0601 - Tolerance

A long-serving member of the OO Staff, not often mentioned here, is His Worship, the Unite States Consular Warden for Anguilla. This is an unpaid post, mostly involving handing out forms and answering questions. Once or twice a year, though, the Objective Observatory has a visit from Consular headquarters in Barbados. A Consul or Vice Consul arrives for two days, and this worthy interviews 50 or so families claiming U.S. citizenship for a child born in the Virgin Islands or in the U.S. Cookies and over-sugary sodas are served, while skilled Deputy Wardens assist in form completions. While that’s the basic job description, bizarre additions exist. This week, the Warden once more presided over a non-sectarian silver anniversary re-pledging of the vows of an American couple moving to Anguilla. The Warden is pretty smooth at such ceremonies, and always wears a large floppy white hat.

The re-pledging couple of course met the Warden a week before to plan the ceremony, and they asked the inevitable question: Why are you living in Anguilla? Readers may e surprised at the answer. Of course, Anguilla is tranquil, relatively crime-free, and has 30 plus beaches. The real attraction, though, is the Anguillian people. In the States, people think they are tolerant, although their politicians daily prove them wrong. God save us if the House of Reprobates and the White House are the standard of tolerance. But here on Anguilla, the people are really tolerant, and thy neighbor may do what thy neighbor chooses. Also, of course, thy storekeeper may stock what thy storekeeper chooses to stock, and you are supposed to tolerate thy neighbor’s choice of dead trucks in his yard. It is not so in the States.

This benevolent wash of tolerance smooths life’s upsets, and doubtless extends the life span here. More important, it lessens the harsh racial, economic and now again religious cleavages that are growing back in the U.S. The OO has never once been treated as inferior because he is a member of the minority race here on Anguilla, nor told his road wont be fixed because he lives in the politically weak part of the island. [The road won’t be fixed, of course, but that is for other reasons.] Daily exchanges here are easy and friendly, no one is bowed and scraped to, no one is ignored. It’s a good place to live.

This Anguillian tolerance strikes deep. At times, it can even be harmful. The police are often without information about crimes: though it is hard to imagine a crime here where the perpetrator isn’t known, it isn’t at all the practice to denounce. Some civil servants are known to be either non-workers or even no- shows, but they continue in office. Telling people what to do and how to do it is not the Anguillian way, at all, at all. Yet in the States, the TV and the magazines are chock-a-block full of instructions about, say, obesity. You are told what to weigh, what to eat, and what not. In Anguilla there are thin people and there are those who quite clearly are ... er ... notably non-thin. Yet, never once here have we observed anyone being told to stop stuffing in the fries. Maybe they should be, but they are not. Personal freedom here is far more than personal girth.

So, Readers, if you want a place where you will live as you choose, and you perforce will learn to let others live as they choose, you might look at Anguilla. You don’t have to wait 25 years, and you don’t need a big floppy white hat. As a matter of fact, the restaurant owner at the re-pledging dinner so admired the Warden’s hat that it was sold on the spot, so if you come down, bring the Warden a replacement, size 7½.

Next time: Curtain [OO #602]

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