Belize at 25, it's a great catch phrase, but a mercurial thought that's tough to put a handle on because really, who can say with authority where we truly are at 25? But one magazine that has attempted to map the varied readings of a culture in flux is Belize today. In the commemorative edition or Belize's big 25 anniversary, it scours the landscape looking at everything from karaoke culture to the multiplicities media, to map the many moods of a nation in transit. Culture czar Yasser Musa compiled the issue and he told us that it is an issue in search of an identity and a justified search even in austere times.
Yasser Musa, NICH President
"We have in here a very significant article written by Dr. Joe Iyo from the University of Belize which tries to give an overview. Obviously we could have only provided him with six pages, the original article was 45. But that publication will come forward soon but we condensed it and placed it in the magazine. We also did an interview with the father of the nation the Rt. Hon. George Price. We did an interview with Assad Shoman. We have the traditional things that we normally cover in the magazine, human interests things like an important development taking place down south in the village of Santa Cruz where a professor from Wichita State University, Dr. Keith Prufer did an article. We also have an article from Frolya Tzalam on identity. We have articles on art by a Mexican journalist, Marisol Rodriquez. So we've tried to look at 25 years but also provide things that are happening right now as well."
Alfonso Noble,
A lot of people frown on these things because we have money to spend on this and we don't have money to fill up somebody's yard in Port Loyola.
Yasser Musa,
"Well I would like to say that these are things in the area of culture, cultural development provides jobs. Researchers are people who are earning money. Artists are people who earn money. We can't look at culture anymore in the colonial way which is let the artist perform for free; let this person do that for free. We live in a money economy, these things cost money to produce. Its important to our cultural development and I think we have to look at it from an industry standpoint rather than from something abstract. It is part of a big investment we are making in culture."
The 13th issue of Belize Today is on the streets, and, it's free.