Two of the large islands are surrounded by a common barrier reef; the third lies some three hundred kilometers away within its own reef. All share a common language and an ancient network of trade, a distinct sphere of Navidadian culture generally conducive to a united political destiny. Somehow the islands just belonged together, though nationhood, it goes without saying, was decided elsewhere—so far away, in fact, that to the islanders it might as well have been ordained in heaven. Significantly, most small countries emerging on the international horizon see their origins tagged with the phrase “it goes without saying.” When discussing these countries, it is customary—that is, banal—for writers to trot out truisms about “discovery,” the events that introduced them to the world without the locals even knowing they’d been “discovered.” No, they are mere accessories to the “historical fact”—and so it was with Navidad. The archipelago entered the annals of world history in 1645, when the otherwise unremarkable Spanish explorer Baltasár Jarán de Valencia discovered an island surrounded by a coral reef.
What do You think about The Navidad Incident (2012)?
