But despite the atrocities committed under the crown's rule, the queen is still revered by many of those in the "realms." And for Belizeans, residents are of the belief that she had been protecting us all these years from Guatemalan soldiers who, in their opinion, were just waiting for the perfect time to strike.
But would England have intervened if that had happened? It's a possibility, but one that Tzib says Belizeans had to fight for.
And he added that this reverence given to the monarchy is a direct result of the victors being the ones writing the history books.
Delmer Tzib, History Lecturer, UB
"I think if you evaluate the internationalization process that took place and you look at the historical trends that occurred, yes they agreed to it. And I want to leave it as they agreed to it. Primarily because for a long time, the English negotiators wanted us to settle this affair with the Guatemalans and even considered territorial session. And our Belizeans nationalists, George Price, Robert Leslie, and Assad Shoman, they were the ones that maintained the course and actually took this case to the international stage to push England to say, hey, I need to provide security for Belize. So innately, whenever we say, yes they're providing the security, we need to put context to it in the sense that it was something that needed to be fought for because at one point, they simply wanted to wash their hands and leave."
Courtney Menzies:
"Do you find it jarring when people turn a blind eye to all of that and actually hold the queen in reverence, that she's our savior? Some people think that she's our mother, that she's taking care of us."
Delmer Tzib, History Lecturer, UB
"I don't find it, it doesn't really surprise me primarily because when you are in colonialism for so many years, if you think about it, our whole system was put in such a place where there was always reverence to the crown. Our historical narratives, our history was written from that perspective, the victors wrote the history narratives of our country, the hunters wrote on behalf of the lions, and all of those narratives and all of those mythologies that were created, helped to shape this notion that there is a connection to this mother country, that there is almost something that we are supposed to be grateful for and thankful for when in reality when you look at the history of the region from a critical perspective, you begin to understand that, really, we were just an enclave. The investment that was here was so that the logwood, the mahogany and whatever other products were there could be extracted in the best manner profitable and obviously all of that had to do with the nature of how colonies operated during this mercantilist system that was in place."
