 Belize City, Belize, December 3, 2008. On August 22, 2008 we launched the Andy Palacio Foundation at the Bliss Centre for the Performing Arts, Belize City.
Today we gather to present to the public a special publication, Andy Palacio. For the past eight months I’ve been working with various persons to see that this project is completed.
This book is a combination of elements that include essays, reflections, a timeline, speeches, magazine clippings, photographs and quotes. It is a starting template of our great cultural and artistic musician and leader. It is meant to inspire and educate. We at the Andy Palacio Foundation take our mission seriously. The mission is to educate about the life and work of this great man. His story is the Garifuna story, the Belize story. His life’s work is our responsibility to pass on. So this book is an essential tool for our mission.
I would like to thank the following persons and organizations for supporting and assisting with this effort. To Michael Stone professor at Princeton University in New Jersey, USA for his powerful introduction. Michael couldn’t be here with us today, and he sends his apologies. Last night he emailed me these words that I wish to express on his behalf:
When Andy went to Nicaragua to volunteer in the national literacy campaign, that country had only recently emerged from a revolutionary struggle that exacted a heavy toll on its people. There is something we can be certain that Andy often witnessed there. In memory of the many who perished to make a better life for all, the names of the deceased would be recited at public gatherings, followed by a communal declaration—the cry of “¡Presente!”—an affirmation of the enduring presence and spirit of those dearly departed but never forgotten.
Now it is Andy’s turn, and our own. Dearest brother, go in peace. We hear your voice every day, not believing that you can be gone, even as we bid you farewell. You’ve shown us the meaning of community, and left us with the challenge of a visionary—a clear-eyed prophet who has seen what awaits beyond the horizon. Now, tracing your footsteps, we shall have to find our own way. Andy P.! ¡Presente!
To Dr. Joseph Palacio for his moral and intellectual support and for his two texts Andy Palacio – Some Reflections and Andy Palacio – Tribute to a Leader in Culture and the Arts.
To E. Roy Cayetano, president of the Andy Palacio Foundation and one of Belize’s most important cultural warriors.
Special thanks to:
To Kami Palacio, Ivan Duran, Richard Holder, Tim O’Malley, Stonetree Records, and The Andy Palacio Foundation.
To Ian Anderson and Sofi Morgensen, fRoots magazine, London,Alejandro Colinas, Mexico,Lucy Durán, School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London,Global Rhythm magazine, New York ,Cynthia Patterson, University of Texas at Austin, Princeton University Program in Latin American Studies.
When you look at the images in Andy Palacio whether it be his High School picture holding his diploma, or at a microphone in Nicaragua in 1981 working as a volunteer in that nation’s literacy campaign or holding Paul Nabor’s hand high at the Bliss in 2004 you get the sense of a person who was full of life, hope, optimism, pride and vitality. At the end of his life Andy transferred his hope to us so we too can own up to our creative imagination:
To paraphrase Rex Nettleford, “if we can own nothing else, we can certainly own our creative imagination. It is a powerful means of production which brings meaning and purpose to life.”
This book is part of cultural development. It is clear that today Belize sits at the edge of a major shift in its approach to cultural matters. However, this edge could become a ledge and we could fall off, if we do not accelerate the production and output of cultural products within the coming years. We must embrace the new thinking of becoming cultural warriors.
For example, the process of formally teaching of African and Maya history in our school system has begun. We must be vigilant to ensure that the system does not sabotage this reform.
For us to continue with a robust and aggressive cultural agenda we must keep at the forefront the elements of change, self-determination and creation.
Andy Palacio shows us that culture is a unique gift which springs from an active creative engagement. That culture is essentially an action which when harnessed can lead to meaningful social change.
In May of this year at the opening of landings 9, an international contemporary art exhibition involving artists from the Caribbean and Central America in Taiwan, the then president-elect Ma said about the art, “They are trying to localize what is to be globalized.”
In the early 1990’s Joe Palacio stated “the success of punta rock comes not only from being cross-ethnic but also from becoming modernized ethnic.”
As artists we live in a state of dislocation because so much is undefined and disfigured:
To quote Federico García Lorca,
“In the circus of cold, undefined and disfigured.
Among splintering capitals, cheeks bled of color.”
We must understand that the splinters or fragments we feel are rarely clarified into a unified concept. Andy Palacio’s life work is that clarification. He is our unity.
Culture is a kind of war. We are warriors. The old ideas about cultural activists and workers must give way to a new aggressive and assertive model that is to be defended to the bone.
In a 2001 lecture to the World Bank, Amartya Sen (1998 economics Nobel laurette) stated – “Cultural matters are integral parts of the lives we lead. If development can be seen as enhancement of our living standards, then efforts geared to development can hardly ignore the world of culture.”
This is the new orbit we are in. We can take comfort that the spirit of Andy is with us all the time in this orbit. After all he catapulted us into it.
I thank you.
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