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Difference between revisions of "Belize"
→Government and Society of Belize
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*Education | *Education | ||
More than nine-tenths of the population aged 14 and older is literate. Primary schooling is compulsory between ages 5 and 12. Most schools are government-subsidized parochial (principally Roman Catholic) schools. The Mennonite community runs its own schools without government interference. One-half of primary school graduates continue on to secondary school, and only a small elite receive any form of higher education. The University of Belize (2000) in Belmopan is the country’s only full-fledged university. A centre of the University of the West Indies School of Continuing Studies (1949) in Belize City provides continuing adult education. There are also a community college, a school for arts and sciences, and Galen University, an independent school in the west of the country. | More than nine-tenths of the population aged 14 and older is literate. Primary schooling is compulsory between ages 5 and 12. Most schools are government-subsidized parochial (principally Roman Catholic) schools. The Mennonite community runs its own schools without government interference. One-half of primary school graduates continue on to secondary school, and only a small elite receive any form of higher education. The University of Belize (2000) in Belmopan is the country’s only full-fledged university. A centre of the University of the West Indies School of Continuing Studies (1949) in Belize City provides continuing adult education. There are also a community college, a school for arts and sciences, and Galen University, an independent school in the west of the country. | ||
==Cultural life of Belize== | |||
*Cultural milieu | |||
Belize’s small but culturally diverse population is reflected in the country’s multiplicity of ethnicities, languages, religions, cuisines, styles of music and dress, and folklore. There are many ethnically distinct communities, but people of different groups also mix in many social contexts, with the exception of the Mennonite community, which sets itself apart from other groups. Social class often determines whether Belizeans will have amenities such as a car or a television set or if their children will complete secondary school. | |||
*Daily life and social customs | |||
Belizean cuisine reflects ethnicity and international influences, but corn tortillas, stewed chicken, and rice and beans are widespread staples. Other assorted fare may include Creole-style stews, barbecued chicken, beef, and pork; Mayan-style tamales (cornmeal with a chicken or vegetable stuffing that is steamed in banana leaves); and Mexican-style chilies and roasts. Typical Garifuna dishes include hudut, mashed green plantains in a fish stew steeped in coconut milk. A common dish in coastal regions is seviche. One of the game dishes is the tailless gibnut (Agouti paca; a relative of the guinea pig), called “royal rat” on many Belizean menus because the British press had objected to its being served to Queen Elizabeth II in 1985. Locally produced rum and beer are common, and rum is often mixed with coconut water. Soft drinks and fruit juices are popular. | |||
Among the numerous celebrations in Belize are the Christian religious holidays. Baron Bliss Day (March 9) is a national festival honouring a British resident who died while on vacation in Belize and donated his fortune to the construction of local libraries, schools, and other institutions (including the Baron Bliss Institute). St. George’s Cay Day (September 10) recalls a sea battle in 1798 off the coast of Belize between Great Britain and Spain, and Independence Day is celebrated throughout the country on September 21. Garifuna Settlement Day (November 19) commemorates the arrival in 1832 of a group of Garifuna people. The San Pedro Costa Maya Festival is a multicultural celebration that takes place on Ambergris Caye each August. | |||
*The arts | |||
The music to which Belizeans listen largely reflects the traditions of their ethnic group, though recorded music from the Caribbean and the United States is widely enjoyed by young people. One hybrid musical form, “punta rock,” blends Caribbean soca, calypso, and reggae styles with merengue, salsa, and hip-hop. One of the country’s best-known and most honoured musicians, Andy Viven Palacio (1960–2008), blended traditional Garifuna music with punta rock to stimulate interest in the Garifuna culture and language. The traditional sounds of brukdown—the tapping of assorted bottles, tables, cans, or other objects—an energetic percussion that originated in the logging camps, are heard less often now than in the past. The Belize National Dance Company (1990) performs throughout the country and internationally. | |||
Belize’s best-known contemporary author is Zee Edgell. Her most widely read novel, Beka Lamb (1982), describes the emerging sense of nationalism in the 1950s in Belize City through the eyes of a young Creole girl. Another of Edgell’s novels, Time and the River (2007), looks at the slave society of Belize in the early 19th century. | |||
*Cultural institutions | |||
The National Institute of History and Culture manages archaeological and cultural sites throughout the country. Most cultural institutions are in Belize City, including the Baron Bliss Institute for the Performing Arts, the Belize City Museum (housed in a former colonial prison), and the Image Factory Art Foundation (1995), which features contemporary art by Belizean artists. The National Library Service of Belize also has its headquarters in Belize City but operates mobile libraries throughout the country. Its national archives are in Belmopan. | |||
*Sports and recreation | |||
Belize’s sports culture reflects the historical influences of Britain (football [soccer] and, to a lesser extent, cricket) and the United States (basketball and softball). Despite poor facilities and little sponsorship or professional training, many Belizeans participate in regional and international competitions. In 1986 Belize became a member of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA). Semiprofessional football teams from each of the country’s districts compete with each other, and a women’s league was started in the late 1990s. Other popular sports include athletics (track and field), boxing, tennis, and volleyball. Cross-country cycling has been popular since 1928, and there are now two significant annual road races. After participating three times as British Honduras, Belize made its first Olympic appearance as an independent country at the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles. | |||
With more than 3,000 square miles (7,770 square km) of protected waters, Belize is one of the best places in the world for recreational diving. There are an abundance of cays and an underwater cave system. Bird-watching, hiking, snorkeling, and fishing are also popular activities. | |||
*Media and publishing | |||
The Belize Broadcasting Network, which was privatized in 1998, provides television programming in English and Spanish and operates many radio stations; however, it does not broadcast news on weekends or holidays. Belizeans also have satellite access to U.S. television broadcasts, and those who own a television watch mostly foreign programs, such as Mexican soap operas and North American sports. The country has no daily newspapers, and most of the country’s several weekly newspapers are politically affiliated. The Belize Times is the organ of the PUP, and The Guardian is the official newspaper of the UDP. The Reporter and Amandala are independent newspapers. There is no press censorship, but Belize relies heavily on external news sources, chiefly from the United States. Belizean Studies, a journal published three times a year by St. John’s College (a secondary school), is an outlet for local research and writing, as are Cubola Productions, which publishes both fiction and nonfiction, and the Angelus Press. The Society for the Promotion of Education and Research (SPEAR) publishes books and reports as well as a quarterly publication on Belizean issues. | |||
==History of Belize== | |||
*Early history | |||
The following is a history of Belize focusing on events since European settlement. For further treatment, see Central America; Latin America, history of; and pre-Columbian civilizations: Mesoamerican civilization. | |||
The Maya lived in the area now known as Belize for centuries before the arrival of Europeans, as manifested by more than a dozen major ruins such as La Milpa, Xunantunich, Altun Ha, and Caracol. The Spanish penetrated the area in the 16th and 17th centuries and tried to convert the Maya to Christianity, but with little success. The Maya population had begun to decline long before the Spaniards arrived, and the remaining Maya lived in politically decentralized societies. Although the Maya did not have the resources to defeat the Spaniards, they could not be decisively beaten. | |||
British buccaneers and logwood cutters settled on the inhospitable coast in the mid-17th century. Spain regarded the British as interlopers in their territory. By treaties signed in 1763 and 1783, Spain granted British subjects the privilege of exploiting logwood and, after 1786, the more valuable mahogany, though only within specified and poorly surveyed territories. Indeed, Spain retained sovereignty over the area, which Britain called a settlement, as distinct from a formal colony. The Spanish also prohibited the settlers from establishing a formal government structure, so the British conducted their affairs through public meetings and elected magistrates. However, superintendents, appointed by the British government after 1786, slowly established their executive authority at the expense of the settlers’ oligarchy. In 1798 the British overcame Spain’s final attempt to remove them by force, and Belize became a colony in all but name. The British government instructed the superintendent to assume authority over the granting of land in 1817, and he assumed the power to appoint magistrates in 1832. In 1854 a constitution formally created a Legislative Assembly of 18 members, who were elected by a limited franchise, and the next year the Laws in Force Act validated the settlers’ land titles. | |||
Guatemala challenged the British occupation on the grounds that it had inherited Spanish interests in the area, and from time to time Mexico also asserted a claim to part of Belize. Great Britain and Guatemala appeared to have settled their differences in 1859 by a treaty that defined boundaries for Belize. The final article of the treaty, however, bound both parties to establish “the easiest communication” between Guatemala and Belize. (Conflict between Guatemala and Belize over land boundaries would persist into the 20th and 21st centuries; the dispute became intractable after 1940 when Guatemala declared that the treaty was null and void because such communication had never been developed.) | |||
Belize became the British colony of British Honduras in 1862—which was ruled by a governor who was subordinate to the governor of Jamaica—and a crown colony in 1871, when the Legislative Assembly was abolished. British Honduras remained subordinate to Jamaica until 1884, when it acquired a separate colonial administration under an appointed governor. | |||
The British settlers, who called themselves Baymen, began importing African slaves in the early 18th century to cut logwood and then mahogany. Although the conditions and organization of labour in timber extraction were different from those on plantations, the system was still cruel and oppressive. There were four slave revolts in Belize, and hundreds of slaves took advantage of the terrain and the freedom offered over the frontiers to escape. | |||
Trade with Spain’s colonies in Central America flourished, even after those colonies attained independence in the 1820s; however, the development of plantations in Belize was forbidden by the treaties with Spain. After emancipation in 1838, the former slaves remained tied to the logging operations by a system of wage advances and company stores that induced indebtedness and dependency. When the old economy, based on forest products and the transit trade, declined in the mid-19th century, these freedmen remained impoverished. | |||
Beginning in the early 19th century, a mixed population of Carib Indians and Africans exiled from British colonies in the eastern Caribbean (formerly called Black Caribs, now referred to as Garifuna) settled on the southern coast of Belize. The Caste War, an indigenous uprising in the Yucatán that began in 1847, resulted in several thousand Spanish-speaking refugees’ settling in northern Belize, while Mayan communities were reestablished in the north and west. These immigrants introduced a variety of agricultural developments, including traditional subsistence farming and the beginning of sugar, banana, and citrus production. In the 1860s and ’70s the owners of sugar estates sponsored the immigration of several hundred Chinese and South Asian labourers. In the late 19th century Mopán and Kekchí Maya, fleeing from oppression in Guatemala, established largely self-sufficient communities in southern and western Belize. | |||
By the early 20th century the ethnic mixture of the area had been established, the economy was stagnant, and crown colony government precluded any democratic participation. In the 1930s the economy was hit by the worldwide Great Depression, and Belize City was largely destroyed by a hurricane in 1931. A series of strikes and demonstrations by labourers and the unemployed gave rise to a trade union movement and to demands for democratization. The right to vote for the Legislative Assembly was reintroduced in 1936, but property, literacy, and gender qualifications severely limited the franchise. When the governor used his reserve powers to devalue the currency at the end of 1949, leaders of the trade union and the Creole middle class formed a People’s Committee to demand constitutional changes. The People’s United Party (PUP) emerged from the committee in 1950 and led the independence movement. The PUP would be the dominant political party for the next 30 years. | |||
*Independence | |||
Belize evolved through several stages of decolonization, from universal adult suffrage in 1954 to a new constitution and internal self-government in 1964, when George Price, a middle-class Roman Catholic intellectual of mixed Creole and mestizo ancestry, became premier. (Price became leader of the PUP in 1954.) Unrelenting Guatemalan hostility, however, impeded independence. In the 1970s Belize took its case for self-determination to the international community, appealing to the United Nations (UN) and joining the Nonaligned Movement (see neutralism). Although the dispute between Guatemala and Great Britain remained unresolved, Belize became independent on Sept. 21, 1981, with a British defense guarantee, and was admitted to the UN. The British military presence was withdrawn in 1994, and border security became the sole responsibility of the Belize Defence Force, which had been created in 1978. By the early 1990s Guatemala had formally recognized Belize as an independent state, and Belize had joined the Organization of American States (OAS); however, the territorial dispute heated up again in the late 1990s. In 2002 an OAS-assisted facilitation process formally proposed a solution, but Guatemala refused to accept it. In 2005 the two countries agreed that if a negotiated settlement proved to be impossible, the dispute could be settled by an international legal entity. In 2008 the governments of Belize and Guatemala agreed to submit their case to the International Court of Justice, subject to referenda in both countries. | |||
In domestic politics the United Democratic Party (UDP), formed in 1973 and led by Manuel Esquivel, won the general election in 1984, but in 1989 the PUP won the election and Price again became prime minister (as the office was now called). The UDP won in a close election in 1993, and Esquivel again assumed leadership. In 1998, however, the PUP won by a landslide and its new leader, Said Musa, became prime minister. | |||
Musa’s decision to raise taxes to pay off foreign debt sparked riots throughout Belize in 2005, and his administration was accused of corruption. The UDP, now led by Dean Barrow, triumphed in the 2008 general elections, and Barrow became the country’s first black prime minister. His party promised to end crime and government corruption and to create an elected Senate. Although a democratic tradition has been established in Belize, the country has struggled to develop under a dependent economy, and it has been pressured politically by the pervasive influence of the United States. The discovery of abundant quantities of oil near the Mennonite community at Spanish Lookout in the early 2000s was a boon for the country’s ailing economy, but, because Belize has no oil refineries, most of its crude oil is exported to the United States. | |||
==Population of Belize== | ==Population of Belize== | ||