Marisa Quan: Profile of a Tragic Political Trajectory

Recently much has been said about the role women play in politics - and how important it is that political parties have women on their slates. And, true enough, women do have an important role to play. But many times, tokenism is substituted for meaningful inclusion - and that "woman on the slate" becomes a disposable low grade political pawn - there to "represent" her sex, lose the election and then slink into obscurity. It may sound harsh, but tell that to Marissa Quan. In her 7 years of public political life, Quan has gone from being suddenly pronounced a luminary, to the one left behind. We've followed her closely all that time - and found her this week in an unlikely occupation - Alfonso Noble reports:
Marisa Quan drives a cab each day - cutting through the city streets like any other cabbie. She's the unusual woman who does this job, but the very public life of this 30 year old has been a succession of unusual choices. When Marisa Quan emerged as a public political figure in 1996 a candidate for the ill fated PDP - she seemed like a supernova - a star so bright that her sheer intensity made one wonder how long she sould burn. But, the clarity and passion she brought to the dirty, sordid game of politics gave us all pause:
Marisa Quan, Interview March 1996
"I think that we will be a party for change. I think that if Belize is serious about the change that they want, we will offer that change. We will get them where they're going."
And when the PDP was embarrassed and ruined in that election - Marisa quan was not. She became the top prospect in a high stakes Bidding war between both major parties. In the end, the UDP won and She was installed as their candidate in the Fort George division, deemed fit to face down no less than the then leader of the opposition Said Musa. Then came Derek Aikman and Quan would experience the first of many political slights - where she was asked to move over to make room for the UDP'S new blue-eyed boy. This she dutifully did - a team player and all, but Marissa Quan was not rewarded with an easy seat - in fact she was made to face Jorge Espat - an opponent as formidable as Musa - but she embraced it:
Marisa Quan, UDP Public Meeting, 1998
"As women, we teach Jorge Espat what is 'woman fum fum.'"
But even then, Marissa Quan sensed that she talked a good talk - she existed as little more than a sexual allegory - the token woman - not destined for victory but to engage and possible ensnare her male opponents. And that role as a sexual foil exploded in the most graphic way on the night of april 19, 1998 when Marissa Quan was raped. It was possibly the most public sex crime - as the names of rape victims are never reported - but with just 4 months to elections, this one was reported. It made headlines everywhere as the man later convicted of her rape, Barry Robinson was arrested and charged. And right there, she could have pulled out, pulled the plug, walked away - no one would have thought less of her, she had been raped, the victim of an odious crime, the subject of scandal, and, a weary mother of two. But, perhaps at her own personal peril, Marisa soldiered on with what could have been foretold as a doomed campaign - even if she banked on her victim-hood. Sure enough, she lost to Jorge Espat by a margin of nearly three to one. Quan was then relegated to the lowest rung in the shifting hierarchy of the defeated UDP - thrown on the tides of Political indifference and public disinterest. Jobless and labeled as so many things, she still had credibility to trade in on, and took up employment with the only person who would open a door for her, Minister of Housing Dickie Bradley. But now 2 years later, she has been retrenched by the Ministry of Housing, and Marisa Quan is back to a few squares behind square one - struggling everyday to find a way to feed her children:
Alfonso Noble
"What tells you every morning that you have to get up and keep on going?"
Marisa Quan
"Three little faces, three little faces that I have to feed. That's what keeps me going - because I've got bills to pay and they've got to be fed (crying)."
"Seven years after I thought I could produce change Alfonso I have touched very few lives, I have made ten steps backwards had I not entered I'd probably be far more accomplished that I am. I have lost everything I've worked for and owned twice! And I am now unemployed and trying to run a cab to make some money to feed my kids."
"If you don't your own money in Belize politics you're gonna be destroyed if you lose. And I've lost everything - I've nothing else to lose, so I even have no fears now because there's nothing for them to take; I have nothing."
Alfonso Noble
"Has politics destroyed your life?"
Marisa Quan
"Yes, Yes. It has destroyed my life, but it hasn't destroyed me. I can look back and say it's been a learning experience and...I don't want anything else to do with it, but I don't think that they've broken me enough that I will not get up tomorrow and try to go out there and fend for my children."
Her descent into the belly of the beast that is politics and her being regurgitated half digested now gives her an educated insider's eye.
Marisa Quan
"Politics is not about making change and it's not about taking poor people get out of what they're in and trying to move them to another level. It's about getting what you have to get to survive. Belize doesn't want to change. They are satisfied with they way things are. It's six of one and half dozen of the other - they don't understand politicians - I don't understand politicians and I worked with them for quite a while. You have a few good ones in the bunch but you know, one bad apple spoils the bunch - it's that theory that lives in politics. I once heard somebody say, 'Politicians are like a bunch of bananas: they all hang together they're all yellow and there's not a straight one among them,' and I'm starting believe that that's true!"
Alfonso Noble
"Do you believe that women like yourselves belong in politics?"
Marisa Quan
No I don't I think so. We have good intentions. I think we could give a lot, but I don't think that the men that are in politics want women like us to be around, and I think that we must have a purpose somewhere else, but not in politics."
"I now realise that I have to get my life together and I have to leave politics alone. I hate politics with a passion now. And I don't want to have anything to do with it."
But even as she today has enough contempt for the ocupation that almost broke her, Quan says she'd do it again at the drop of a hat.
Marisa Quan "I made my choice. I made that bed. I'm lying in it. That's basically it."
Alfonso Noble
"So you don't feel used?"
Marisa Quan
"I feel that a lotta people looked at me and thought, think that oh yes they used me, but they've got a lotta thinking coming their way."
Alfonso Noble
"Would you do it again?"
Marisa Quan
"The sad part about that is that I believe now, yes, because God had a purpose for that and now I can look back and I can say you know, who I am today is because of all the things I've been through. So yes I would still have done it, I wouldn't have changed a thing."
And perhaps that determination and strongheadedness is the common thread between the upbeat newblood of 1996 and the beaten but unbroken veteran of 2002.
Marisa continues to look for an office job, and in the meantime must remain a cabbie to pay her bills.