Female Coco De Mer
If you’re a Seychellois on Facebook you have most likely joined the “Bring the Coco de Mer stamp back to our passports!!!” Facebook group. I can’t find that document online anymore but what basically happened was Saudi Arabia found the following passport stamp offensive, so Seychelles decided to stop using it. I’m not 100% sure that this is the reason why Seychelles took the stamp down but I did see this document which was linked by a non-local forum by a non-local so I’m convinced that there was a complaint.
Earlier Version of the Stamp
If you’re not from Seychelles and know nothing much about the country, you will definitely look at that stamp and think that it’s a butt or the female private part without limbs. You must be Seychellois, or brought up in the Seychelles to look at it once and know for sure that it symbolizes the Coco De Mer, which is what Seychelles is known for.
The government’s decision to stop using the stamp brought about anger for several reasons:
- The Seychellois are proud of the Coco De Mer. We have the right to show it off. We have the right to choose what our passport stamp should look like. We don’ t tell any country what their stamp should look like; so no country should have the rights to tell us what our stamps should look like.
- Seychelles is a Christian-majority country. Arabs are Muslims.
- It was the Arabs who voiced out their opinion. And they were heard.
Rest assured, if it was England who told us to take it down because they were offended by it, there would not have been a petition.
As a half-Seychellois, I can look at this from 2 perspectives; a local one, and a foreign one. For this reason, I decided against joining that group. Seychelles is dependent on our tourism industry. We should try to keep everyone happy. We open our doors to everyone; no matter which race, nationality, language, etc. This is what I believe.
Anybody and everybody has the right to voice out their opinion. If we presented the stamp to the world, and one person was offended by it, then their opinion matters. So kudos to Seychelles for deciding to take it down and to alter it to keep both the Seychellois happy, and the foreigners. Here’s what the new stamp looks like:
New Seychelles Passport Stamp
It is said that this is the new design, and that everyone found something they could agree on. The only visible change I can see is at the crotch area quite frankly. The previous version had more of like a g-string shape to it. There’s a possibility that the new version also has a more rounder shape to it for it to look less like a body-shape…but I could be seeing something that isn’t there.
I felt that it’s necessary for me to voice my personal opinion on this matter because it became such a huge thing. The Facebook group currently has 1’520 members, 5 of whom are on my friends list. I find it interesting that a Muslim in Seychelles had the courage to voice out his opinion, he concludes with the following:
…And the fact that this story is now communicated internationally puts us all, as Seychellois, in a bad light. I am proud to be part of a multi-cultural and multi-religious Seychelles where differences are not only tolerated but celebrated.
I hope that people who have read the articles in the Seychelles Weekly are not misled into believing that all Seychellois have so little understanding of other cultures and of other religions.
I would be grateful if my letter could be published in the interests of promoting understanding of different faiths and cultures and of showing that Seychellois are not a people that are only interested in stereotypes.
Ayub Thomas Appoo
Anyway, fact of the matter is it really is our fault that some foreigners were offended by the stamp. The stamp was designed with the intention to look like a Coco De Mer. But here’s the thing…the Coco De Mer is THAT famous because it looks like a female’s private part and a butt. So it was a clear miss to select a stamp that had only the outline of the Coco De Mer because obviously, it will only look like what it does: a non G-rated stamp.
Some of arguments on the Facebook group are so offensive and xenophobic…dare I say racist even, that I really hope one day Seychelles can find an industry other than tourism to depend on.
That said, Seychelles is also known for the Giant Tortoise. So much so that we have an entire island full of giant tortoises, and Aldabra an island where they live wild and free is a UNESCO World Heritage site. There are a lot of things on these islands that could have been used for the stamp.
I’m glad this issue has been resolved though, even if it took quite a while. All in all, I’m glad we’ve got an interesting stamp; most countries use simple shapes like circles, squares, rectangles, etc. Our stamp shape was irregular but rather common at the same time…definitely very familiar.
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