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Anyone flying in to green and white-roofed Bermuda, sitting jewel-like in its turquoise ring, probably cannot see the connection between our island and the brown dusty Oil States of the Middle East.

But there is a strong connection.

Bermuda and the Oil States began their meteoric and unbroken economic rise around the same time. There was a different propellant for each. For Bermuda - Tourism. For those Middle Eastern states - Oil. However, the social effect and impact was similar.

Take January 3, 1946 as a starting point. Bermuda had eight major hotels [St George, Castle Harbour, Coral Island Club, Bermudiana, Princess, Elbow, Belmont, Inverurie].

The U.S. had agreed to handle civilian air traffic through Kindley Field. Furness Withy was trying to return the Queen of Bermuda to its Bermuda cruise. Cars were soon to be allowed so Bermuda's taxi industry was about to start. Revving up for business, Bermuda hotels and guest-houses were hiring Bermudians.

However, given the segregation policy of the time, black Bermudians were confined to back-of-the-house jobs as chambermaids, housemen, bar porters with a few as waiters, bartenders, cooks. Only whites on the Front Desks or Tour Desks or in the management suites.

Notwithstanding, black Bermudians took full advantage of the openings offered, poured themselves into the industry and played a critically important role in making Bermuda a supremely successful tourist destination. For forty-two years, from 1946 through to 1988, Bermuda had a steady rise in tourists and national and personal income from tourists.

That income was poured into housing renovations, housing purchases, housing expansions; college educations; savings for retirement; cars as first cars, and then replacement cars and then fancy cars.

All of this economic growth occurred in the same timeframe. All Bermudians who were adults in 1946, began, one way or another, to derive benefits from the start-up growth. Children born after 1946 profited from the work of this 'start-up' generation.

The same economic growth, spurred by Western demand for more and more oil, had happened in Dubai, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the many other Arab Oil States. There, the generation that was adult in 1946 became the 'oil barons' of OPEC in 1976. They, and their first generation offspring were the ones who first started using their economic clout in the 'first oil crisis'. That first generation, and subsequent generations, have only ever known a time of plenty. A time of ample money and availability of opportunity.

It's in this last part that Bermuda and the Oil States are directly similar.

Both know a long unbroken economic rise. Both have adult societies that only know 'economic plenty'. Both have social settings where indigenous persons are able to live easily and comfortably off the dividends of the generation who were the starting-out owners in the Oil States; or the starting-out workers in Bermuda.

In the Oil States, oil still flows freely and oil revenues still pour in. In Bermuda, the inheritors of the mortgage-free assets that were first sweated for by the starting-out workers, still enjoy the incomes from units that they inherited; or enjoy the benefits of the cash from the sale of those inherited assets.

Either way, either place, the downstream result is the same. A generation that's either living off yesterday's capital accumulations or yesterday's discovery of natural resources. Either way, the downstream result is a generation that does not have to sweat or scramble as did that start-out generation.

In the Oil States, the common situation is that the indigenous Arabs who are the direct and first recipients of the largesse from their underground resources have a different work ethic and work style than does the more driven and far cheaper labour that they import from Pakistan, India, and the Philippines. The same difference in work ethic, and for the same general reason, applies here in our Bermuda.

An indigenous Omani's need to work is different from the need to work of an imported Filipino labourer. An indigenous Bermudian's need to work is different from the need to work of an imported Filipino labourer.

If you take a deep and good look at Bermuda's taxi and entertainment industry, you'll see it all in microcosm. What applies there, also applies to Bermuda's other Bermudian industry - the hospitality industry.

Overall, the full national impact - and total social fallout - of the 'big bang' start to Bermuda's economic machine is not different to the effect in Oman or Dubai or Saudi Arabia.

Going forward, we have to take this reality into account.[[In-content Ad]]

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