Colonialism, part 1

I was six and just beginning to figure out who ran the place. (Not my mom.)

Maybe my first grade teacher, Mrs. Webster? Yes … very strict. She didn’t let me be Peter Pan in school even though I WAS Peter Pan!

My father, most obviously. He was the one to please.

Not us kids, although we were free to do anything in that unsupervised childhood.

(Note to self, licking that doorknob in winter was foolish. Sliding down the barn roof into a thicket of stinging nettles was foolish, too, but at least it impressed the boys.)

Then we went to Barbados and I began to get a bigger picture.

Mrs. Webster, and even my dad, were not the folks in charge after all.

My father lets me drink a coke! This is unheard of! This is soft power, though.

We are on vacation, a long one. Mosquito coils in the windows burn like slow cigarettes, leaving a fine ash on the sill. Stray dogs roam the street. The air smells of flowers. Schoolgirls go to school in bright uniforms, so unlike the black tunic I wear in Montreal, over my plain white shirt. They look gorgeous. I do not go to school in Barbados. I study with my mother in our rented house. My sister is prone to sunburn but I am not, because I am a brown bean, and proud of it. In Swedish, it is my nickname: Bruna Bönan! There, everyone is blond and I am dark. Here, I am not so brown after all.

For some reason, we go to the Queen’s Birthday Parade. It is a scorchingly hot day. My mother, big with my brother inside her, wears her orange sunhat. We sit on top of the rental car for a better view. The crowd waits and waits … It is boring and hot. Finally, a line of soldiers comes into view over that parking lot sea. They wear grey wool, as if they were serving in Britain, as if the winds are brisk. In reality, it is blistering, and more than one of them faint. They are in formation, marching as if to war - at least that’s what I think - as in the Onward Christian Soldiers hymn we sing in Canada in school. But whose soldiers are these?

The Queen’s.

We are having a birthday party for the Queen and she is not even here!! It seems very rude. Her majesty is perhaps in Buckingham Palace, eating cake all day long, or maybe crumpets. Maybe the Swedish Princesses from Haga Castle will be there, too, with their bookmark angel blonde hair.

I collect bookmark angels when we are in Sweden every summer. Bokmärksänglar. I never use them as bookmarks. They are far too precious. I keep them in their own special book and look at them, with joy and suspicion. They are too perfect, too girly. I wouldn’t want to be an angel, I have decided. They may have wings but they do not look like they ever climb trees. Anyway, my hair is too dark for me to be angelic, that seems clear.

Why are the angels always blonde? Maybe to match Jesus? But that doesn’t really make any sense either. It’s just the way it is. (Like St. Lucia. She is blonde, too, at least in every procession I ever have seen.)

I don’t think that much about Jesus, even though he’s possibly in charge, but I do say a prayer every night about an angel who walks around my house with a candle and a book in her hands. (I like reading, too, so that makes sense to me.) Det går en ängel…

It’s all pretty confusing, especially since we hardly ever go to church.

I don’t quite know what to think about Jesus. Maybe I am lucky in that way? He might be in charge or maybe not.

The Royals are still on the planet, though, which might make it easier to be possibly in charge?

Meanwhile, we wait and wait and wait.

Sitting on top of the hot car is getting really really boring! And the Queen is STILL. NOT. HERE!!!!! What could be taking her so long?

Suddenly, my three year old sister slides off the roof of the car, with Anna-like purpose. So I follow her, as I so often do, even though I am older. (She usually has great ideas.) Anna has spotted an island woman, beautiful in her wild floral dress. Anna races up to her and curtseys, the way we polite Swedish girls always do.

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MRS. QUEEN,” she shouts.

I am beetroot red. I am so embarrassed.

Because I think Anna is right.

This is the only Queen we will meet today.

My mother buys some candy from our Queen.

It is sweet and good.

*****

When my brother is finally born, my father is very happy. I am okay about it, even though Karl pees in my eye the first chance he gets. My father remains the ultimate boss, of course, but somehow Karl has ways to get around that. He has a natural knack for standing up against authority. (He grows up to be a punk rocker and then some …) Karl gets my father in a way I can only aspire to … or maybe it’s just that he is a boy and they have a special club together? Maybe it’s called the Patriarchy?

Karl’s music sings his truth to power. Loudly.

(Find him online or go bang your head in person?)

All of these memories fill me with questions about COLONIALISM.

Colonialism, the backdrop to my privileged childhood in Canada and in Hong Kong (with that Barbados side dish of awakening).

A few years ago, I read an interesting quote in The Economist, by someone whose surname was Lee. (I wish I could find the article again.)

Identity is a colonial notion. A power play. The elites start constructing boundaries, getting other people to comply. That’s all culture really is, who’s top dog.

While the last sentence gives me pause (I mean, what about the pickled herring and Midsommar dancing in my Swedish case?) the rest rings true.

Colonialism.

To be continued…

Charlotte came to Maine from Sweden, via Hong Kong, for a liberal arts education and the 70s rock n' roll. She's a lifelong public school teacher and the author/illustrator of many books for children and young adults. She believes that artists are emotional first responders and that art gives you questions, not answers. Which is why art is so dangerous and so necessary.