Turning now to the August 1st holiday, we told you last night how the government released the new roster of public and bank holidays. It's the third iteration of the roster, and the government has changed August 1st from "Freedom Day" to "Emancipation Day".
As we told you, the holiday itself commemorates the end of slavery in the Caribbean and the Americas and it is celebrated throughout the region. As a progressive move, the PUP government added it to our existing list of holidays at the beginning of their term.
But, because they first called it Freedom Day, Activist Yaya Marin Coleman championed a change in the name. Now, you might dismiss it as a simple change in one word, but for Coleman and other Belizeans with African ancestry, that word makes a huge difference. That's because, from her perspective, the government ran afoul of the historical context of the end of slavery. She spoke to us via ZOOM this afternoon to make that point:
Carolyn "YaYa" Marin Coleman - Chairperson, UBAD Educational Foundation
"We owe it to our ancestors. They fought for their liberation so that we could be here. Understanding the significance and the magnitude of that work, it was absolutely an insult, an injustice, to our African ancestors for this administration to intentionally deceive us."
"Where did that thought, concept, and then the action comes from for August 1st to be named Freedom Day instead of Emancipation Day? Because since, to my knowledge, it appears no one is an expert in Cabinet. They should have deferred to NICH, and that would have been NICH's responsibility to teach them since they all appear to be ignorant, or they already knew and intentionally chose to deceive people. And to make it worse, this particular administration, majority of the people in the Administration, looking at them, would not be what we would call identifiably black."
"August 1st, it's not - the day in and of itself is not just a holiday. It's the first time Belize will be recognizing it as a public and bank holiday."
"A hundred and thirty-three years ago, in 1888, 50 years after the emancipation of our enslaved African ancestors in 1838, a group of Belizeans identified themselves as the children of enslaved African, led by Worker Simon Lamb. Now, that's not the narrative we've been given about Simon Lamb. Inclusive of women, they marched through the streets and went to the governor, and were very clear [about] who they were, and they understood that enslavement was a horrific and inhuman thing."
"That was in 1888, so UEF is not the only set of African Belizeans to recognize the importance of August 1st as Emancipation Day. So, this is not something new to African people in Belize."
According to Marin Coleman, she is waiting to see the Gazetted change in the name to Emancipation Day. She also expressed her concerns that the Government's parliamentary steps to correct this mistake were insufficient.
