“Many of the island’s white business owners view the strikers, most of whom are black, as having been inexplicably afflicted by an attack of dementia in their willingness to disrupt the tourist trade on which Bermuda’s economy depends. ‘It’s ignorance or some form of madness’, said Chris Szembek, manager of the Southampton Princess Hotel” — New York Times report on Bermuda’s 1981 General Strike

IT’S often been said that Bermudians, by and large, are a passive lot, slow to anger and — when they do react to a certain situation or set of circumstances — are people who rein in their emotions and provide a measured response to whatever provocation has managed to rile them.I am a Bermudian who is old enough to have lived through and witnessed some of the country’s most torrid and serious social upheavals in recent decades.

I know my people and, though some of the characteristics I described above are true, I also know that when Bermudians believe their backs have been pushed up against the wall then their reaction will shock even those who believe they fully understand the Bermudian character.

These thoughts — thoughts about the long Bermudian fuse — came to mind given the recent events involving black Canadian Global Construction site manager Curtis MacLeod and Progressive Labour Party backbencher George Scott.

Now, Mr. MacLeod and his supporters may like to characterise the Canadian as a put-upon victim whose summary expulsion from the island is yet one more example of the PLP Government’s arrogance of power.

But the attitude of this person towards Bermudian workers has been well known in Bermuda Industrial Union circles for some time, long before his worksite dispute with George Scott, MP hit the headlines.

Believe me, the BIU has good reason to believe<\p>Mr. MacLeod is no harrassed victim.

In fact, even without giving a recent television interview — in which he effectively threatened retaliation and retribution against any Bermudian he comes across on Canadian worksites — I am sure the island’s Immigration authorities have compiled enough complaints against this man to fill a chapter in a book.

Bermuda is a country in its own right and its people have legitimate national interests as do citizens of other countries — like Canada.

So when Mr. MacLeod makes statements which suggest that when a Bermudian enters his job site he believes they are setting foot on Canadian territory he needs to be reminded that he does not have a monopoly on nationalism.

The thought that immediately ran through my mind as I heard Mr. MacLeod making this statement was that if I was the Minister of Home Affairs, I would order the Bermuda Regimnent to occupy this man’s worksite so we could settle the matter of whose territory this in fact is.

In the late 1950s William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick popularised the term “the ugly American” in their book of that title on American foreign policy failures.

They underscored the fact that, when abroad, consciuos and sub-conscious American attitudes and assumptions about the people they are dealing with tend to result in spectacularlydisastrous examples of miscommunication.

The authors’ contention is still valid. And it applies not only to Americans but to people from other Western countries as well — people who are culturally isolated and do not attempt to learn about other cultural norms even when they are living and working in other countries. In Bermuda in recent years we have witnessed an unprecedented influx of Canadian guest workers taking up management positions here — positions that see them looking out for vested Canadian economic interests in Bermuda.

While Canadian workers and Canadian investment in the Bermudian economy is, by and large, welcome, there have been growing complaints by Bermudians over certain aspects of what can only be described as the Canadian management style and increasingly intrusive Canadian involvement in certain areas of the local economy — the supermarkets, for instance, and the sales and repairs of motor cars.

The type of economic relationship Bermuda now enjoys with Canada certainly isn’t unique — and isn’t, in and of itself, a cause for concern in an increasingly globalised economy. However, such a relationship does need to be put into its proper perspective if our friends from the North don’t want to end up being labelled as “Ugly Canadians.”

The Canadians in the Bermudian workforce are here because they provide necessary skills that are otherwise lacking in Bermuda as well as to safeguard their employers’ large investments in the local economy.

That is understood and accepted by most Bermudians who, it should be pointed out, have longstanding personal, educational and business links to Canada (thousands of Bermudians have spent millions of dollars over the years schooling their children in Canadian institutions).

But such a relationship could easily be soured by the activities of people like Curtis MacLeod, whose crass comments make him come across like a Canadian construction industry mercenary-for-hire who doesn’t care where he goes or what the cultural norms are in the countries where he finds himself working.

I am sure there are very few guest workers in Bermuda who would feel comfortable being viewed as “Ugly Canadians” by their Bermudian hosts. So it’s up to the movers and shakers in the Canadian economic outposts in Bermuda to ensure that people like Mr. Curtis MacLeod are dispatched to their holdings in, say, the North West Territories where — among the snow drifts and ice — they can perhaps think about the folly of attempting to step on Bermudian territories.