Somewhere over the rainbow

Reunion Island is a multicultural society composed of people originally from France, Mozambique, India, China, Madagascar, and the Comores.

Islanders use their ethnic origins to define themselves as Cafres (African ancestry) Z'oreilles (born in mainland France), malabars or Tamouls (from Tamil Nadu southern India), Z'arabes (from Gujarat in northern India), Chinois (from China), Malgaches (from Madagascar), Comores (from Comores), Petits blancs (poor rural whites living in the highlands), or Creoles blancs (white landowners): (http://www.everyculture.com/No-Sa/Reunion-Island.html)


So I've got a challenge for you people - try to imagine the following;

A place where there are Roman Catholics, Christians, hindus and muslims.

A place where the ethnic groups consist of Créole, French, African, Malagasy, Chinese, Pakistani and Indian; all living together on a tiny island and yet the population is only about 800 000 inhabitants...

Sound interesting? Just a tad maybe?

Well this is the case on Reunion Island and even though there is a tendency for all of these ethnic groups to have their own circles, racism is practically nonexistent on this island.

A mixture of all the possible skin colours are to be found here. You can even meet a person who is both Catholic and Hindu – clearly not your everyday religious people.

Yesterday we were driving from the other part of St Denis into the city and on our way we drove past a Hindu temple, at about 12 o' clock the Islamic call to prayer from the near-by Mosque reached our ears;time for Friday prayers. A little later we walked past the Roman Catholic cathedral in the centre - impressive.

All of the inhabitants who practise their own religions on Réunion do have a big thing in common that they have accepted but which Metropolitan France hasn't.
-> Law before religion.

To sum up this basically means that people are more free to go to school, work etc dressed up pretty much the way they want to. If a certain religion-related habit is illegal people will accept it and not fight against it.
Also "The great burka debate" apparently never caused bigger problems on this island at all and even president Nicolas Sarkozy on a visit to St Denis (where I live) was overwhelmed of this cohabitation of religions on this island wondering why it is not possible in metropolitan France.

Well all of the above was a lot of things my 'boss' told me the other day and not so much my own experiences... I have to say though that this place truly is
a MELTING POT as they say.


peace,

E