'Organic' Nauru

Nauru: which organ?

Martinique: kidney, apparently (also, fœtus, apparently; also, the face on the Corsican flag, in my opinion).

Signor Corsica

Martinique silhouette

As one can see, they're very similar. Apparently the latter looks like a kidney or a fœtus. I could only find this attested in a novel by John Edgar Wideman, but it may represent a wider folklore - although, I would have expected more hits on a Google search for that.

I was under the impression that there was a description of this in Césaire's Cahier d'un retour au pays natal, however, the quote only goes so far as the following to describe Martinique as a fœtus:

l'archipel arqué comme le désir inquiet de se nier, on dirait d'une anxiété maternelle pour protéger la ténuité plus délicate qui sépare l'une de l'autre Amérique

It is close, but the 'maternal anxiety' which might allude to the fœtus shape of Martinique instead refers to the thin stretch of land between the two Americas. Nonetheless, Césaire uses cartographical imagery as an extended metaphor just after that quote:

Et mon île non-clôture, sa claire audace debout à l'arrière de cette polynésie, devant elle, la Guadeloupe fendue en deux de sa raie dorsale [...] l'Afrique gigantesquement chenillant jusqu'au pied hispanique de l'Europe

Africa is imagined as pushed 'under' Europe's 'foot' - the Iberian peninsula. Guadeloupe, another Caribbean island, is imagined as 'split in two along its backbone'.

'fendue en deux de sa raie dorsale'

This to me looks like a walnut, or a pair of lungs. That is not to undermine the validity of Césaire's description, whose own description works better in the context of his ideology of Négritude, the islands becoming symbols of the oppression of colonialism.

Now, let's apply the same rhetorical device to Nauru. Let us observe Nauru's silhouette.

Well, it's a pretty boring, basic round island shape, except perhaps the bay on the right-hand side of our silhouette. But let us now observe Nauru in full colour.

It in observing Nauru in full colour that the image becomes more metaphorically evocative. The roads to and from Nauru's remnant phosphate mine stand out like white veins across the organic surface of the island. Like veins, these roads carried the products of the guano-phosphate mining industry towards leaving the island, the lifeblood of Nauru's economy. Like in the kidney, the veins carry waste product (urea, guano) and then lead it to be expelled from the body (urine, exports).

But, indeed this is no Romantic description. If it is, it is more to the tune of Baudelaire's grotesque Une Charogne than Wordsworth's fanciful I wander'd lonely as a cloud. That bird-shit can be so valuable is indeed akin to the Baudelairean concept of extracting gold from the mud of reality. Nauru's guano-mining, however, was so excessive (80% of its guano has been mined) that there is little left to mine, resulting that the country is now faced with economic decline. In fact, 80% of Nauru's surface has been strip-mined. It is a known truism that Nauru that it went from being one of the richest countries in the world to one of the poorest - this being GDP per capita.

Nauru was once a waste-land full of precious bird-shit, it is now a wasteland void of precious bird-shit, begging the question: Has Nauru got more shit or less shit?

Guano if you weren't convinced

In Aimé Césaire's Une Tempête (adaptation of Shakespeare's Tempest), guano is sought after by the greedy Antonio, Gonzalo and Sébastien, reflecting the colonial ambitions so closely linked to the exploitation of the mineral resources of the New World. Aimé was himself a Martinique man. I imply from this that Martinique was also exploited for its natural resources.

Here is part of exchange on guano in Une Tempête:

Sébastien. — Le guano, qu'est-ce que c'est que cet animal ? N'est-ce pas de l'iguane que vous voulez parler ?

Gonzalo. — Jeune homme, si je dis guano, c'est que je veux dire guano. Oui, guano est le nom de la fiente d'oiseaux accumulée depuis des siècles et qui est bien le plus merveilleux fertilisant que l'on connaisse. C'est dans les grottes que ça se niche... Il faudrait à mon sens prospecter une à une toutes les grottes de cette île pour voir s'il s'en trouve, auquel cas ce pays, sous une sage direction, sera plus riche que l'Egypte avec son Nil.

Antonio. — Si je comprends bien, votre grotte de guano est un fleuve de fiente desséchée.

Gonzalo. — Pour continuer votre métaphore, il suffit d'irriguer, si je puis dire, les champs de cette merveilleuse matière fécale et tout fleurit.

Here is my French translation:

[Sébastien. — "Guano", what's that animal? Don't you mean "iguana"?

Gonzalo. — Young man, if I say "guano", it's because I mean "guano". Yes, "guano" is the name of the bird shit that's been accumulating for centuries, truly the most marvellous fertiliser known to man. It nestles up in caves... In my opinion we should be prospecting one by one every cave of this island to see if we can find any there, in which case, if managed well, this land will be richer than Egypt with its Nile.

Antonio. — If I understand well, your guano cave is a river of dried out shit.

Gonzalo. — To extrapolate your metaphor, it is a case of irrigating, if I may say so, the fields of this marvellous fecal matter and all will flourish!]

There we have it - guano so rich, so fertile, that it would rival the prosperity of the Nile. Can we say the same for Nauru? I think so. I should also like to liken Nauru and Martinique via the vehicle of an analysis of Césaire's technique.

This is a matter for another post.