End of innocence in Scottish paradise

Ram Rajya must have known the pain that the tiny Scottish island of Canna felt last weekend. Goods from the fivemile-long, one-mile-wide island’s (only) community shop were stolen in what has been billed by Cannaites — resident population 12 — as "the crime of the century". True, six woolly hats, a few candy bars, packets of coffee and biscuits, and some batteries may not make us crime-hardened lot think much of the ‘daring heist’. But Canna has had zero crime for decades — the last one reported was of the theft of a "carved wooden plate" from a local church in the 1960s. That is, a half-century ago.

The shop from where the goods were stolen is run on a voluntary basis, with a ‘voluntary box’ for customers to drop payments for goods bought when no one is managing the shopfront. It is also ‘traditionally’ kept open through the night — so that passersby can use its free Wi-Fi. So, as one can clearly see, the 12 good people of Canna operate in a society that has trust as its bedrock and is the basis for its ethico-legal system. That trust has now been broken with the Garden of Eden infested probably by a ‘serpent’ from outside. Some part of us must be wondering what we, from our relatively crime-infested parts, would have done if we passed that shop at night in once-innocent Canna. Shudder.