L R Spencer

Shark Cay Jihad L R Spencer

In the 21st Century, wars and famine have churned human populations in ways not seen since World War II. Political strife, climate change, economic disruptions, and technological innovation have stirred emigration and immigration more than at perhaps any other time in human history. By the second decade of the 21st Century, a wavelet of new immigrants reached the sleepy island of Shark Cay in the Belizean Caribbean. Belize is a land of immigrants, but would Sunnis (including a couple of jihadists), Shiites, and Hindus, not to mention Latter-day Saints and Jehovah's Witnesses, blend into laid-back island life? The integration of these newcomers into Shark Cay culture didn't start well. In fact, it almost erupted into a religious war. Walt Wilson, a middle-aged gringo expatriate, was caught up in the margins of the conflict. Jorge McKenna, Wilson's Creole friend and landlord, wasn't interested in immigration until he got mixed up with Habiba Al-Fayli, a beautiful Iraqi girl. As Kate Phillips, owner of the Brown Pelican Bar and Restaurant, once noted, "On small islands, as in bars, a wise person religiously avoids arguments on religion."