The Xenophobic Islander: Issue #1

The Xenophobic Islander will hopefully become a regular column on The State of Jersey. It aims to address issues of racial prejudice and outright racism by a minority of islanders. I would like to make it clear however that I am not ‘the xenophobic islander’ – the title refers to the growing trend towards racism in Jersey (especially amongst the younger generations).

Paranoid Delusions on the Number One

As a result of my recent fascination with the relatively new Liberation Station, I have been using the currently-good-value bus service as my primary means of transport. This has opened up a whole new world to me; from talking to new people to analysing the various forms of social interaction on public transport (yes I know I’m a bit of a nerd) I have discovered something new and interesting with every journey.

Most of the time I have been pleasantly reassured that human kindness still exists, however on a few occasions I have been appalled. It is one of these negative experiences, a paranoid delusion on the number one, that I will be focussing on in this post.

A few days ago (I cannot remember the exact day) I was travelling on the number one bus from Liberation Station to my home which is located at some point along the route, and as always I was monitoring the behaviour of my fellow passengers. A couple of seats in front of me were two Polish men conversing energetically, and to my immediate left was a middle-aged Jerseyman reading the J.E.P. Of course there were other people on the bus also, but they are near-irrelevant here.

As the journey progressed, I could sense the energy in the foreign conversation increase, and looking around I noticed most of the passengers glancing pseudo-secretly at the two men, including the Jerseyman in question. This was no ordinary looking however; there was a strong sense of mistrust from most people.

At about three minutes into the journey the two Polish men started laughing uncontrollably, leading to even more inevitable looks of mistrust and inquisitiveness from most passengers; but the Jerseyman in question was looking in a much more different manner, almost with disgust. He continued reading his J.E.P. as he muttered a seriously insulting phrase, which I obviously will not repeat here, but it is enough to say that it was both vulgar and blatantly racist. Luckily, I don’t think the two men heard, at least they didn’t react anyway.

Why am I mentioning this here?

Although the Jerseyman’s behaviour on the bus was a minor act of racism, it was racism nonetheless. Not only would it have been harmful to the two men had they heard, but it is also part of what I believe to be an increasing island-wide trend of growing racist attitudes. Surely this is something we need to at least recognise as a problem.

I believe this problem is in part caused by paranoid delusions on the part of us – the Jersey-born residents. Why do I believe this? Well, to understand where I am coming from we need to understand what prompted the Jerseyman on the bus to say what he did. I believe, although some may disagree, that he thought the two Polish men were either talking about him in particular or about Jersey people in general; after all they were talking and laughing in their own native language whilst in the presence of Jersey-born residents. But let’s stop and think for a moment, is there a more rational explanation? Could it be that (and this is my own personal hypothesis) they were simply engaging in a rather funny polish joke? Their speech became increasingly energetic until the point where it climaxed into hysterical laughter – it makes sense.

If this is the case, we must seriously reconsider our beliefs about immigrants; and this will be the subject matter of many future posts in The Xenophobic Islander.

This post has used a very mild form of racism as an introductory example; in future posts I will discuss many other aspects of xenophobic behaviour as well as possible reasons for this behaviour and, more importantly, rational solutions to remedy the problem.

I welcome any comments on this issue; personal experiences with racism, your own opinion about the rising levels of immigration, etc. Anything relevant is welcome. Your comment may even be included in the next issue of The Xenophobic Islander, now there’s a privilege!

- Benjamin Langlois

PS: As you may have noticed I have recently installed a five-star post rating system. Nobody has had the courage to use it as yet, so please feel free to be the first!