There is a silly thing going the rounds that says the truest definition of globalization is Princess Di’s death:
An English princess with an Egyptian boyfriend crashes in a French tunnel, in a German car with a Dutch engine, driven by a Belgian drunk on Scotch whiskey, followed by Italian paparazzi on Japanese motorcycles, and is treated unsuccessfully by an American doctor.
And you are reading this in Nassau in a newspaper that boasts it is Bahamian, on Canadian newsprint printed on a German press, with vegetable-based ink, made from soybeans grown in Mexico, Trinidad or Canada. It was written on a Taiwanese-assembled computer with fingers born in England. And you just as likely bought it from a Haitian, to whom you gave a couple of American quarters.
Does that undercut The Bahamas or Bahamians or does it just mean there had better be a lot more to being Bahamian than race, religion or shade of skin? We can raise all the economic and political barriers we want, but we can’t keep the world out. It’s already here, with its wallet and its warts. Might as well make it welcome.
Editorial, The Nassau Guardian
