Mel and Ashley are certainly philosphers. ( Debate on ethnic problems and employment) But from where I stand, the argument that townies think Chinese are taking their jobs is false. When I say townies, the majority are Creoles. When I first immigrated to the colony of British Honduras, I was one of only about six "whites" in the whole country, that were not either in the British Army, or colonial service, but simply immigrants. At that time, the CREOLES or townies dominated the country, yet even at that time with over 75% of all jobs and all businesses and control of all government services, they still complained of racial discrimination. Go figure that one out! I never could as a "white minority". The complaints have never stopped. There is more here than meets the eye. It is a cultural inheritance. An idea that townies ( Creoles ) are owed something by the government. In particular a 40 hour a week salaried job. But pray tell, where is the government going to get the money to pay for a salaried job for every townie? It doesn't exist in any history of Central European countries over the last 200 years and they are white countries. They faced the same exact problems, with agricultural economies ( non industrial) and a government composed of privileged aristocrats, royalty and those politically famous, or in the military. All of them suffered the same result, which was national bankruptcy, for trying to provide jobs to townies in an economy that could not support them. The only real way out of this dilemma and I have been cogitating on the problem for 40 years. Is to build a nation of Belize. To do this, all ethnic groups are going to have to submerge their ethnic identities to a greater Belizean identity. To accomplish this, the country will have to Federate in the sense that National Government will have to be composed of district governments on an equal basis geographically and not population representation, which is the major problem facing nation building under the present regime. That way you change national politics from townie representation, in this case one town, the Creole town of the port Belize City, to a Belizean representation. There is one danger here, and that is the district governments would also be represented by a majority of the townies that are district capitals. The same imbalance would be found then in District governments. So a compromise solution must be found, to give rural inhabitants in smaller communities and farms equality in district governments, which would then be reflected on how the national government would look at policy, priorities and solutions. This is how to build a Belizean ethnicity, or nationality and not by color or racial type. The problem of providing salaried jobs cannot be solved by government. It has to be a self regulating mechanism of private enterprise and if townies have to move to where the work is, so be it. That is the natural flow of things. The other way of trying to create jobs by a government, at least one that is a tourism and agricultural economy, has always gone into failure, bankruptcy, war and huge national debts. From European history over 200 years anyway. Governments cannot mandate economic activity. Governments cannot mandate by law the creation of jobs. It is outside their ability. Communism proves this. If they try to do so, they will eventually go bankrupt and create much more strife and problems for the nation in the future. Only self regulating private enterprise encouraged with the least amount of laws and regulation can satisfy any demand for jobs and economic activity. Governments can encourage such things through favorable legislation, but in the final analysis, only the entrepreneur working to a profit motive will make a nation succeed economically. People work best to their self-interest. This usually requires self sacrifice of some sort. Those that want security cannot find it and for a government to provide it, only guarantees government bankruptcy. 
Back to Main Belize Development Trust Page
Maintained by |
