By Colin Hyde           

   On page 21 of the Friday, September 19, Amandala is a story which, if I had any say here, would be discussed in every classroom in this country, in Cabinet, in the House of Representatives. It’s short enough to be framed and hung on walls like pictures of our illustrious political leaders, and like, like Desiderata. You know that empathy is what separates human beings from animals, and that human beings struggle with empathy, which is about understanding and feeling for the needs of our brothers and sisters. Brother Ismael Perez hit it out of the park.

   Whoa there, I don’t need to make no speech ya. Read the Gospels, the lessons of Jesus. And be very selective about other parts of that book. Bah, that good book, too much there is about self, making money, vicious revenge on enemies, that sort of thing.

  Thank you for a great lesson there, Brother Ismael!

Empathy—you have to force that shoe pahn some people foot

   There’s a veteran member of the UK Parliament (MP) who said he regretted not supporting their “assisted dying” bill while his father was alive. I heard that story on some medium, but I’ve come up with zero when I sought to read his words. Maybe the black & white medium that would have carried his apology said, “too late, your old man suffered and now he’s gone; save your apologies for the hereafter, when you’re gone too.” Or maybe there are too many hot issues in the UK right now to pay attention to an oldster’s regret, or they consider old men over there to be inconsequential.

   It’s the kind of thing that, even if the medium concocted it, you know there’s substance there. Assisted dying is the kind of issue that puts us through the wringer. As a little background here, before I lower the boom on the philistine that provoked the piece, the BBC’s Kate Whannel said in the November 20, 2024 piece, “Longest-serving MPs unite to oppose assisted dying”, that “in a joint article for the Guardian (UK), Labour’s Diane Abbott and the Conservative Sir Edward Leigh have said their politics ‘could not be more different’”, but they had concerns that “the proposed legislation would put ‘vulnerable minorities’ at risk”, and they argued that the bill had been ‘rushed’ and that scrutiny of its contents ‘is being limited’”.

   Boo, that in the UK they are employing dirty tactics to get a bill passed. Somebody has to tell them they are not in Belize.

   On June 20, 2025, The Times (UK) reported that the bill passed the 3rd reading with a majority of 23 votes (56 MPs had changed their votes since November), and that while PM Keir Starmer voted yes, six members of his Cabinet didn’t support (two of them from the health department) and two abstained. The Times said “a YouGov poll suggested public support for the bill remains high at 75 percent.”

   But a leading voice in opposition, MP Danny Kruger, said that support for the bill “is ebbing away very fast.” Kruger said, “You’ve heard today a very large number of very serious practical objections to this bill from people who are not opposed in principle to assisted dying, but they recognize that this bill is unsafe.” He urged the House of Lords to “introduce their own amendments to make it safer, or to reject the bill altogether.”

   In The Times story, people mentioned that terminally ill patients might feel pressured to end their lives to save National Health Insurance money, and warned of unscrupulous people in the system. Aha, Rishi Sunak, Sir Jeremy Hunt and Sir Oliver Dowden voted for the bill. Kate Whannel, in a June 20, 2025 BBC story, said, “Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer backed the measure, while Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch and Health Secretary Wes Streeting voted against.” Sky News said David Lammy (then foreign minister, present deputy prime minister) voted against the bill in November (2024), and chose to not vote at the House meeting in June (2025).

   Now, to this veteran MP who watched his dad suffer and refused to vote for legislation that would allow the terminally ill old man to get released from a world he had lost his love for, I say you are just like people who, after learning that a child is into LGBT things, votes to give LGBT the bedroom, after denying them the closet. Bah, it is so that some people have to feel it to know it. Understood, it takes some time and effort to get the understanding to the very depth of some things, but you have to be an unthinking animal to not appreciate that at our roots human beings are made from the same thread.

   For sure, it must be very difficult to assist your dad if he wants to go. But the story here is not about confused youth, nor the between-the-ears things that most of us can address with a good drink or other mind bender of choice. Some people can handle pain. The old man couldn’t. He had lived. Now, he has nothing to live for. If he had physical capacity, the state his mind was in would have made him a very dangerous person. Yes, fix that bill. It should be the last thing on people’s minds, but if an oldster grows to not love living, we have to let him, help him, to go if that’s his wish.

   I said it had to be difficult for the MP. Yes, and we know religious upbringing would have been a hurdle. But his dad didn’t love the earth anymore.

A lesson from D Bradley’s loose truth

   Ms. Yaya Marin Coleman is such an effective advocate; when she picks up a cause most everyone in Belize knows about it, and her hair mission, well, now the Ministry and Minister of Education are around the table sorting out a hair policy for the nation’s schools. I’ve said I support a hair policy. And I’ve said that for a number of reasons I won’t fight for girls’ rights to gild the lily while they’re in primary and secondary school.

   In this piece I want to address some comments made about hair by Mr. Richard Bradley, while he was a guest on Brother Nuri’sXTV Wake Up Belize show at the end of last week. Mr. Bradley, some of you know he was pretty close to my dad, and all of you know he was XTV (Krem’s) first big star. My elders insisted that I be respectful. Upbringing is culture, so, while I nip at Diki’s heels, and vehemently disagree with him at times, I still hold him in a kind of reverence. Ah, either I wasn’t brought up to agree with people when I disagree with them, or it’s my nature.  

   In his last session with Brother Nuri, Mr. Bradley, speaking very loosely, mentioned that in the old days girls who had piki head were teased, but in the modern Belize those days are past, because they can put in Brazilian weave. I am not about taking him to task for what he said. And, borrowing from Mrs. Rosanna, I am not insisting that “he meant it that way.” But his words give me a chance to clear up a point, so I will use them.

   I don’t know what a piki head is. That description was never used in the yard where I grew up, or by any member of my family – near white, brown, or black – when I was around them. I know what uncombed/unbrushed hair is, and where I come from a girl should NEVER step on the street with uncombed or unbrushed hair. I know what curlers are, and my dad was very disappointed with girls who entered a public space with their hair in curlers.  

   I said I don’t know what the hell piki hair is. But I know it was a slur aimed at black girls. For 500 years, the white ancestor has been trying to dictate to us what beauty is, and now that they have television and own a lot of magazines, the brainwashing is relentless. I will say to girls who don’t have the long mane which the white folks say is where it’s at, that the black folk where I came from absolutely didn’t give in to that. Neatness, cleanness, they were the prize then, and they are the prize now.    Whatever God’s gift is to you, wear it with pride. I understand that people, females especially, like to fool around with their hair, with their nails too. Well, if Brazilian weave (whatever that is) is what you like, I think a girl has all day Saturday and all day Sunday, and the long holidays too, for that.