The British Phosphate Commissioners

An unfamiliar face at Labu Labi during the afternoon. Seemed as if the mat salleh was likewise unfamiliar to the man. Clearly not a regular. Nevertheless, when the chapatti and dip arrives—mince with peas, the standard and most popular—the invitation could not fail.

— Join me. Smile and hand gesturing toward the plate.

Rarely does one sit at table before food beside one who may be hungry (even perchance a white man). Not in this community.

Complete strangers; never laid eyes on one another. The famous Greek hospitality; the Arab; Montenegrin. It was a broad brotherhood not so long ago.

Another, fuller encounter at the same tables the night before provided even greater surprise. Here was an accent from the great Southern land when least expected, emanating from a face and features, from dress that had certainly never been witnessed previously. 

Ninety-nine point nine-nine percent of the Australian population would have been similarly mystified. 

The last few years the territory had become justly infamous of course; few could have pinned it within a bull's roar of its true location on a map.

Christmas Islander natives of a fashion; born and bred. Muslim Malays!

Sixty the capped man with his scarfed wife: born on the territory. The Chippie, Zaini, still had a living mother fully ninety years of age, who lived on the island where she was born in the nineteen hundred and twenties. 

Christmas Island. British subjects in childhood and early youth the islanders. The year of 1957 the British Foreign Office decreed it Australian territory. 

The phosphate was no doubt assured with that arrangement. Malayan Emergency, Mao, Korea. Safe bet was Australia. Thank god for the early explorers. 

The British Crown outright was unsustainable in the era of decolonisation. (Apparently years later, after Singaporean independence, the first Chief Minister here at the time was blamed for selling Christmas Island to the Australians cheaply, for a song—a couple of million. By that time the earnings from the phosphate was known and also the size of the crabs that were denied the local cuisine.)

Christmas Island another Nauru. Not so rich in the bird droppings and therefore not so utterly devastated by the mining operation. The operation on Chrissy was similar to the arrangement in the northern resource-rich Straits: Indians shipped mainly for the rail-line and conveyors from the heights. Chinese coolies for the labour ("indentured workers.”). Malays filled other labour requirements, housing and allied construction. As on Cocos, there were Ceylonese for policing.

The associated racism and segregation, in this case stretching into much more recent time. It was only in the early 80s that the signage warning Blackies and Yellows not to enter government precincts, municipal offices and the like were removed. (Worth the record: man named Gordon Bennett, one of the union officials who came and settled from the mainland, was instrumental in doing away with all that. No more Anglo snobbery.)

Zaini owned to a little wild-boy rock 'n' rolling in youth, playing guitar in numerous coconut palm bands (precious few garages on the island). Music was half-alright; caught the ear of the White Man's Club—aka the Christmas Island Club. The President or Secretary of the same has a word to Zaini: Hey mate. Whaddya reckon about a show at our place? Flabbergasted reply from the bell-bottomed jeans boy. Fair suck of the sav, Mr Top-of-the-pile. We blackfellas aren't allowed to enter your premises. You wan us to play for you?!...

         Visits to relos in Singapore were an eye-opener for the young islanders from a distant shore, a kind of home-coming. Steerage passage on the cargo ships was provided gratis by the British—the British Phosphate Commissioners—annually. There were still kampungs around Geylang Serai then, atap covered traditional houses, ten kids to a room on the floor. Always flooding. Plenty of coconuts on Christmas Island, but what were these spiky sci-fi durians?

Seventeen hundred kilometers west of Exmouth; two thousand nor-west of Perth. Five hundred south of Indonesia. (Five hundred perilous kilometres in overloaded fishing vessels never intended for sea-faring.)

At the terrible ship-wreck of asylum-seekers on December 2010 Zaini was at work on his PC when he saw a neighbour hurrying by his window. In the roiling waters there were people desperately clinging to pieces of wreckage. Nothing could be done; some tried. One chap clung to a piece of wood while clutching a child in his other hand—defeated finally.

The wife worked as a cleaner at the Detention Centre. Good money.

The guys had heard about the opium fed to the Chinese coolies on the Mainland, back in China. That was a few generations back. Some of the Chrissy Island coolies had lived into the second half of the century. You saw them on the island, often smoking the thick, make-shift bamboo pipes that were held vertically. The brand on the hand was unmistakable, on the webbing between thumb and forefinger. Number faded. (The hand that held the pipe). 

The British Phosphate Commissioners themselves you never saw; their operation was conducted from afar.