By Gordon Barlow

Visiting my son in Guatemala just after the second US invasion of Iraq in 2003, we met up with a young Canadian couple from Vancouver. The man didn’t sound Canadian (couldn’t pronounce “oat and aboat” properly), so I asked “Where before that?” The couple exchanged a doubtful look, then shrugged. “He’s from Texas”, she admitted. The presence of my obviously hippy son had eased me past the barrier of denial.

Thirty years before, I’d met plenty of pretend-Canadians with American accents – angry, betrayed and embarrassed over the invasion of Vietnam thirty years before. Life is full of embarrassment for young idealists whose homeland is on a brutal imperial rampage. There is a wall in Washington memorialising the fifty thousand US invaders who died in Vietnam, but there is no memorial for the two million civilians they slaughtered.

I almost became an American myself, back in 1965. I filled in an immigration form at the US Consulate in London, the clerk gave me a ticket, and I sat down in a crowded room and waited to be called for an interview. Half an hour later, the Tannoy called for number 23; my number was 104. Say what?! Huh, time for Plan B.

Around the corner at the Canadian Embassy I filled in another form, was interviewed immediately, and a month later was living in Toronto – reunited with Linda and learning all about curling and ice-hockey.

We were both on our way back to Australia, as soon as we could afford the tickets or until we got a better offer in someplace warm. In those days, Canadian snowbirds used to fly down to Florida and pay agencies to have their cars driven down. Newly married, we packed one of those cars with everything we owned and headed south to look for jobs in the Bahamas. (I blogged about this in August 2013, “Rum and Coca Cola”, in case anybody is interested in reading about it.)

There in Nassau, we watched American TV, ate American food and learned about baseball and gridiron football. Our employers fleeced American tourists and helped rich people dodge American taxes. (No of course we didn’t fleece tourists. Just joking!) It was a good life – almost American!

Eight years after leaving Nassau, we did the same things in Cayman, pretty much. Life here, too, was – and still is – almost American. Many local children go to US colleges, and come back with an American lifestyle. Americans work in our watersports operations, our hotels and restaurants, and our construction industry. Not in our banks, though, for fear of moles. We are an offshore tax-haven, after all! The CIA has its agents here, but MI6 (Britain’s equivalent) keeps them out of the banks.

Wives go on shopping trips to Florida, husbands on non-shopping trips to Las Vegas. We all fly through the US to points north, east, south and west. Miami is our favourite transit point, despite the sour welcome often extended to foreigners by officials on the way in, and the intimidation by TSA perverts on the way out.

The American Dream is still alive, although it is looking increasingly fuzzy at the moment. Can the Imperial heartland really be turning into the Oceania depicted in George Orwell’s “1984”, or into the German Reich of the 1930s, or into someplace equally frightening? The “1984” entry in Wikipedia shows too many similarities for comfort. Perpetual war is being used to justify the Empire’s pretend-paranoia which in turn justifies domestic oppression. In his book, Orwell called that oppression Big Brother, and it is closing in fast on America. The Germans in the 1930s were caught by surprise, too, when domestic oppression snuck up on them.

In 1965, I preferred America over Canada. With a bit more patience I might have become an American. It was a nicely judged decision to choose Canada. Now, I am wary of even changing planes in Miami or Newark on our way to and from my grandchildren in Norway. I would rather fly via Toronto instead. Oh, the irony!

Gordon Barlow
Gordon Barlow has lived in Cayman since 1978. He was the first full-time Manager of the Cayman Islands Chamber of Commerce (1986-1988)- a turbulent period as the Chamber struggled to establish its political independence. He has publicly commented on social and political issues since 1990, and in 1998 served as the secretary of two committees of the ‘Vision 2008’ exercise. He has represented the Chamber at several overseas conferences, and the Cayman Islands Human Rights Committee at an international symposium in Gibraltar in 2004.
You can view all his blogs at: https://barlowscayman.blogspot.com