The Seychelles Faces the World
D'MONTE, DARRYL
AN APPREHENSIVE ISLAND-NATION The Seychelles Faces the World by DARRYL D'MONTE Victoria, The Seychelles There is always something endearing yet at the same time disturbing about a tiny colony...
...the U.S., the USSR and China have obtained permission to open chanceries in Victoria...
...for Americans, going to the Seychelles means traveling halfway around the world...
...But the United States did construct a satellite tracking station 15 years ago high up in La Misere, Mahe, a favor the Seychelles received $10 million for over a decade...
...The new red, white and blue flag flutters bravely in Mah?today: the Seychelles is still in the first flush of independence...
...Privately, the ruling Seychellois speak of a desire for ideological independence —of turning their country into a "Switzerland in the Indian Ocean...
...We are a multi-racial showpiece," President Man-cham told me in his office, a newly-built annex of the resplendent old State House and former governor's residence...
...Ironically, Mancham's Democratic party had originally wanted to remain part and parcel of whatever was left of the British empire...
...No matter what the ultimate answer, moreover, there is no avoiding the immediate forecast of rough weather in the Garden of Eden...
...Only about 1,200 of the visitors came from the United States...
...He himself is a classic mixture: French grandfather, Indian grandmother, Portuguese father, and Sey-chellois mother...
...In a letter to the London Times a few years ago, the President wrote: "We would like closer association, like the Channel Islands...
...The British are represented by Barclay's Bank, by the many products freely available in shops, and—behind the scenes—by the phalanx of advisors who unobtrusively make many of the decisions that President Mancham ultimately endorses...
...Its leader, Albert Rene, the new Prime Minister in the coalition government, has said, "Fishing should be the bread, tourism the butter...
...the islands were returned last June...
...Despite the Seychelles' ethnic mix, the connection with London is still dominant in the areas of trade and administration...
...Above all, it is the British expatriates who, along with tourists from France and South Africa, are partaking most fully of the islands' pleasures...
...The party is vooiferously backed by the OAU and tends to spout Socialist rhetoric about "liberating" the Seychelles...
...As John Stravens, a travel agent, confirmed: "The lower the class, the more the racial harmony...
...Sooner rather than later, however, Mancham and his Cabinet will have to make some tough political decisions...
...The dazzling white beaches gently give way to lush hillsides strewn with massive granite boulders: one feels that the Seychelles' hyperbolic nickname, "The Garden of Eden," is justified...
...Everyone else I talked to—from Cabinet ministers, administrators and merchants to drivers and hotel waitresses—feels very apprehensive about the future...
...The apprehensions expressed by the people here are perhaps best understood by looking at the questions confronting them: Will the Seychelles remain a colonial appendage under the guise of freedom and the patronage of the United States...
...It has a high commissioner in London (as part of the Commonwealth) and a charge d'affaires in Paris...
...and Soviet embassies are to be situated in the same building, directly below Mancham's stately office and official residence...
...Whether or not that will be possible is hard to say...
...Scratch a little deeper, though, and the tensions do appear...
...The country was somewhat compromised by the formation of the British Indian Ocean Territory, the United Kingdom's short-lived defense outpost...
...Consider the Seychelles, which became a sovereign state last June 29 after 160 years of British rule...
...On New Year's day some more of the opposition's thunder was stolen by Mancham, who announced a five-year plan stressing the growth of fishing and agriculture as well as new housing...
...This cluster of 86 islands in the Indian Ocean, with a population of 60,000 and a land mass of only 107 square miles, seems utterly unprepared for the travails of independence...
...Sir James R. Mancham, the first President of the Seychelles, insisted otherwise when I visited him recently at his office in the capital here, on the main island of Mahe...
...The Seychellois are a veritable grab-bag of racial backgrounds, with pronounced West African and French blood...
...Or will it slide over to the Socialist camp, like many of its neighbors in the Indian ocean—not least of all the biggest one, India...
...And other high-ranking Seychellois used to ask plaintively, "If America has its Hawaii and France its Tahiti, why not Britain its Seychelles...
...These sentiments have been seized on by the opposition People's United party...
...Or will it really be able to perform a tightrope act between the two extremes...
...But those who do make it are rewarded with some of the least spoiled beaches and coral reef lagoons in the world...
...in addition, their Creole patois is derived from Ashanti (spoken by slaves brought here from the Gold Coast) and French, with a handful of Hindi words thrown in...
...In any case, black nationalism—which is just another form of raoism—is no solution to our problems...
...And the Seychelles narrowly averted a potential entanglement when the U.S...
...Interestingly, the U.S...
...Patricia Sawyer, the English head of Victoria's tourism information office, insists the government wants to "contain" tourism by adding no more than 400 hotel beds a year to the present total of 1,700...
...Rene, an astute lawyer, claims that as Prime Minister under British rule, Mancham once held up to 50 political prisoners...
...The past—including half a century of French colonization prior to British annexation in 1810—has left a deep and varied imprint here...
...Indeed, according to those who witnessed the freedom celebrations, more than a few eyes were moist as the Union Jack came down for the last time...
...A member of the Afro-Asian bloc as a result of geography, the Seychelles will no doubt adopt its positions in world forums...
...Tourists began arriving en masse five years ago, when the British built a large airport on Mahe (in part payment for "detaching" three islands from the colony at the time to form—together with Diego Garcia—the British Indian Ocean Territory...
...Whatever the actual total, the last three were freed on June 29...
...They realize that their country, situated directly in the strategic trade route to the Persian Gulf (Mahe is 1,000 miles from Mombasa in Kenya and twice as far from Bombay), can no longer isolate itself from global politics...
...We are all living as brothers here...
...Now, with its new-found freedom, the country is beginning to feel the cross-currents of world politics even more directly...
...But the debonair 37-year-old leader (who has, incidentally, a world-wide reputation as a man with an eye for the ladies) was putting on a brave front...
...They are also supporting the Seychelles: With guano no longer exported in bulk, copra and cinnamon unlucrative, and British aid reduced to $17 million over the next two years, the main source of income has become tourism...
...There's no sorrow at all—only joy," he said...
...But many Seychellois fear the industry will expand more rapidly, distorting social priorities and disfiguring the beaches with concrete and steel monstrosities...
...Last year, 35,-000 visitors descended on the sundrenched islands—more than half the native population...
...naval base that was meant for Al-dabra island—a natural showpiece housing 250,000 giant tortoises and hardly any humans—was finally built on Diego Garcia of the Chagos Archipelago instead, thanks to the lobbying efforts of British conservationists...
...Somehow, all the fair-skinned islanders with European blood have the better jobs...
...Beyond the necessity of adjusting to a new international role, the Seychelles faces the crucial task of discovering its identity...
...On the surface, the islanders have an extraordinarily unbigoted attitude toward race...
...Darryl D'Monte is the assistant editor of the Times of India...
...The Organization of African Unity (OAU) has already unanimously elected the Seychelles a member, and it is applying to become the 145th nation to join the UN...
...AN APPREHENSIVE ISLAND-NATION The Seychelles Faces the World by DARRYL D'MONTE Victoria, The Seychelles There is always something endearing yet at the same time disturbing about a tiny colony that has broken out of its cocoon to face the world...
Vol. 60 • January 1977 • No. 2
