Museum exhibit highlights road to Independence

With the nation gearing up to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of Independence, it is worth noting that a large majority of Belizeans were not present to witness the nation’s official birth. To overcome that demographic reality the Museum of Belize today opened an exhibit designed to remind Belizeans that the path to independence was charted by many hands, in many different ways.

Janelle Chanona, Reporting
This morning Minister of Culture and Natural Development Mark Espat officially declared open ?The Road to Independence?.

Lita Krohn, Director, Museum of Belize
?We wanted to show that everyone was involved, from the first Maya that resisted to the slaves to the creoles, Garifuna, everybody and then the final steps were done by the internationalization of the Belize quest for independence. So that it?s a very unifying sort of thing. So the undergoing current is all ah we mek Belize.?

Text included in the exhibition spans from the Heads of Agreement, to political cartoons. According to Director of the Museum of Belize, Lita Krohn, picking out the important material was easy.

Lita Krohn
?There?s an advantage because I was there and also, as a history teacher, I kind of a feel for it and I am well equipped with Therese Batty and Mr. Hulse, who are very good at what they do. As a history, you can see that the text gives you like the background. To me, you always need a background and then, I have to thank Brukdown magazine for all the highlights and other publications. I have been saving these things for years, so it wasn?t difficult.?

Mark Espat, Minister of National Development and Culture
?Today, twenty-five years later, as a people, we can celebrate a quarter century of political independence even as we continue to struggle for economic independence.?

Today Espat maintains that the walk down memory lane is a tribute to the independent thinkers who fought for Belize?s future.

Mark Espat
?I really think that this year, because its twenty-five years because we hope to attract all the segment of society in this celebration that we will have a great celebration. As we look forward to the next twenty-five years, we have to look back and we have to be very proud of what we were able to achieve in 1981 and what we?ve been able to achieve since then.?

“The Road to Independence,” is the seventh exhibition to be mounted at the Museum of Belize since it opened in 2002.