 17/09/2009 - 09:35 PM
Author: Bill Lindo
As the oldest and once the greatest of the current political parties in Belize, the People’s United Party (PUP) which, on September 29th will celebrate 59 years, began as the anti-colonial, pro-nationalist movement for the liberation and establishment of the nation-state called Belize.
The first Leader was Leigh Richardson. George C. Price became Leader in 1956 after a bitter fight over the future direction of the party and future of then British Honduras. To fully understand this fight we need to dwell in British history. In 1877, Cecil Rhodes wrote his first of seven wills, which set out the purpose of the secret Cecil Rhodes Society to be patterned on the Jesuits. His first will set out his purpose which was:
“The extension of British rule throughout the world, the perfecting of a system of emigration from the United Kingdom and of colonization by British subjects of all land wherein the means of livelihood are attainable… the ultimate recovery of the United States of America as an integral part of the British Empire, the inauguration of a system of Colonial Representation in the Imperial Parliament which may tend to weld together the disjointed members of the Empire (in a Federation), and finally the foundation of so great a power as to hereafter render wars impossible (a one world government).”
The Milner Group was chosen by the powerful Cecil Bloc to carry out the wishes of the Rhodes wills. The fifth will, while it never talked about the secret society again, instead spoke about the establishment of an educational institution with scholarships whose alumni would be bound together by common ideals – Rhodes ideals. In his book, The Anglo-American Establishment, Carroll Quigley, wrote “The scholarships were merely a facade to conceal the secret society, or, more accurately, they were to be one of the instruments by which the members of the secret society could carry out his purpose.” However, in trying to carry out the secret ideals of Cecil Rhodes, the Milner Group had to change the structure of the British Empire to that of the Commonwealth of Nations as a cover for a later federation of the Empire. But many in the colonies believed that the best solution was an arrangement of independent but cooperating states with two dominant treads – favorable treatments for British subjects who invest in the colonies or former colony, and by supporting a monetary system which is a syndicate of private banking interests which control the imperial financial system, and later, the world financial system as envisioned by Rhodes.
Today, as LaRouche puts it, “Private interests, private banking interests: that’s the empire. The headquarters is London. It’s not the British people; it’s the headquarters of the financial system, being based in London; that’s the source of the problem.”
To go back to the beginning, the fight in the PUP in 1956 was over Cecil Rhodes’ idea of a federation of the British Empire, or an independent state cooperating on investments and the monetary system. George Price, who supported an independent state, won the 1956 PUP Convention and became Leader until 1996, when he was forced out by Imperial financial interests.
However, we need to be clear that no political party has any natural or God-given power. By definition, political power means the coming together of many people for one or several purposes. Violence is the way to destroy political power. In other words, with no dedicated people willing to sacrifice for a cause, then there is no lasting political party. Why? One of the leading founding Fathers of the American Revolution, and its second President, John Adams, stated correctly: “The poor man’s conscience is clear; yet he is ashamed… He feels himself out of the sight of others, groping in the dark. Mankind takes no notice of him. He rambles and wonders unheeded. In the midst of a crowd at church, in the market…he is in as much obscurity as he would be in a garret or a cellar…To be wholly overlooked, and to know it, are intolerable.” This feeling of injustice and the knowledge that darkness rather than want is the curse of poverty because the poor are excluded from the public realm where excellence can shine, is the genius of all great political leaders, like George C. Price, who built a party on common poor people who can then shine in the public realm without the need to buy support. The rich and the celebrities always shine because of their station in society.
How many of us here in Belize know that in the 1950’s and 1960’s the Belize City North-side branch of the PUP had a free school run by Ms. Standford for children of poor families funded by the activities of Elra Craig and Ma Jane Hall? The same Elra Craig and Ma Jane Hall who organized food drives for the poor, fought and won many militant battles against the forces of colonialism, who spread the word by mouth of the Creed of the PUP and the future blessings to come after Independence.
The ghosts of union leader Austin, Mr. Jervis, Mr. Betson, Roland Hyde, Jim Hyde, Hugh Hyde, Mother Hyde, Rhoda Hyde-Coye, Joe Coye, Sr., Maggie Gentle, Elra Craig, Ma Jane Hall, the Avila family, the Zetina family are crying from their graves. Why are no buildings or streets named after these people? Without them there would be no PUP today. They who have given everything they had for the cause of Independence, including the little money, the sharing of the little food, the long nights to plan and march, the walking and talking to convince, they, the salt of Belize, have been betrayed by a new set of leaders who are dedicated to the cause of Cecil Rhodes’ imperialism and had removed their party from its purpose, including the willful denial of the creed or philosophy of the once great PUP.
The entire world is now on the brink of the greatest disintegration in the history of the global financial/economic system. The power of the empire — the British Commonwealth of Nations, especially its control of the global monetary system, is broken. How many of you know that the once rich Cayman Islands is bankrupt, a victim of the global financial collapse, and begging London for hand-outs? The stubborn ones should remember Herr Honecker in 1989 in East Germany. We have nothing to lose; we will surely die a slow painful death if we persist in trying to hang on to a dead, stinking corpse as though it is still alive. Imperialism is death; globalization is death; money was and is created by man for man’s benefit, not his subjugation.
Let all Belizeans of goodwill come together as a political force and make the philosophy of the PUP, which by the way is also the most important part of the preamble of Belize’s Constitution, a living document by instituting policies of State to make us survive this coming chaos and destruction, and become the envy of the region. The key is production to make us self-sufficient in our manufactures and our agriculture. The talent and money is in Belize; we need the political will and unity to do it for the common man and our children and their children.
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