7 News Belize

Artist Calls “Colonial Museum” Concept Offensive
posted (September 16, 2014)
In his address on the Tenth of September, Minister of Tourism Junior Heredia made a major announcement: a 3 year $40 million project spearheaded by the Ministry of Tourism and Culture, NICH and the Belize City Council for the rehabilitation of quote, "Colonial resources" within…the old historic downtown of Belize City." End quote.

He added that under the project, quote, "the Belize City House of Culture will be transformed and established as the national Colonial Museum of Belize."

Well that has stirred the ire of one well known cultural activist and artist. Former NICH President Yasser Musa has sent an open letter challenging the designation of a colonial museum.

He calls it quote, "retrograde, racist and disturbing…"

He says it shows, quote "rank disrespect to our resistance heritage." End quote.

So, we asked the Belize City Mayor about it today - since the city council is part of the project:

Darrel Bradley, Mayor - Belize City
"I do not believe that there is any distinguishing feature in terms of the House of Culture as saying that it will be a museum only for one purpose. We have a significant amount of heritage in Belize. We have a significant amount of heritage in Belize City and the objective of that structure when renovated will be to develop a long what the House of Culture has been doing for the last 10 years; promoting Belizean culture and history. It so happens that the House of Culture is in Belize City and one of the assets that we have discuss that is very present in Belize City is the colonial history. Belize City is a hub because it was first after St, George's Caye, the first mega-city in terms of the colonial history of the entire country, so that when you are showcasing Belize City you can't ignore the fact that we endured that period of our history and there is some merit in wanting to showcase that, but I don't think that the Honorable Minister was saying that to the exclusion of other aspects of our history. I have tremendous respect for Yasser Musa as an artist, as a civic activist and as somebody who brings tremendous value to a discussion like this and his perspective is very important and very useful and I don't think that there is any closing down of that project to say that well it must be this or it must be that. What we want to do is to showcase and highlight the great culture of our Belizean society including our colonial history but also embracing our Mayan, Mestizo or Garifuna history and we have never been closed minded or uni-cultural in our approach. If that was the message I know that that was not the intention of the Honorable Minister."

The project, as we understand it, will be funded by the Taiwanese.

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