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Commentary

Bermudians have had a long love-hate relationship with expats. Despite the sometimes heated rhetoric that sometimes ends with some Bermudian suggesting that a disliked-of-the-moment expat should immediately pack his or her bags and go back home; a number of Bermudians go the other way and do actually take an expat home - for good.

Bermuda's folk history suggests, with only the tiniest tip of tongue-in-cheek, that marriageable Expats had to be imported simply to prevent us lot becoming a nation of schizophrenics - said to be the most common malady affecting overly inbred populations. To stay white and sane, Bermuda's small inbreeding white population had an urgent need to get fresh white genes into their national gene pool. Census figures show that Bermuda's white Bermudian population always had a higher proportion of imported genes than Bermuda's black population. But Bermuda's black population does have a good stock of Expat genes.

Historically, then, the deepest and longest contribution that expats have made is that they've kept us lot from turning into an inbred nation of ' drooling island idiots'. A Bermudian: "Go home Expat", might not always mean go three thousand miles away. It might also mean: "Let's go dahn 'de road to my house".

Just as seriously, Bermuda's two economic pillars are now said to be dependent on expats. The Hospitality Industry has about 850 chefs. About 100 are Bermudians. Take out the expats? We'll all wait a long time for codfish cakes and peas'n'rice.

In International Business and Insurance [IB], Bermuda is said to be dependent on the presence of skilled and experienced underwriters, brokers, analysts, actuaries and many others with exotic and esoteric skill-sets.

Could Bermuda operate IB without expats? We certainly could.

Recalling the euphoria surrounding our National Cricket Team and its recent wonderful foray onto the world sports stage, we should remember that business isn't the same kind of game. If Bermuda's IB sector took the kind of successive hits that our Team took; we'd soon see empty office blocks, empty rental units, and lots more empty space on our currently crowded roads. Failure in business leads to more than just dropping back from a short time at professional sport into a mundane 9 - 5 job. Business failure means loss of everything. Pensions, incomes, jobs, scholarships, savings, mortgages,... Everything!

If business Bermuda plays - as business Bermuda certainly does play - on the global playing field, then we need to play at the same level as the best of the other players out there.

So, could we operate IB without expats? We certainly could. Like our National Cricket Team, IB could become entirely dependent on the skill-sets that are available from our 47,000 person purely Bermudian skill-set base. IB, with its need for more than 4,000 workers, would then perform - could only perform - at a lower level than its currently high level of operation.

So the real answer is no - we couldn't. Not if we want to stay on top. Not if we want to keep on winning - year after year after year.

Still, these expats are here. On our beautiful island. They're here with their expat habits, expat dress styles, expat languages and dialects, and, worst of all - their expat grumbles about us. Us!? Us beautiful Bermudians!?

What should we do? Be a nice Bermudian and put up with them until they go back home. Or, take them to bed.

[I must declare my interest. I have, twice, worked overseas as an Expat. My son works as an Expat in the U.S. I married an Expat who is now fully Bermudian].[[In-content Ad]]

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