Down with Coconuts

"It would be madness to think of independence," announced a leading Seychelles nationalist in 1961. "We're just too small."

Indeed, so small are the Seychelles, a British crown colony of 92 tropical islands 1,000 miles off the coast of East Africa, that they were forever getting lost. The Arabians of the 10th century thought that the islands were where Sindbad the Sailor discovered the mystical, magnetic mountain in the Sea of Zanj. Portuguese navigators found them in 1501, only to lose track of them again. British General Charles ("Chinese") Gordon, who landed there 84 years ago, seriously believed that the

Seychelles were the lost site of the Garden of Eden. His reasoning: they are the only source of the fabled coco de mer, whose giant 40-lb. fruit, long valued as a love potion, must have been what Eve really fed to Adam.

First settled by the French and their imported African slaves in the 18th century, the Seychelles (pronounced say-shells) could still pass for Eden. Brightly colored fish dart through their warm clear waters, and frigate birds chase booby birds through the heavy air. Under the cinnamon trees, giant tortoises park fender-to-fender to escape the sun. So carefree is life on the islands (pop. 46,000) that few Seychellois work more than half a day, and nearly half their children are illegitimate. At Victoria, the ramshackle capital on the island of Mahe, the town clock, a silver-painted model of Big Ben in the main square, strikes the hour twice for the benefit of those who forget to count the first time. Until recently, the Seychelles' liveliest political issue was whether it would rain on the Legislative Council election day.

On-the-Job Suckling. But things are perking up, thanks to an ambitious young man named France Albert Rene. The handsome, blue-eyed son of a coconut-plantation superintendent, Rene, 29, went off to London in 1955 to work his way through King's College law school, returned two years ago convinced that the Seychelles must be free--and that he must free them.

Warning darkly of the evils of a "coconut mentality," he led the islands' first labor strike, founded the Seychelles Peoples' United Party ("Let's Go with SPUP"), came out squarely for "socialism," "nonalignment" and "full independence from our colonial masters." Another SPUP doctrine: that every young working mother be allowed to suckle her baby twice a day on the job.

Most Seychellois are still not convinced that independence is for them, but Rene is making progress. Through his own newspaper, The People, occasional manifestoes ("To We Who Have Not Yet Broken the Colonial Chains That Fetter Us"), and stumping tours of the islands, he has built SPUP up into what for the Seychelles is a powerful political force. At last count, 1,961 islanders--more than the total vote during the last election--were paying 10-c--a-month membership dues.

Last week several hundred of them gathered in Victoria for SPUP'S first party congress. With Rene in control, they unanimously declared allegiance to "our march to socialism," demanded "independence within the shortest possible time." It might not come for another ten years, admitted their dashing young leader, but he would "brook no stalling tactics by our colonial masters."

"Johnson's Golf Ball." Rene has a hard fight on his hands, for the British, who so readily freed most of their colonies, find it hard to take his independence demands seriously. Even under the most ideal conditions, the Seychelles, whose principal export is $1,000,000 of copra a year, could not hope to stand alone. Besides, they figure to be part of a series of joint Anglo-American air and naval bases that may be built soon in the Indian Ocean. The Royal Navy has already installed a stand-by fuel depot on one island, and the U.S. last year opened a 100-man space satellite tracking station in Victoria.

Housed in a huge (120 ft.) white Fiberglas sphere that all but overwhelms the town, the tracking station is known to islanders as "Johnson's Golf Ball." Although Rene claims that he does not really object to its presence, he blasts the Americans who run it for their "bids to win us over with offers of milk for our schoolchildren." Besides, he says, "we must take steps to make it quite clear to America and to Russia that we shall have nothing to do with their military ambitions."

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