Réunion

I’m not sure if today marks an independence overdose, or a non-independence overdose—after all, we’re celebrating all these territories today because they are part of France, and they don’t have a separate day on which they take a holiday in order to celebrate their own culture. Instead, Fête Nationale rolls around. Réunion is another of these territories—or, actually, it’s a department of France, and it also uses the Euro. Some trivia? It was actually the first region in the world to use the euro, as its time zone put it ahead of the rest of Europe in introducing it. The first purchase? A bag of lychees. Réunion is between Madagascar and Mauritius. The official flag is French. The flag at the left is the flag proposed by the Vexillological Association of Réunion.

While there Arab sailors had visited the island previously (They named it Adna Al Maghribain) when Europeans arrived they found no-one living there, and the Portuguese named it Santa Apollonia. And then the French arrived—people came over from Mauritius and the island was administered from Port Louis. The French first called the island Île Bourbon, but in 1793 they renamed the island Réunion, after the fall of the House of Bourbon. (Pesky revolution…) It didn’t stick the first time, though—in 1801 the island was renamed Île Bonaparte (I wonder who that could have been in honour of?) and, when the British captured the island in 1810, they decided to keep calling it Bourbon. Even when France got it back in 1815, it stayed Bourbon until 1848, when it switched back to Réunion. Yes. It’s confusing. But after 1848 it hasn’t changed names anymore. Phew.

In recent years, Réunion hit the news when it was hit by an epidemic of chikungunya—similar to dengue fever, the disease hit over a quarter of a million people on the island—around a third of the population.

Réunion’s poem is by Danyel Waro—I found it online here. The introductory note comes from the same website.


Explosion 
This song makes a parallel between two systems of dehumanisation in Réunion: one older, 
acknowledged and better known–slavery, the other more modern, more subtle–exile and de- 
culturalisation through departmentalisation. 
 
 


Banm Kalou Banm 
 


Way out at high sea, they say, it used to be 

The big white lords ran their ships above board

On those ships long ago, they say, way below 

Were many black men – like so many beasts 
 


They roll to the right

They bathe in their blood 

They roll to the left: 

The sea's endless flood 
 


Banm kalou banm! 
 


The oldtimers say when the overlords ruled
Even black brothers killed one another 

Driven to rage by the pain they endured

The red of the surge when the flamboyant blooms 



The blood dries at last over our past 

But the sore festers still – the boil never burst 
 


Banm kalou banm! 



Even now, you see, we skip overseas

Jobless, we look elsewhere for work 

Soon, you see, I'll be taking a plane

To leave my homeland – Reunion Island 



Immigrants today, slaves long ago

Paris is pretty, so all our young go… 
 


Vronm kalou vronm! 



The tyrants today aren't like they were then 

The whip they crack is their snobbish talk 

They make their money with their pretty French 

Not one bit of Creole in all their fine speech 

Meanwhile their people fight to cry out

To hell with your school, we'll find our own way! 
 


Banm kalou banm!


—Danyel Waro