“Colonialism not only deprives a society of its freedom and its wealth but, of its very character, leaves its people intellectually and morally disoriented.” (Franz Fanon, 1966).

Several members of Garifuna communities in Belize and the diaspora, as well as many other Belizeans, have expressed through radio, TV and social media, their outrage at the recent news that the proposed Norwegian Cruise Lines $50 million investment on Harvest Caye would include the dügü in its Disney-like theme park as part of its marketing strategy to attract cruise tourists to Southern Belize.

For those who are not aware, the dügü is the most outstanding feature of Garifuna spiritual life. This sacred ritual is conducted as a private affair for families to commune with the hiyuruha, spirits of the ancestors. It is not a public cultural event and remains closed to outsiders. Regardless of their profession, occupation or standard of education, family members who are called by the ancestors through the buyei, (shaman) are usually obligated to travel to the dabuyaba (the sacred temple) from wherever they reside in Belize or foreign countries to participate in this week-long ritual.

The ritual involves sharing of food between living and deceased family members in a festive and intimate space. It also involves traditional chanting, singing and dancing to certain drum rhythms that hypnotize participants to uncontrollable danced possessions or a trance-like state that often resembles a mild or intense seizure. Persons in such states serve as a medium through whom the spirits of deceased parents, grandparents, great grandparents or other ancestors deliver wise counsel, stern admonitions or positive affirmations for family reconciliation, and healing of illnesses or other adversities.

By the end of a dügü, family members are often united in ways that they might have never experienced, and return home feeling healed, protected and empowered to face the challenges of their everyday lives.

The deep secrets of their unique, powerful hybrid Afro-indigenous spirituality have enabled the Garinagu to survive oppressive conditions and attempts to exterminate their culture over several centuries. Historically, Christian missionaries had no compunctions in their attempts to destroy the core beliefs of African and indigenous peoples. From as early as 1665, Jesuit priests in St. Vincent referred to the dügü as idolatry. By that time, core beliefs and consciousness of enslaved Africans and indigenous peoples, and their connections with their land and ancestors were being destroyed by Christianity for over a century and a half. The sacred books of the Mayas had long been destroyed. The lives of African and indigenous peoples were threatened for maintaining their traditional beliefs.

In 1685 the French King Louis XIV decreed through Code Noir (the Black Code) that all Negroes in its empire (including the Garinagu of St Vincent) must be converted to Roman Catholicism. Any other religion or native traditions were strictly forbidden. A similar decree was made by Spanish monarchs for their empire. This colonizing process explains why people originally from early French and Spanish territories (like the Garinagu and Mestizos and Mayas of Belize) became Catholics, while those from British territories (like the Creoles in Belize) became Anglicans and have largely remained so to this day.

While the physical labour of the enslaved and colonized peoples of colour enriched white masters, their minds were “civilized” by white missionaries to behave like white Europeans and adore white saints to get to a white heaven where the afterlife is expected to be spent with a deity also portrayed as white. The Garinagu had to remain solidly grounded and cohesive to survive all that while maintaining the secrets of their spirituality. Their saints were also their ancestors, while their seiri defined their own heaven.

In Belize, numerous attempts were also made to ridicule Garifuna culture to extermination. Catholic priests often used the pulpit to condemn the dügü and called for the people to be punished for performing it. In the 1840s, Methodist missionaries were also interested in stamping out this practice.

Soon after the Garinagu arrived in Belize, suspicious British rulers outlawed its practice and planted seeds of division among the enslaved Africans to ensure that both Afro-descendant groups in the Belize settlement remained physically and psychologically separated. This was why the laws of early Belize settlement forbade Garinagu from living in Belize town. They had to remain south of the Sibun River where their communities have been ever since.

Because of their freedom long before slavery was abolished the Garinagu, unlike most other Afro-descendant groups throughout the Americas, were able to creatively find ways to accommodate Christianity while maintaining their ancestral spirituality, thus ensuring its survival to this day. It was only in recent decades after Jesuit anthropologists analyzed the merits of the dügü that the church softened its stance and accommodated this ritual. Now, even Garifuna Catholic and Anglican priests and nuns participate. It is remarkable that the dügü has withstood centuries of threats.

The recent notion that this sacred core of Garinagu culture would even be considered to provide a photogenic cultural entertainment for cruise tourists suggests that in their quest for financial gain, the planners must have become morally disoriented. The idea that cruise ship tourists would descend in thousands to be entertained by the performance of a sacred ritual, or parts of it, is most insulting and condescending.

Such mindset is often revealed through the current neocolonialist paradigm in which weak, visionless and naive leaders, pawn out their countries as a source of inexpensive supply of native entertainment, labour and natural resources for the greater benefit of foreign investors. Under such leaders, national development plans (if they at all exist) are never meant to spark internal development or facilitate the growth and success of native Belizean businesses. Rather than provide incentives for enabling the people to develop a vibrant and productive local economy at all levels, the practice of these leaders is to engage in clandestine negotiations and use authoritarian means to exclude large segments of the population from effective political and economic ownership of their resources.

This development paradigm flows from colonial practices in which foreign investors (predominantly of Euro-American descent) are not only favored by the ruling class but are provided with disproportionately attractive incentives to generate and export their wealth while the “natives” remain subservient. After all Belize is only 32 years old as an independent nation still deeply embedded with values from 150 years of colonialism and about 150 years of slavery. A national dialogue to process this and to take deliberate steps for real nation building hasn’t really occurred, leaving leaders scrambling in patchy guesswork of development initiatives while foreign investors increasingly own Belize.

Horizon 2030 remains dark and cloudy as one wonders if it has become another dusty archive of consultancy records. After the government has virtually ignored development opportunities for Garinagu and Maya people in southern Belize for so many years, is this the best it could offer – have these people line up in Disney-style sing and dance entertainment for cruise tourists?

Belizeans have seen this development by foreign investment paradigm repeatedly fail to benefit the people. The Chalillo Dam (where several jobs were promised), the granting of licences to Jamaican and Guatemalan fishermen as well as Malaysian loggers to harvest these resources in southern Belize, sweetheart deals involving BTL, corrupt DFC loans, the raping of rosewood from forests in Toledo while excluding the Mayas from deriving substantial benefit, the relative lack of native Belizean involvement in subsidized banana production that heavily rely on cheap labour imported from neighbouring republics, and several other “investments” are all examples that show that the participation of the native Belizeans has been limited to providing inexpensive labour to foreign investors who accrue far more substantial benefits.

If not carefully planned and rigorously monitored, the cruise tourism industry can limit Belizean participation to meagerly paid jobs and destroy the quality of communities and sites visited.

That aside, and considering the centuries old struggles of Garinagu to ensure the survival of their spirituality, it must be loudly proclaimed that there shall be NO desecrating the sanctity of the dügü for frivolous entertainment of tourists or anyone else. Not now, not ever. There are various other aspects of the culture (arts, crafts, music, food etc.) that could benefit part of the tourism industry. NICH, tourism agencies other policymakers must take note and in good faith openly consult with the people.

Perhaps, though, the Garinagu might want to imagine an alternate version of the dügü. Realizing that leadership is critical to national development, and that leadership decisions can have positive or destructive impact on any nation, maybe the time has come to deploy a high powered team of buyeis to the National Assembly in Belmopan for a grand dügü.

The real development problem in Belize is the crisis of leadership. Let the buyeis smoke the entire chamber and all ministries with potent incense while the heart drums call forth the most powerful of ancestral spirits to chastise greedy and corrupt ministers, area representatives and government officials. Let the spirits possess and vibrate to a frenzied trance (their backs flat on the floor, hands and feet vibrating and kicking skyward), all those who use their office to satisfy their own selfish gain. Let the spirits purge them to new consciousness of genuine service for the people’s development.

Let the buyeis call forth spirits to lash those who have bankrupted the nation’s coffers until they wail for forgiveness, make reparations and emerge transformed. For those who disrespect women, Afro-descendant and indigenous peoples, let them bawl as they owenha in vigorous vibratory trance as they hear a chorus of scolding voices of angry ancestral spirits.

For those who illegally rape forests, steal lands and national assets for private and family gain, let the ancestral spirits whip them to screaming pain as they roll over and over until they learn the age old commandment, “Thou shalt not steal”.

Let the convergence of the Supreme Being and all the most powerful ancestral spirits, joined also by the spirits of Chatoyer, George Price and Philip Goldson and others, chastise, cleanse, heal and transform members of the National Assembly. For the few genuinely honest ones, let the Supreme Spirit keep them grounded against the wolves.

Keep dügü out of tourism but maybe it is time to do a special kind of dügü to root out shameless greed, corruption, racism and deeply embedded colonial attitudes that have retarded sustainable development of our young independent nation. History shows that it is the absence of deep spiritual values that burdens a nation with leadership greed, corruption, disrespect and arrogance to the detriment of real development. May the greatest spirit fire their hearts, minds and conscience with social justice, human rights, compassion and genuine service to uplift all Belizeans. That’s the dügü, the spiritual healing, that our nation needs.

Jerry A. Enriquez possesses a M.Sc. in Development Studies from the University of the West Indies, a B.Sc. in Psychology and Sociology from Minnesota State University and a Diploma in Education from Belize Teachers’ College. His professional experience through national and international agencies spans the fields of education, conservation and development. As a former Academic Director for the School for International Training, he spearheaded and managed a university level summer program entitled, “African Spirituality in the Caribbean”. His understanding of indigenous issues is also derived through advocacy work he has done with Mayas and Garinagu of Belize as well as the Association of Village Leaders of Suriname. Currently he works as an independent consultant.

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