Is any nation really one of a kind?
CHRIS MORVAN Sunday, February 14 2016
Patriotism is a good thing if all it means is having pride in where we come from. But it has also started more wars than religion.
It can be a defence mechanism, designed to rally the troops in times of trouble.
When science moves on from fingerprints, past DNA and iris recognition and develops the ability to scan a soul, each of us really will be unmistakable – but we won’t be unmistakable from a particular country. There is as much variety within one nation as another.
What strikes the visitor to the Caribbean is the sense many people here have of being different.
They don’t like to have the differences pointed out in a negative way, but when they’re doing it themselves, particularly when identifying their ethnic superiority to the less noble but more ‘fortunate’ white and Asian peoples, the less confident Afro-Caribbean individual seeks to impose stereotypical attributes where they don’t exist.
Note “the less confidentâ€. Good manners and consideration for others stem from personal confidence, whether that be in international relations or driving on the roads. In some countries, allowing another car to emerge from a side street when it’s not actually their turn is just an act of courtesy. In other, less self-assured cultures, though, it’s seen as a sign of weakness, and the courteous driver doesn’t even receive a wave of thanks.
The English are infamous throughout the world for what is perceived as arrogance. Even Americans cling to that thought, even when it’s what the rest of the world thinks about them. And the English point the finger at the arrogant French who won’t speak any language other than their own, while the Germans have this irritating habit of doing well at things, from football to economic matters. Look at them: current holders of the World Cup and their leader, Angela Merkel, running Europe as if Berlin were the capital of the whole continent.
Much of the world is currently under pressure to accept migrants from trouble spots, including Syria. These refugees don’t head for the Caribbean, because it’s too far away, but if they did, it would give TT something to think about.
How welcoming would this community be? About as thrilled as the Caribs and Arawaks were when boatloads of Europeans and Africans appeared on their shores, perhaps.
Much has been made in the international media of the ill-advised comment by the Chief Minister of my own homeland, Guernsey, in which he said the island would not be accepting even a small number of refugees because an element of the population was Islamophobic.
This was hastily reworded, but only after the cow pat had hit the fan. Most people, Jonathan Le Tocq pleaded, were fine with it, but a few were afraid of the possible effect on his little community.
Is there racism there? The other word for it is xenophobia, which means ‘fear of foreigners’, and that exists everywhere. When I was young, a ‘typical Guernsey person’ was born and bred in the island, with either French or British ancestry, and it was all tomato- growing and tourism. Then, as the finance industry moved there to take advantage of the favourable tax laws, the place filled up with middle class Brits.
At the same time, manual labourers from the Portuguese island of Madeira came pouring in, taking advantage of the job opportunities in the horticulture industry created by the fact that the locals who would previously have been working in greenhouses, growing tomatoes and flowers, were now being paid more to work in banks and accountancy practices.
After the Madeirans came the Latvians, fleeing their own economic troubles and taking their blond hair and smiling work ethic into the vineries and hotels.
You know the Latvians: Courlanders who muscled into Tobago centuries ago.
The key question is, though: is a Guernseyman today like a Guernseyman of his parents’ generation? Are we unique? Is a Tobagonian unique? Is a Trinidadian different from any other person? Having lived in other places in the Caribbean region, I’ll tell you the thing that struck me most in my early days in Tobago: the staff in the fruit and vegetable shops and the supermarkets didn’t know what I was talking about when I asked for coriander. “It’s a herb,†I’d say, exasperated. “Also known as cilantro.†Blank faces. Weird white guy – why doesn’t he fly it in on his private plane if he’s so desperate? It was weeks before I discovered the reason for this difficulty: chadon beni, which tastes very similar and grows here easily. So you don’t need to struggle to grow a non-native herb, because you have your own alternative, even if no two people can agree on the correct spelling.
Maybe national uniqueness comes down to something as trivial as that.
