AMANDALA EDITORIALS TODAY:

Gangs and dons

Gangs are socio-economic phenomena which are considered, almost by definition, the products of depressed urban areas. They involve the bonding of young males and their loyalty to each other under circumstances which are extremely violent, and criminal. When males who are law-abiding, successful members of society draw close to each other in an organized social context, their organizations are called clubs, not gangs. But the general principles are similar.

Gangs are definitely not exclusively male, but most of those who murder and are murdered, and who go to jail, are males. It is the male members of the gangs whom we see in the news, but gang neighbourhoods have family structures, that is, gang males are responsible for the welfare of their personal women and children.

At the time of their deaths last weekend, Pinky Tillett and Arthur Young were vaunted gang leaders, or dons, inside the George Street and Taylor's Alley gangs, respectively.

Pinky had become famous some years ago when, armed and firing in a vehicle, he chased some Mexicans down Central American Boulevard who were trying to kidnap the George Street mastermind at the time, George "Rique" Herbert, who is now incarcerated in a U.S. penitentiary.

The legend of Arthur Young had grown and grown over some two decades. The daughter of a very prominent Belizean official bore two children for Arthur Young, and was believed to be totally faithful to him, through thick and thin. He lived to be 38 years of age, which is old in the Belize City streets, and he was fearless and fearsome. Men spoke his name with maximum respect. This was a man who could take you out and make sure he was not caught: simple as that.

We said at the beginning of this essay that the gangs are socio-economic phenomena. Gangs are the source of daily bread for a bunch of people in the areas which they control. If a man is responsible for the bread you eat, as Pinky and Arthur were responsible for feeding people in their gang territories, then such a man takes on a heroic aura, no matter what he does in order to obtain that food for you. Without such a man, you suffer from hunger. This, you must understand: In George Street, Pinky was a hero; in Taylor's Alley, Arthur was a don.

As events unfolded over the weekend, we thought of how activities similar to what we saw over the weekend in Belize were romanticized for movie audiences all over planet earth in The Godfather movie trilogy. In New York City and Chicago, primarily, gangs emerged and became powerful and wealthy during the era of Prohibition (1919-1933) in the United States. The law said alcohol was illegal, but Americans still wanted to drink. So gangsters got rich risking jail and death to obtain and distribute the illegal product. The government would put gangsters in jail when they caught them, but it was other gangsters who would kill gangsters, similar to what we see happening here.

In the 1930s, an American gangster by the name of Charles "Lucky" Luciano led an effort to organize the gangsters into "families," with internal ranks of authority. Peace came to the land of gangs in America. But, every now and then, there would still be wars and bloodshed. Such violence would require the intervention of the Crime Commission of gangsters.

After World War II, narcotics trafficking became a lucrative gang activity in America. It was the drug heroin which sparked the first violence between families in Part I of The Godfather. In Part II, the gangs had bought influence from corrupt political leaders in pre-Castro Cuba,where they controlled gambling, prostitution and drug trafficking. Other drugs came on the scene, such as marijuana and then cocaine. The drugs were illegal, which made their trafficking highly profitable, and extremely violent.

Because of the demand for illegal drugs in the wealthy United States market, there is an incredibly violent state of affairs in Mexico, in which the present government appears to require U.S. government and military support in order to run the country. The Mexican drug cartels have become so rich and powerful that they can corrupt government officials and security personnel.

The chaos in Mexico has moved down into Belize and Guatemala. These are poor countries whose populations cannot resist the temptation to deal and traffick drugs. In Belize, the gangs have become so strong that law-abiding Belizeans are intimidated, and understandably so. We saw this happen in Mexico.

This newspaper does not consider itself in a position to comment on the apparent murders of Pinky Tillett and Arthur Young on Friday night and Sunday night, respectively. We can say that our community is shaken to its very core, and it has not returned to any level of emotional normalcy even as we write. We, the people, don't know who is who and what is what.

From The Publisher

One of the things that Odinga Lumumba, may he rest in peace, taught me was always to look for the British. It's not as easy as you may think, because the British are so diplomatic in their approach and almost always understated in their execution. By contrast, the Americans, who are the other major players in Belize, tend to be showy, even flamboyant.

Lumumba, as compared to me, had a specific knowledge of the British because he had been sent to London, England just months before Hurricane Hattie in 1961. Lumumba spent eight years in London before he visited Belize shortly after the UBAD movement had begun in early 1969. During that time in London, to which he returned in September of 1969, Odinga had been active with the British version of the Black Panthers.

During the 1970s, Odinga converted to Islam and took up residence in West Africa, Ghana and Mali to be specific, and this is an area where the British are active and involved. So that, the adult Lumumba saw how the British operated in their former colonial territories.

My personal story was quite different from Lumumba's. The U.S. State Department gave me a university scholarship in 1965. I was eager to travel to the United States, and had no interest whatsoever in Britain. My post-World War II generation had grown up in the 1950s in Belize hearing a lot about Manhattan, Brooklyn, and America, and our fascination became an obsession after Belizeans who had relatives in the U.S. were allowed to migrate there as refugees after Hattie. It was as if America threw open its doors to Belizeans after Hattie.

So, I've never been to Britain. In fact, I've never even been to the British Caribbean, and the chances are, because of my plane phobia, I never will. I know very little about the British, and always have to remind myself to look for them, to remember, in other words, the advice of the late, great Odinga.

For me, one of the most intriguing aspects of British colonial rule here is how immigrants were processed. Remember, all during colonial days the British had absolute control over our immigration, so much so that they actually contemplated having British Honduras become the site for the Jewish state. (Uganda was also considered, before the present territory was chosen for the Israeli state and established in 1948.)

Consider this, that the British had this worldwide empire, "on which the sun never set." They would move individuals and families, for different reasons, from halfway around the world, or further, and settle them, get them started in British Honduras. If you got into trouble serving British interests in Hong Kong, say, the British could decide to get you out of harm's way and give you a new home - Belize.

As the years go by, all the various records and documents are being declassified. As Dr. Sir Hilary Beckles pointed out when he lectured at the Bliss a couple years ago, the colonialists kept meticulous records. If you search hard enough, you can find out most things. The thing is, research costs money, and the people who generally fund specific academic research belong to the same power structure which is in place. They don't rush to fund research which will expose themselves.

In any case, as our community went through its terribly traumatic convulsions over the last weekend, I tried to find an overview. The players in this game who are on the ground may be seen as pawns, because they are activated by motives which are controlled by the "big boys". So, this is a definition of powerlessness, the reality of only being allowed to do that which somebody else decides.

Our present situation in Belize City is truly alarming. Most of us have no choice but to go about our daily business as best we can. But, we citizens are deeply disturbed. Can you imagine the effect on our children and grandchildren? Children find excitement in things which give us older folk blood pressure, but if you focus on the children who have to live in the city's war zones, and actually look at the children who are being orphaned and are losing other loved ones who were very important parts of their lives, the tragedy we are experiencing becomes more striking.

As Belizeans, we sought political independence, there's no denying that. We thought it would be easier to administrate ourselves than it has actually proven to be. We didn't properly appreciate the fact that, because they were foreigners, the British were essentially impartial, at least where "natives" were concerned. It was possible to conceive justice as the symbolic blind lady in colonial days. Today, it appears that we are unable to impose real discipline upon ourselves. That is a serious part of our problem.

Power to the people.

Amandala