Exploit the Island
Janet Kuypers
12/25/19, the 1643 date that
Christmas Island was discovered
I have remembered this Depeche Mode instrumental song,
it’s titled “Christmas Island,” and, unlike mellow or somber
tunes, it belted out loud processional music with strong
beats that were almost an instrumental call to action.
This song wasn’t on their albums; it’s only a tune the
die-hard fans back in the day would know or even like.
But the “Christmas Island” song that’s been in my head
was the one by Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters —
sure, the Andrews Sisters didn’t originally sing it with him,
but I know Bing’s crooning with Christmas songs, where
this little ditty sings of spending Christmas across the sea,
coconuts on the trees and presents coming in on canoe...
and sure, Bing may have released this in the 50s, well
after the original, but looking back, it confuses me
when the only Christmas Island I know off the top
of my head is a tiny place in the Pacific that was
deserted twice, then used as a nuclear testing site,
so, really, it doesn’t seem like a true vacation retreat.
But the thing is, the Christmas Island I know was discovered
on Christmas Eve by the British, which kind of seems
like a weird reason to call it “Christmas Island”... and then
I discovered that there is another Christmas Island,
discovered on Christmas day by a European in 1643.
So maybe this is the tropical resort Bing crooned about.
Now, the Christmas Island discovered on Christmas Eve
by Britain is a small island in the Pacific Ocean, while
the Christmas Island discovered on Christmas Day
by Europeans is a small island in the Indian Ocean,
but after that, they start to sound similar. Both islands
are populated by only a few thousand people —
and both were explored for annexation until countries
came to exploit the island for their military (for this
island, it first came with the Japanese in World War Two).
This tiny island then became a harbor for refugees, which
had very few beaches and so little climate change at the
southern edge of the Equatorial region. So in some ways
this Christmas Island was a beautiful place for people
who needed to escape an unjust war, with a rainforest
and animals differentiated from what you could find
at the Galapagos Islands along the Equator, but...
their only real resource was Phosphate mining, where
the phosphate was extracted from guano — which is
the accumulated excrement of seabirds and bats. (And
who said nature didn’t work so well with mankind?) So
no, this Chinese/Malayan/Australian island now under
Australia’s rule (which doesn’t please the locals) may not
be the Bing Crosby vacation getaway, but during war,
Christmas Island was a paradise for those truly in need.
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