22 May 2015
Postcard from the Falklands
July 2012
It’s sometimes easiest to describe one thing, such as a
smell or a place, or perhaps someone, by comparing it, or him or her, with
somewhere or something or someone else. So the bouquet of a certain wine might
be described as being like vanilla, cherries or strawberries; the view out of a
certain hotel room in Tokyo might remind you of New York, or Montreal, or
Singapore. But I’m struggling to use this comparator for the Falklands, because
there is really nowhere else quite like it. There is some hint of New Zealand,
with the painted clapperboard houses, corrugated roofs, privately owned cafés
rather than restaurants, a low, predominately white population and of course, a
sense of global isolation. But it really is not otherwise a good fit, to the
point it would give the wrong impression of what life is like here to say that
it is like NZ. So let me try with some bullet points, to say the Falklands are
like, and why:
- Chicago, the wind never stops
- Denmark, most of the electricity is generated by wind power
- Shanghai, Stanley was briefly the busiest port in the world before the Panama canal was opened
- Chelsea, everyone drive a 4x4
- California, there are almost no dogs
- Greece, everyone is everyone’s cousin
- Barcelona, a favourite dish is squid
- Fairacres, there are too many geese, and
- France, there’s no Argentinian wine on sale
As you would expect, Stanley overwhelmingly feels like
Britain in so many ways: of course the language, but also the very English
accent, dress, mannerisms and behaviour; the fish and chips, pints of bitter,
driving on the left, the imperial measurement system as well as small things
like the electricity plugs being the same, Sky News on television, BBC radio
and so on. But it is also absolutely not Britain: of course the weather (snow
in July!), the remoteness, the tiny community, very little ethnic diversity;
and the small things like there may be pints of bitter but there are no crisps
(the time taken to ship them in takes them beyond their sell by date), there’s
no ‘Falklands got talent’ or even more conventional music culture, I haven’t
found any of the mainstays of the British High Street: estate agents, Starbucks
or mobile phone shops; everyone drives, everywhere (if you walk, people stop
and ask you whether you need help, perhaps your car has broken down).
Perhaps the biggest difference, and arguably one of the
biggest attractions of the Falklands’ culture, between life here and in
Britain, is the social cohesion. We’ve lived in Grange Road for 12 years, and I
couldn’t name a quarter of the people in our street. Here, everyone knows
everyone. If you’re a stranger, they stop and ask your name, ask you round for
tea or coffee, find out what you think of the Falklands, and so on. If you have
a business meeting, chances are some of them met the night before to watch the
football, or to play darts, or to share the school run (so are you really in
control of the meeting, or has the outcome already been decided before the
meeting starts?). Doors are not locked, cars are left running, children are out
in the street without close parental supervision. There’s one person in the island
prison, but he’s a cocaine smuggler from abroad, who came on a fishing boat.
There isn’t even a single policeman on the West island, which is about the size
of Surrey. The Islanders love Britain, and there are Union Jacks on cars and
stickers on windows in the way we might support a football team. Jeremy Browne,
a Liberal MP propelled by coalition politics into being Minister of State at
the Foreign Office for South America, was cheered here when he went into the
pub, and given a standing ovation for his short talk. He apparently felt elated
and a touch overwhelmed, because that wouldn’t ever happen in the UK, nor
probably in any other democratic country, where we seem to elect only people we
distrust and dislike.
The Falklands have a definite appeal: we woke this morning
to snow (see attached) and walked along the front, taking in the extraordinary
beauty of pastel colours, the diverse birdlife, the cleanliness of the sea, the
architecture of the old houses along the seafront, and the general serenity of
the way the Islanders live their lives. Apart from fuel, life is relatively
expensive because so much has to come from so far, and the choice of things to
buy on the Islands is limited. But there is no visible poverty at all, but
conversely absolutely no-one flashes their cash, even if they have made
millions from fishing squid, working with the oil companies, or whatever. They
laugh at the idea that Ferrari might one day open a dealership here. But if the
oil industry, as some suggest, makes this one of the richest countries in the
world, they might look back at this period with some nostalgia.
I have (slightly) fallen for the Falklands. I can definitely see what the fuss is all about, and I’m coming home on Friday feeling privileged to have visited this great place.
# posted by DavidF @ 16:23 
