Was it inevitable that Jacinda Ardern would face hostility from a noisy New Zealand minority that disliked being governed by a young woman, who became a mother while in office and who used the language of kindness? Image: The Conversation/Getty Images
This week marks the beginning of Jacinda Ardern’s life outside parliament, since she officially ceased to be an electorate MP at midnight last Saturday.
Her legacy as prime minister will be discussed and disputed, but there’s no doubt her influence will continue to be felt, both in Aotearoa New Zealand and internationally.
When Ardern delivered her valedictory statement earlier this month, I was in Canada as a visiting speaker at the University of Alberta. My lectures and workshops included sessions on gender politics and the pandemic, media representations of women leaders, and the possibilities for leading with kindness.
Invariably, audiences wanted to know more about Jacinda Ardern.
People questioned why New Zealanders appeared to have forgotten their country’s internationally recognised success in the fight against covid-19. They were curious about why New Zealanders were reportedly feeling antipathy towards a prime minister whose commitment to tolerance and multilateralism was praised overseas.
As citizens of a country that is home to three constitutionally recognised Aboriginal groups and numerous treaties, Canadians asked why the Ardern-led government’s Indigenous policy initiatives seemed so “unsettling for settlers”.
And they wondered whether it was inevitable that Ardern would face hostility from a noisy minority that disliked being governed by a young woman, who became a mother while in office and who used the language of kindness.
There was also some bemusement. The coverage they had seen of Ardern’s leadership experience sat at odds with their perception of New Zealand as an egalitarian and liberal society where women prime ministers and party leaders were almost commonplace.
More in common than gender: Finnish leader Sanna Marin with then NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in November 2022. Image: Getty Images
Gender politics In response, I drew on evidence demonstrating how the media often view women as a novelty in the upper echelons of politics. For example, in her study of news coverage of four women prime ministers from New Zealand, Australia and Canada, Linda Trimble reveals that gender is explicitly referenced.
As she notes, we seldom see men asked about the challenges of being a male leader, and this informs assessments of female leaders’ performance. The research also shows this use of gender references is most common when a country experiences its first female political leader.
Yet when Ardern became Labour leader, throughout her tenure and on her departure from politics, it seemed her gender continued to have news value: we first read about “Jacindamania” just two hours after she became leader, followed by questions from talk show hosts about her motherhood intentions.
The following year, a BBC interviewer asked about Ardern’s feminist credentials in light of her intention to marry her partner, and whether she felt guilt about being a working mother.
Even in late 2022, Ardern had to respond to a journalist’s suggestion that her meeting with then Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin was about them both being young female leaders.
Needless to say, both women rejected this outright, with Ardern pointing out the same question had not been directed at John Key and Barrack Obama.
Highlights of Jacinda Ardern’s valedictory address. Video: NZ Herald
Ardern’s ‘otherness’
The combination of being both a woman and the youngest prime minister in 161 years may have led to this personalised coverage. Certainly, having a baby while in office accentuated her as novel and newsworthy, nationally and internationally.
In her valedictory statement, Ardern implicitly addressed this “otherness”:
I leave knowing I was the best mother I could be. You can be that person and be here […] I do hope I have demonstrated something else entirely. That you can be anxious, sensitive, kind, and wear your heart on your sleeve. You can be a mother, or not, an ex-Mormon or not, a nerd, a crier, a hugger – you can be all of these things, and not only can you be here, you can lead.
New Zealanders will recall that Ardern did not seek the party leadership ahead of the 2017 election. Furthermore, when all votes were counted, Labour was a distant second to the centre-right National Party in both votes and seats.
But by navigating Labour into an unlikely coalition with New Zealand First, Ardern positioned Labour to win at least two terms in office. Had National formed a government in 2017, it may have gone on to win again in 2020. After all, that party’s leadership had considerable experience in managing crises.
Great expectations That said, Ardern’s version of an ethics of care and her emphasis on kindness were new to New Zealand politics and important to pandemic management. This eventually became intolerable to those who opposed vaccine mandates and managed isolation, and those disturbed by policies and programmes aimed at realising the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
But Ardern’s non-adversarial, inclusive communication style, and her demonstrable competence, helped Labour win back a large number of women voters who had steadily abandoned the party during its time in opposition under a series of male leaders.
Not long after Ardern became party leader in 2017, one political columnist wrote
that she did not “have to become Labour’s Joan of Arc to succeed”. Those “expecting her to be the party’s salvation and deliver them the government benches”, the columnist went on, “have set their expectations too high”.
Perhaps by promising policy “transformation”, Ardern set her own expectations too high. And by being a relentlessly positive young woman leader, perhaps the gendered media coverage was inevitable.
But ultimately she succeeded in saving Labour from ongoing opposition, becoming the legend it was suggested she could be. And, as I witnessed in Canada, there are young people elsewhere who Jacinda Ardern has inspired to lead with kindness.
Change of tactics? . . . while the Indonesian military have increased their crackdown in West Papua some soldiers have also been engaged in a softer "socialisation" campaign in villages. Image: Human Rights Monitor
Indonesian security forces have intensified operations in various conflict areas in West Papua, reports Human Rights Monitor.
According to information received by the Germany-based watchdog, security force members have raided villages and set residential houses on fire.
The raids reportedly occurred in conflict hotspots in West Papua, predominantly in the Puncak, Nduga, and Intan Jaya regencies, but also in less conflict-affected places such as the districts Elilim and Apahapsili in the Yalimo regency on 1 and 2 April 2023 – two weeks before last weekend’s clash between Indonesian soldiers and pro-independence militia.
Indigenous Papuans, including women and children, were arrested and tortured.
Observers predicted an aggravation of the conflict weeks ago after the Indonesian military deployed more than 2000 additional personnel to West Papua throughout March 2023.
‘Ground combat ready’
Meanwhile, the Indonesian chief-of-armed forces, General Laksamana Yudo Margono, announced that the mode of operations against the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) was switched from a “soft approach” to “ground combat ready” operations after a disputed number of soldiers were killed in a firefight with TPNPB members in Nduga on 15 April 2023.
Meanwhile, the increased security force presence comes with government-driven “socialisation” programmes, where military and police members directly interact with local communities.
They participate in collective work, visit schools, and take over or accompany essential healthcare services.
For decades, many indigenous Papuans have been traumatised due to the history of violent military operations in West Papua, says Human Rights Monitor.
They fear becoming victims of arbitrary arrest, torture, killings, or enforced disappearance.
The military presence in schools, health facilities, and churches limits indigenous Papuans from accessing essential public services.
Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka in Suva today . . . "we are vulnerable to events . . . beyond our control." Image: Viliame Tawanakoro/Wansolwara
By Viliame Tawanakoro in Suva
Fiji’s Coalition government strongly believes that addressing the country’s priorities head-on is the cornerstone to building a progressive and prosperous nation for future generations, says Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka.
Speaking at the National Economic Summit 2023 in Suva today, Rabuka said the event was an opportunity for Fiji to take stock, make necessary changes, and move forward decisively.
Rabuka said the meeting would address daunting challenges faced by Fiji, including unsustainable national debt levels, geopolitical and global economic uncertainties, and the impact of the covid-19 pandemic, particularly on small island developing economies like Fiji.
“As a Small Island Developing State, we are vulnerable to such events which are beyond our control,” he said at the Grand Pacific Hotel.
“It is critical that we must make timely adjustments so that we can cope and be able to survive in the global trading environment.
“We have just been through one of the world’s worst pandemics of modern times, with covid-19. It affected the whole world.
Russian-Ukrainian war
“The Russian-Ukrainian war in Europe made our efforts to recover from the pandemic more challenging, particularly due to the supply-chain issues. We must address these challenges collectively through this summit, and craft solutions together as a nation.”
Rabuka, wearing an Adam Smith tie, referenced the renowned economist’s 1776 book The Wealth of Nations, and urged those implementing the summit’s outcomes to be mindful of Smith’s principles of free market and capital formation for economic growth.
The Prime Minister also noted a need to strengthen laws and institutions, as well as restore investor confidence and improve the business environment while protecting the country’s natural resources.
“We need to rebuild our infrastructure which has been neglected, and most importantly look at ways to ease the burden of the high cost of living for our people,” he said.
“We need to strengthen the private sector which we so glibly call the ‘engine of growth’. It is important to promote trade and build the confidence of the private sector.”
Strengthening multilateral and bilateral relations with Fiji’s trading and development partners was also a key point raised by Rabuka as he shared that the findings and recommendations from the summit would contribute to the formulation of the national budget and “our National Development Plan”.
“Reshaping our future means more than just promoting economic growth and development.
Brighter future
“A brighter future for our nation requires our communities to be united and move away from divisions,” he said.
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Professor Biman Prasad said plenary sessions had been organised to set the scene for more detailed discussions on macroeconomic management, key growth sectors, governance and reforms and human development.
“We have an intense two days ahead of us. We are putting special focus on critical issues such as water resource management, transport, energy and technology.
“We are also casting a wider net over rural and outer islands development, land and marine-based economic activities and indigenous participation in business.
“There are 32 specific subject areas for discussion,” Professor Prasad said.
It is understood each summit participant has been allocated a thematic working group with a communique expected to be issued at the conclusion of the event tomorrow.
Viliame Tawanakoro is a final-year student journalist at USP’s Laucala Campus. He is also the 2023 student editor for Wansolwara, USP Journalism’s student training newspaper and online publication. USP Journalism collaborates with Asia Pacific Report.
Participants of Fiji’s National Economic Summit 2023 at the Grand Pacific Hotel in Suva today. Image: Viliame Tawanakoro/Wansolwara
Some members of the Kanaky delegation in Paris . . . Gilbert Tyuienon (UC); Ernest Demene (FLNKS staff); Victor Tutugoro (UPM), signatory of Nouméa Accord; Mickaël Forrest (UC); and Aloisio Sake (RDO). Image: FLNKS
Brief reports have surfaced about the separate bilateral meetings of the Kanaky New Caledonia pro- and anti- independence representatives with French Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne in Paris last week. Here the leader of the Front de Liberation Nationale Kanak et Socialiste (FLNKS) delegation, Roch Wamytan, outlines their case as presented to Prime Minister Borne at the Hôtel Matignon on 11 April 2023.
By Roch Wamytan
First of all, allow me, Madam Prime Minister, to greet you on behalf of the Front de Liberation Nationale Kanak et Socialiste (FLNKS) delegation for this first meeting with you.
Despite the difficult situation prevailing in France, you were able to take some time in your busy schedule to discuss with our delegation and we recognise your significant consideration of the situation of New Caledonia (NC). We have also had the opportunity to communicate with you by phone with some of our delegation members and I thank you.
Today is the first time that we meet, and it is important to be able to discuss face-to-face and try to understand each other. It is a huge responsibility has been passed on to you, that of an ancient civilization characterised as “the Kanak people of Melanesian and Austronesian descent” which has been present in the Caledonian archipelago for more than 3000 years.
Close to 250 years ago (1774), this ancient people crossed the path of Europeans through James Cook, and then that of the French on September 24, 1853, the date of the possession of the islands by France. It is from this time onward that the chaotic history of relations between France and us, the Kanak people, began.
Almost 170 years later, we are still debating these relations that bind us: You as the representative of France, and us, the members of the FLNKS delegation, led by two of the signatories of the Nouméa Agreement, Victor Tutugoro and myself, accompanied by Gilbert Tyuienon, Mickaël Forrest, Jean Pierre Djaïwé, Digoue, Aloisio Sako, Jean Creugnet and our technical team.
Roch Wamytan, leader of the FLNKS delegation to Paris, pictured with Yael Braun-Pivet, President of the French National Assembly. Image: FLNKS
As you know, Madam Prime Minister, the FLNKS represents the national liberation movement of the colonised Kanak people, since the re-inscription in 1986 of New Caledonia on the United Nations’ list of countries to decolonise. Therefore, we stand in front of you as the representative of the governing authority of France, according to international law.
On February 26, 2023, the popular congress of the FLNKS and the nationalist and Indigenous movement has validated the unique and unitary trajectory for the country’s achievement of full sovereignty and independence, through negotiation with the governing authority, France, which is the governing power since the possession of New Caledonia on September 24, 1853.
For 170 years (September 24, 1853) we have lived under the governance of France, which has become since 1986 the administering power of the New Caledonia, the latter being considered a non-self-governing territory. This governance has never been accepted by our people and the genealogy of the struggle to free ourselves of it is well known. Allow me to share some key dates:
● From 1774 (arrival of James Cook) to 1853 (formal possession): People had to struggle against the harmful effects of microbial epidemics introduced by the first Europeans, faced with a population which lacked immunity. As a result, close to 90 percent of the population was eradicated. Survivors organised themselves and survived thanks to their ancestral resilience when faced with diseases and European invasion. Then, colonisation followed.
● From 1853 to 1924: The violent possession of land, the settlement of convicts and deportees, the revolts of chiefdoms and the bloody repression of the colonial army with its massacres, ethnocide, population displacement and transportation.
● From 1925 to 1946: The population reaches its lowest point, approximately 25,000 people. It is the point of departure for a rebirth, through reconstruction, the restructuring of chiefdoms with catholic and protestant missions.
● From 1945 to 1946: New Caledonia misses its first opportunity to achieve independence. Indeed, the President of the United States of America, [Franklin D.] Roosevelt, was of the idea that the French defeat would de facto, lead to the end of its empire, then in ruin. He was therefore planning on changing the status of Dakar, Indochina and other French possessions and was advising France to progressively give up its
possessions in Asia and Africa.
When it came to New Caledonia, this colony was to be removed from France and placed under the governance of the USA, similarly to Palau, before giving it its independence back. That is what the work of Marie Claude Smouts, researcher at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), shows in her book La France à l’ONU.
● From 1946 to 1958: It is the end of the Native Code, the Kanak people are granted citizenship and enter institutions. It also marks New Caledonia’s second missed opportunity to become independent since in the 1958 constitutional referendum where the electoral roll was predominantly Kanak.
Under the influence of the Catholic and Protestant churches supported by the European section of the Union Calédonienne (UC) party, this party opted for YES, and therefore to remain within the French Republic. The framework law or autonomy law was in turn put in place.
● 1963-1968 and 1975-1984: Abolition of the framework law and birth of the Kanak pro-independence movement. 1975 was the year of the “Mélanésia 2000” cultural revolution, and the creation of the Front Indépendantiste in 1979.
● 1984 – 1988: It was the semi-failure of the Nainville-les-Roches discussions, the creation of the FLNKS, and the Kanak nationalist insurrection and revolts which lasted four long years.
● 1988 – 1989: [This] was the year of the signing of the Matignon Agreement and one year [later] the murder of Jean-Marie Tjibaou and Yeiwene Yeiwene since they did not have the FLNKS mandate to sign this agreement. An agreement which aimed to restore peace and initiate the rebalancing, but not to settle the issue of independence.
● 1988-1998-2018: the country enters a process of emancipation and decolonisation with the Matignon and Nouméa agreements by having “rebalancing” and “the impartiality of the state” as guiding principles.
● 2018-2022: this was the series of three referenda which resulted, according to France, in three NOs to full-sovereignty and independence. A progression of the YES to full sovereignty and independence between the first and second consultations is, however, notable. The third one is not recognised as politically legitimate by the FLNKS and its regional and international support due to 60 percent of non-participation, which includes the almost entirety of the Kanak people.
This explains the procedure at the International Court of Justice at The Hague. It is possible to estimate that the participation of the Kanak population to a third referendum organised in normal and transparent conditions, with an impartiality of the State would have allowed the country’s achievement of independence.
However, it marked the third missed opportunity to reach independence in our chaotic history of relations with France.
This brief historical reminder traces a trajectory that began with the arrival of the Europeans in Oceania in 1774 and which will continue until the achievement of full sovereignty in the coming years as part of a renewed relationship with France and Europe for a country that will be fully integrated in its geographical area. This has been its history for 3000 years, and this will be its future.
Indeed, experience has demonstrated that in the history of decolonisation in the Maghreb region, in Asia, in sub-Saharan Africa and other parts of the world: the colonised never give up on the question of their asserted identity. It is the same for our people which have always fought against an oppressive and forced assimilatory system.
While it fought against a system, the Kanak people respect France and its inhabitants. France has a history that we respect: it is a great nation which defends universal values. Moreover, hundreds of our youth have given their life during the two world conflicts. France has brought us [the] Catholic and Protestant religion[s] as well as education. That is what the preamble of the Nouméa Agreement acknowledges.
Due to being unheard in its struggle against a colonial system, we can consider that the nationalist movement which started in the early 1970s was a response to the abolition of the framework law put in place by the 1958 constitution, then removed in 1963. The movement peaked in 1984-1988, with the painful events of Ouvéa, where the special troops of the French armed forces intervened to maintain the public order.
The number of Kanak leaders having lost their life during this period up until 1989 is significant, especially considering their quality and our small population. In light of this dead-end situation, the handshake between Jean-Marie Tjibaou, Jacques Lafleur, and Michel Rocard, as planned, allowed for peace to be restored.
And the rebalancing included in the Matignon Agreement approved by the national referendum of 1988.
This ten-year period between 1988 and 1998 was meant to be an opportunity for a more balanced development of the territory. The no. 1 text of the Matignon Agreement is entitled: “The condition for a lasting peace — The impartial State at the service of all.” The press release of June 26, 1988, also insists on this point: “The impartiality of the State must be guaranteed, the security and protection of all must be ensured”.
And on August 20, the Minister of Overseas Departments and Territories, Louis Le Pensec, declared before the agreement signing ceremony: “France can only be a referee if its spoken word inspires trust”.
In 1998, the Matignon Agreement gave way to a new agreement, the Nouméa Agreement, which won the support of the Kanak people but was rejected by the non-independence majority of the South[ern] Province. This agreement has received an almost unanimous approval from the Kanak people for several reasons:
– It maintained peace and allowed for the continuation of rebalancing policies;
– It allowed the construction of a project of society that would take colonialism into account, following the Nainville-les-Roches Agreement in 1983; [and]
– Its preamble and guidance document de facto recognised Kanak identity and committed to the establishment of a new governance of New Caledonia, in the form of a sui generis collectivity with autonomy, in a perspective of independence.
New Caledonia, whose vocation for independence was recognised following the 1988 national referendum, was taking the path of the construction of a common destiny resting on a “Caledonian citizenship” and the irreversibility of the process of decolonisation and emancipation.
Thus, for the colonised Kanak people, the responsibility of the State as the third partner of the Nouméa Agreement is to guarantee this irreversible and sincere process, allowing New Caledonia to endorse its vocation to be a sovereign state, like the other sovereign states in the region. That is the meaning of the massive YES which was given by the Kanak people at the referendum to ratify this agreement on November 8, 1998.
It was the same for the national referendum of November 6, 1988. Under no condition can these two referenda be considered a reason for yet another status of integration of New Caledonia within France.
For the Kanak people, the process of self-determination must continue to follow up on the two referenda of 2018 and 2020. The Nouméa Agreement, which remains the basis on which the future of New Caledonia must be permanently built and sealed, is clear and unambiguous both in the preamble and the guidance document: Decolonisation is the way to rebuild a sustainable social bond between the communities that live in New Caledonia.
A new step must be taken to mark the full acknowledgement of Kanak identity, conditional to the reviewing of the social relationship between all the communities that live in New Caledonia and through the sharing of sovereignty with France before the full sovereignty of the country to be.
The culminating point of this Agreement is completely unambiguous because: “The State recognises the vocation of New Caledonia to benefit from a complete emancipation at the end of this period.” This Agreement will then remain at its last development stage without the possibility of going back in the event that the consultations do not lead to the new political organisation suggested. This irreversibility being a constitutional guarantee.
However, based on the decisions concerning the third referendum specifically, and the statements made by French government officials, the Kanak people observe that once again, the French State never follows through with its promises, and that in the last moment, it systematically aligns its interest as a “great power” to the French population it has settled in New Caledonia.
It was the case in 1963, when the French government unilaterally decided to cancel the framework law which had granted a wide autonomy status to New Caledonia, thus reflecting General De Gaulle’s desire to rely on New Caledonia and French Polynesia for France’s ambitions as a great world power. It also reflected the wishes of the [New] Caledonian colonial Right. This rupture unilaterally decided by Paris, created the conditions for the birth of Kanak nationalism from the 1970s, followed by its radicalisation in 1984-1988.
Today, almost forty years after 1984, it would seem that we are witnessing the same scenario, especially since the use of the concept of Indo-Pacific, with a renewed alliance between the President of the Republic and the Caledonian loyalists. Clearly, since 2021 and the Minister [Sébastien] Lecornu, the organisation of the third referendum has been the scene of the tipping of the State’s position towards the “No to independence” camp, undermining the very principles of the Matignon and Nouméa Agreements, the impartial State at the service of all, which resulted in a deadly loss of trust.
Since the possession of the islands by France, everything is done or organised based on French, European or Western norms, usages, traditions, or social structures, with an almost blind application of them in the context of a traditional society that is fundamentally different. Thus, basic organisations, structures, concepts, or processes, which are not that of Oceanian societies, continue to be imposed, without question as to the degree of constraint or acceptation that it implies.
However, this society, like any Oceanian society, carries deep values, drawing on the spiritual world, nourished by the sacred and inhabited by a way of thinking in harmony with nature and the cosmos as it has been valued, anchored mythological corpus on par with the great Mediterranean civilizations. We have not invented all this, it has been made explicit and rehabilitated by academia and anthropological research.
For a long time, the representatives of the Kanak people, whether it be the great chiefs, political leaders, or religious leaders have asked the question “but why does France, the governing power, not hear us?” It remains deaf to our points, to what the Kanak people wants, because it is its right to recover its lost sovereignty. But France does not think so and does not respect the recommendations made by the United Nations. It does exactly the opposite or interprets what is presented to it within the framework of the defence of superior national interests.
Could France, for once, carry a process of decolonisation through? This unfinished process of decolonisation carried on into the third referendum, which the FLNKS considers a “stolen” referendum. Has France forgotten the history of the colonisation of this people and of its millennial civilisation?
The Melanesian civilisation is not an invention of the mind, it was demonstrated, scientifically confirmed by the community of researchers in the field of anthropology. Indeed, within the context of anthropology and approaching “deep nthought”, academic research led on the path of understanding the spirit of man and his relationship with the material and spiritual world around him. The aforementioned work provides for the first time an exploration and in-depth reading of the mythical thought of the Kanak people; thus, this research establishes the sacralising vision of ancient Kanak myths and an integral landscape of life in the Kanak world, the visible and the invisible; rehabilitating the power of myth in the 21st century and by attributing it an academic dignity, it valorises the cultural capital of people.
This work has been welcomed as a true exploration, both novel and original, it underlines the height and strength of Kanak deep thought and highlights fundamental themes such as cosmological knowledge, the power of symbols and archetypes, etc. This observation encourages the total recognition of the qualitative aspect of this people. However, the current evolution is not going in this direction and has never acknowledged these immaterial and intellectual resources. Therefore, its formalisation and institutionalisation is suggested, since the State cannot ignore the fundamental elements of Kanak society which can infer the proclamation of a prior sovereignty.
One cannot deny that the French presence in New Caledonia, the successive leadership and the institutional changes have never integrated in writing or in speech the “pre-eminence, the full and legitimate connection to their land (existential and ontological link, startling for the Cartesian mind, Kanak belong to their land, land does not belong to them) and the sacred and inalienable character of the presence and existence of the Kanak people, as well as the sovereignty they possess: the later comes from the people and is complementary to the immaterial heritage . . .”
On this note, customary senators expressed their deep gratitude to an academic researcher in structural anthropology, whose novel work was welcomed as having valued and sacralised the fundamentals which structure Kanak civilisation. This original contribution fills a gap and demonstrates that “others” can understand, respect, and give the Kanak people their essential and existential values back. Above all, this contribution disrupts the one directional relation, which prevents the establishment of a real exchange, and which leads to forceful imposition, regardless of the qualities and values of the other. We seriously believe that France can take a step that it has never taken before to show that it is a great nation capable, like the Kanak who welcomes others, of recognising “a timeless and original sovereignty”, an essential condition for sharing in acceptance and understanding.
Indeed, it constitutes a new approach because a part of Kanak civilisation was destroyed in its anthropological foundations and its sociocultural organisation by the violence of French possession and the imposition of a “pax romana” without any counterpart. The impacts are known: the annihilation of the history which precedes September 24, 1853, the loss of identity in relation to languages, land, culture, beliefs, etc. Kanak people’s ancestral land was considered “terra nullius”. This “terra nullius” status was assigned to make it “lawful” for better armed countries which pretended to be “more civilised” to seize, colonise and exploit territories and resources. That is in spite of the fact that, in our traditions, not one centimeter of land or maritime territory escaped the ontic link of belonging between the human and their land.
But in the meantime, the impacts on the being and doing of Kanak people have been of a great violence and these harms are still present in 21st century Kanak society. Some of these impacts have been acknowledged notably in the preamble of the Nouméa Agreement, but no solution followed, through a holistic approach which could have defined some “just” measures to implement so that the Kanak people could recover its dignity.
It is time for France to react because in New Caledonia, a sly colonialism or neocolonialism is currently at play, attempting to erase and negate the natural sovereignty of the Kanak people on its territory, condemning it to eternally look for a lost paradise. We do not want to die assimilated like a sugar cube in water and we will resist to survive. Fortunately, some moral voices make themselves heard to denounce this unjust system, as is the case with the Vatican.
In its “colonial” history, the Vatican shared discovered lands with different European Christian countries, among which Portugal, Spain, France, etc. It ended up ubi et orbi declaring the abandonment of the doctrine of discovery, which operated from the 16th century and provided a framework to lay possessive claims, to appropriate and to colonise, due to the destruction, damage, and other ills of colonisers. More recently, Pope Francis declared in a message addressed to the participants of the “colonisation and neocolonialism: a social justice and common good perspective” forum, which took place on March 30th and 31st, 2023 that neocolonialism is sly, that it is a crime, and that there isn’t any possibility of peace in a world that rejects some people in order to oppress them.
We even remember the unforgettable sentence marked by the “presidential” seal, of candidate Emmanuel Macron in Algeria, stating that colonisation is a crime against humanity. This gives more weight to the papal message. Restorative action is thus unavoidable and must lead to a deep reflection: Which people has suffered? To whom do we owe reparation and apology before imposing and controlling?
We do not ask for pity, nor do we beg or repent, a confessional notion. We only ask for justice through a holistic and recognised approach, that of transitional justice with its four pillars, to reinvigorate a damaged people, which drags generation after generation, the negative impacts on its being and its doing, as Solgenystine and other experts remind us on the topic of colonialism.
But we are also aware of the “cultural” difficulty for the great colonising countries to go in the direction of colonised countries. As evidence, in the work of French anthropologist François Pouillon on this issue:
Nations states hardly appreciate Native peoples, even more so when the latter manifest some inclination toward autonomy, or worse, independence. At stake is the power of sovereign states over the territories they govern and from which they most often exploit the Native populations which are marginal in their eyes. If they resist, they break the law and expose themselves to economic, juridical or even military sanctions.
Contemporary centralised states are more so convinced of their efficacy and legitimacy as they promote ideologies and values which they are always proud of: the development of their technical and medical knowledge, the “universality” of their confessional or secular beliefs, their “influence” in the world and, at last, their advanced position in the evolution of humankind, all of this supported, more prosaically, by a solid armament.
Native peoples, in their emphasis on their own territories, memories, institutions and knowledges, would only slow them down on their path to perfection.
This tyrannical self-satisfaction feeds on the conviction, as François Pouillon underlines, that “if others, abroad, sometimes have an enviable quality of life, in their closeness to nature and the spiritual warmth of their group (which, however, does not protect them from bloody dictatorships, ethnic cleanings, natural disasters and great modern pandemics), they are, we believe, in a pitiful political state and remain, after all, ‘backward’.” (Anthropologie des petites choses, Le Bord de l’eau, 2015)
Colonial attitudes feed off this “naïve evolutionism” from which contempt originates. From the lack of consideration to enslaved people in the Code Noir (royal decree passed in 1685 aiming to define the conditions of slavery and its practices in the French colonies) to the dehumanisation of Jewish and Tzigane [Roma] people in extermination camps, through the stigmatisation of “primitive” people and other “indigènes” of the colonies, the same deadly chant is sung: May impure blood water the fields of the civilization we embody.
These references are not historical since, today, Amazonia has been transformed into a gigantic inferno where the last Indians die, while Uighurs, Rohingya, Roma, Aboriginal people, African Americans, Native Americans and many others suffer a thousand deaths under the rule of nation-states convinced of being at the top of social and human progress.
Will Kanaks of New Caledonia also pay the price of the narcissism of the powerful? And thus, of France?
“Rebalancing” policies all over the Pacific, Native populations have already historically undergone a spectacular demographic decline (due to epidemics, massacres, poisonings), land spoliation from non-Indigenous people, both rural and urban, exclusion from the benefits of new economic initiatives (mining, extensive breeding, exportation) and the moral attacks of Western monotheisms.
The Tjibaou Cultural Centre on the outskirts of Noumea . . . an expression of Kanak identity. Image: Creative Commons
The paradox of New Caledonia is that France has recognised parts of its faults by committing, from 1988, to important “rebalancing” policies aimed primarily at Kanaks. Michel Rocard, when he was Prime Minister from 1988 to 1991, then Lionel Jospin, from 1997 to 2002, also supported the industrial ambitions of pro-independence leaders by enabling them to acquire a mine and to successfully extract, process and export nickel. At the same time, strong support for the expression of Kanak identity has marked the last thirty years with the creation of the Tjibaou Cultural Centre in May 1998, the revival of the Customary Senate [Kanak advisory assembly] and taking into account the Indigenous point of view in the courts.
These significant developments, which have never been questioned by the successive governments of the French Republic, have noticeably appeased the minds and improved the daily life of all Caledonians in general, and Kanaks in particular.
They were combined with unprecedented institutional measures: the scheduling of three referenda for self-determination, the creation of a special electoral roll used for polls open solely to Caledonians who had settled before 1994 and the urge to all the communities living in the archipelago to elaborate a “common destiny”. Alternative forms of sovereignity.
This momentum did not lead to New Caledonia’s access to full sovereignty in the first referendum on November 4, 2018, but it signaled a surprise surge in votes in favour of independence (43.3 percent), a cause which Caledonian of European, Asian or Oceanian descent have evidently joined. This trend was confirmed on October 4, 2020, with 47 percent of the population expressing their wish for New Caledonia to become independent. If this progression is significant, these results won’t change the outcome. The issue is not purely electoral or numerical.
Kanak delegation leader Roch Wamytan (second from right) with other members. Image: FLNKS
It refers to much deeper forces. Oceanians, despite being victims of a denial of existence, have created social organisations, practices and knowledge related to their doing and being that are specific to them. Through relations to land, legitimacies to power and counter power, strategies of political and matrimonial alliances, whether near or far, connections to the past, and visual and narrative creations, they have developed an alternative form of sovereignty to the monolithic and absolute one that is glorified by nation-states. The challenge of French and British colonisation has matured this nuance and complex political thought, which is a source of resistance and projects for the future. These gains are ineradicable and will not be phased by the ephemeral results of a referendum.
In this context, how can we forge a genuine dialogue?
It seems to us that it is high time for the governing authority to look at the “other” in order to have a mutual understanding, the basis of trust to create, promote, and walk together with the ability and willingness to share a “modus operandi” through the discussions and negotiations to come on the topic of other forms of governance.
Consensus proves to be a fundamental element in the important choices that we had to make for the evolution of New Caledonia in light of the challenges of 21st century.
You have no other choice than to integrate this practice specific to the Pacific or miss out on a successful statutory development project for New Caledonia.
Madam Prime Minister, your government would gain from being in a “win-win” approach, because everyone can assess what New Caledonia represents in this part of the world. We are ready to discuss it.
Building new relationships of trust between our two countries, committing to stability for the populations which have chosen to participate to New Caledonia’s prosperity, and lastly, mastering the stakes, notably environmental, that we will have to face are all challenges that we are willing to undertake. Therefore, the unique trajectory assumed by the FLNKS for the accession to full sovereignty and independence offers the outline that we wished to present to you.
The past 30 years of social stability have provided a conductive environment for the unprecedented development of our country. The irreversible process of decolonisation put in place by the Nouméa Agreement has placed New Caledonia in front of its growing responsibilities, leading us to be standing at the doors of the “concert of nations”.
Considering our emancipation process, the FLNKS believes that we are ready to assume the attributes of our sovereignty. Through a co-construction approach, we propose that the adoption of a political treaty enabling to seal a political basis for this final phase of statutory evolution be studied.
This political agreement will guarantee:
● Reaching an independence bilaterally negotiated with the governing power;
● The continuation of the irreversible process of decolonisation of New Caledonia;
● Obtaining an ultimate process that implements a programme of accession to
full sovereignty and independence; and
● Constitutionalising the political agreement and the accession to independence status, which includes the transition phase, the sovereignty act and the proclamation of the birth of a new state.
Since 1986, New Caledonia has been on the UN list of non-self governing territories. This acknowledgement on the international stage guarantees us rights without which our deepest aspirations would not have been heard. And as long as our ultimate conviction will not be respected, we will continue to make our struggle known.
Madam Prime Minister, this year will mark the 25th year since the Nouméa Agreement. It is our duty to cultivate this consensual state of mind, which has guided all the stakeholders to this juridical innovation that recognised “the shadows of colonisation”.
Madam Prime Minister, we will have to stand by the choices we make for our future generations. As far as we are concerned, it is our duty never to surrender our right to independence and we are convinced that the French State can succeed in the statutory evolution of New Caledonia, within the context of the UN’s Fourth International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism.
To conclude, Madam Prime Minister, this long introduction allows us to place in front of you a historical and political trajectory for the country to access full sovereignty and independence is a logical destiny. We would like to know the ambitions of the central government.
Thank you for your attention.
Roch Wamytan Head of Delegation
Members of the FLNKS delegation in Paris for the bilateral talks with the French government. Image: FLNKS
This statement has been lightly edited for publication style. Republished from Asia Pacific Report.
The captive NZ pilot Philip Mehrtens (in brim hat) . . . held hostage by West Papuan rebels seeking independence since February but the Indonesian government fails to heed past dialogue lessons. Image: TPNPB
By Singgih Wiryono in Jakarta
An Indonesian human rights researcher has cricitised his government’s failure to negotiate with West Papuan rebels, saying security officials should learn from the 2005 Aceh peace pact.
The Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) research and mobilisation division head, Rozy Brilian, said the Indonesian government had always refused to hold a dialogue with Papuan pro-independence fighters.
He gave this message during a virtual public discussion titled “Failing to Address the Roots of the Conflict and the Window Dressing of a Development Illusion” last Friday — just two days before several Indonesian soldiers were believed to have been killed in a clash with West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) rebels in the Papuan highlands.
The Indonesia soldiers were searching for New Zealand hostage pilot Philip Mehrtens who has been held captive since early February.
“The government always refuses to hold a dialogue with armed groups that the government refers to as KKB [armed criminal groups] even though the push for dialogue has often been encouraged by different parties,” said Brilian.
Yet, according to Brilian, the model of dialogue with an armed group has successfully been pursued by the Indonesian government in the past.
Aceh peace talks
Brilian gave the example of the Aceh peace talks conducted during the era of former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY).
“This dialogue then concluded in negotiations that produced a Memorandum of Understanding (Mou), or agreement, between the Indonesian government and GAM [Free Aceh Movement] in Helsinki,” said Brilian.
That pact brought peace after three decades of warfare.
According to Brilian, the current government should learn from earlier experiences of holding dialogue with armed groups.
In addition to this, said Brilian, Indonesia could also learn from the Philippines which succeeded in “taming” armed independence groups through dialogue.
“Learn from other experiences in the Southeast Asia region, dialogue between the government and pro-independence armed groups were once held by the Philippines government with the pro-independence Moro Islamic Liberation Front group,” he said.
Tavini Huira'atira leader Oscar Temaru . . . his pro-independence party has won a decisive first round victory in the Ma’ohi Nui territorial elections. Image: Tahiti Infos
SPECIAL REPORT: By Ena Manuireva in Pape’ete
As the ballots were counted after the first day of voting in Mā’ohi Nui/French Polynesia territorial election first round, the “blue wave” of the pro-independence party Tavini Huira’atira led by Oscar Temaru topped the seven party lists competing.
Tavini was followed by the pro-French incumbent governing party Tapura Huira’atira of Édouard Fritch and the surprise alternative group led by a former finance minister under Fritch, Nuihau Laurey.
As for the other autonomist-leaning political parties who did not reach the 12.5 percent threshold required to enter the second round, they would probably encourage their followers to vote for autonomy.
In this first round, 56 percent of the population voted for the members of the Parliament, who will then elect the territory’s President.
This first result has come as no surprise to Oscar Temaru, giving him and his party a two-week campaign to entice the other 44 percent who did not vote in the first round to choose “blue” on April 30.
Undemocratic voting system
When I interviewed Oscar Temaru before the elections, he repeated to me that it should be one vote, one person and that’s the way democracy should work.
However, because France decides on the voting system, it also decides on the allocation of bonus seats (33 percent) for the party that wins most votes in the 57-seat chamber.
This extra bonus seat ploy appeared in 2004 under Gaston Flosse under the pretence of achieving political stability.
This strategy only favours big parties and is likely to keep the same party in power for a long time.
It is part of France’s responsibility to decide the type of vote, to dictate when to vote and how to organise the voting system.
The 33 percent bonus seats was geared to favour the autonomist parties but had the opposite effect in 2004 — despite all predictions — and put the UPLD (union for Democracy, which included Tavini) in power.
Temaru is hoping for a repeat of 2004. By the end of the second round on April 30, we will have the answer on who is going to govern Mā’ohi Nui for the next five years.
How the seven party lists fared in the first round of the Ma’ohi Nui territorial elections. Image: EM
Temaru’s winning strategy
Riding on the back of their win at the last French national elections that saw all three seats allocated to Mā’ohi Nui/French Polynesia in the French Parliament won by pro-independence representatives, Temaru says it was a historic surprise for the French administration and for his people in Tahiti.
He knows that if he uses the same strategy for the territorial elections, he has a good chance of winning.
His approach is to concentrate on what he calls the “disillusioned youth”.
By applying the same approach, he is pitting youth against age because he noticed that the young people weren’t interested in the election because they were not given a voice.
When Oscar Temaru talks about young people, he means 18 to 35 years old — those who the governing administration do not see as potential voters and who rely on their “old guard” approach.
Temaru also talks about how the return of the Tahitian language during political meetings and rallies has had a huge influence on the Tahitian population that still represents about 75 percent of the electorate.
By giving the stage to young, committed and fluent speakers of both Tahitian and French, a whole new communication gap appears.
Fluent bilingual speakers
The pro-independence party offers a space for fluent bilingual speakers compared to the other sides’ representatives who are only fluent in French and speak hardly any Tahitian.
Temaru sees communication in politics as the winning formula.
If you control communication, you are in luck. That is what he did in the last elections in the capital city of Pape’ete for the first time and it was an important victory.
Temaru has also played on the generation gap that exists between the various candidates who are presenting themselves.
He cited veteran politician Gaston Flosse as the main example, emphasising that the future of the Mā’ohi people belongs to the young generation.
When Flosse presented himself in the last elections, he was 91 years old and the youngest lawmaker in the whole of the French Republic from Tavini was only 21 years old. There is a difference of more than three generations between these two candidates.
‘Disrespectful behaviour’
According to Oscar Temaru, the polls show that a huge number of people are against the Fritch government because of:
The “appalling handling “of the covid pandemic;
the intervention of the French government in the local health system;
the disrespectful behaviour of President Fritch against the opposition in parliamentary debates; and an unpopular new social tax that has penalised the poor even more.
People now look to the idea of independence as an alternative. Winning these elections would give the Tavini a historic majority in both the Territorial Parliament and the French National Assembly as the only representatives of Mā’ohi Nui would be pro-independence.
Oscar Temaru sees both victories as a stronger mandate enabling Mā’ohi Nui to go to the United Nations and discuss the issue of independence.
He says that every time he talks about Mā’ohi Nui as an independent country, the representatives for France stand up and leave — they don’t want to discuss it.
President Édouard Fritch would go to the UN and say that the population supported their attachment to the French state.
So, this is why it’s really critical for Oscar Temaru to win these elections and change many things in this country.
Internal discords at the Tavini
Is there a tug war between factions of the Tavini Huira’atira after one of the party’s pillars, Eliane Tevaitua, was replaced by a newcomer?
“No. Everybody understands that we have to work together – the older generation and new generation, we need to mix them up,” Temaru says.
“The young generation understands that they need the experience of people who know what is going on. It’s very easy to make them quickly operational because they are smart young people and very interested in politics.”
What Tahiti Infos reported on 28 March 2023 – wrongly: “After 4 years as the general secretary of the Tavini Huira’atira, Vannina Crolas has given her resignation last week after the political upheavals that happened among the Tavini ranks that shook the party. The leader of the Tavini Huira’atira has yet to accept her resignation.” (Translation). Image: Tahiti Infos/APR
When the long serving Tavini Huira’atira member of the Territorial Assembly was replaced, the online Tahiti Infos ran an article claiming that Tavini’s general secretary Vannina Ateo had offered her resignation to Oscar Temaru.
However, Ateo said she had never offered her resignation and this was a campaign of disinformation.
Tavini’s vision
Oscar Temaru: “If we win the territorial elections, we will be able to tell France, let’s sit around the table and talk about the future of our country in the presence of the UN as a referee.
“We will put on the table everything that concerns the people of this country. Let’s talk together step by step about agreements of cooperation in the different areas for the future.
“The UN will be the referee between us and France regarding those agreements.
“For us this will not be a repeat of the Noumea Accords because I am one of those who knew what happened exactly to the New Caledonia issue.
“In 1986 after the resolution was adopted by the UN to put New Caledonia on the list of countries to decolonise, there was no talk about going to Paris and meeting with the right-wing Jacques Lafleur.
“It was a decision taken by Jean-Marie Tjibaou and we knew after that the freemason people were the ones who worked behind the scenes to organise that meeting in Paris.
“So, it took more than 30 years from 1986 to 2008. And from 2008 until today the Noumea Accord has become a stalemate.
“We don’t want that kind of accord because while the Noumea Accord was being discussed, at the same time we have had a statute of autonomy which started in 1977 and is now 46 years.
“So, after the autonomy — call it as you like, autonomy management, autonomy intern, self-governance — no we don’t want any of those new titles for our country.
““We will not go through the nearly 40 years of negotiations that New Caledonia went through. For us the UN will fix the date for the referendum so maximum, let’s say 10 years.
“We want to put the economy of this country on the right track, to educate our people — that’s the main point, how to change the mindset of our people and that is a hard job.
“It won’t an easy discussion so we will need top people to go to the UN to talk to the French, because they don’t want to lose their stronghold on this country that is as huge and as big as Europe, with all the resources.
“So that’s why the French administration don’t want to lose it.
“Thanks to the UN for having adopted the last two resolutions in 2020 and 2021 which tell the French to respect our sovereign right and our rights on every resource on this country.
“If France loses this part of Ma’ohi Nui, it will lose everything and Noumea will follow suite when their turn comes again.”
In response to the last question, about Oscar Temaru himself — what is going to happen to him, he says “we will wait and see what God decides, aye!”
At the age of nearly 80, he still has the fighting spirit and he hopes that in five years’ time he will still be here.
“Maybe there will be a new leader for this country. I don’t know, but at the moment I am still fighting.”
Ena Manuireva is an Aotearoa New Zealand-based Tahitian doctoral candidate at Auckland University of Technology and a commentator on French politics in Ma’ohi Nui and the Pacific. He contributes to Asia Pacific Report.
Indonesia’s military confirms one soldier was killed and more are unaccounted for after clashes with the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB-OPM) rebels holding New Zealand pilot Philip Mehrtens hostage.
The West Papuans claim at least six soldiers were killed and a number taken prisoner during the Indonesian military’s rescue operation to find the civilian pilot for Susi Air captured on February 7.
An escalation of Indonesian actions has been flagged, with West Papuans claiming there were retaliatory helicopter airstrikes.
CPJ’s executive director Joel Simon warns of a sinister new threat . . . and this is in some respects more troublesome than the old style dictatorships. Image: Columbia School of Journalism/CPJ
This is part of a keynote address by Pacific Media Centre director Professor David Robie at the 2015 University of the South Pacific (USP) annual journalism awards. Part one of this address is here.
By David Robie
While there appear to be far more democracies in the world than ever before, the CPJ’s executive director Joel Simon says there is a sinister new threat.
And this is in some respects more troublesome than the old style dictatorships. Simon describes this new scourge in a recent book, The New Censorship: Inside the Global Battle for Press Freedom, as the “democratators”, those leaders who profess to be democratic but are actually subverting their mirage of open governance. As Simon says:
“What are these differences between dictators and democratators? Dictators rule by force. Democratators rule by manipulation. Dictators impose their will. Democratators govern with the support of the majority.
Dictators do not claim to be democrats – at least credibly. Democratators always do. Dictators control information. Democratators manage it.”
Simon points out that democratators win elections yet while they may be free, they are not really fair, meaning they are decided by fraud.
He has a growing list of leaders that fit this label, including Latin American “populists” like Rafael Correa of Equador and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, “European backsliders” like Viktor Orban of Hungary and Viktor Yanukovych, the deposed former president of Ukraine, and African leaders such as Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Jacob Zuma of South Africa.
Also high on Simon’s list of media threats is the way terrorism has impacted on how big media groups currently go about their global news-gathering. Conscious of the ever-present threat of ritualised kidnappings and bombings, journalists are sometimes forced to report from bunkers and are less enthusiastic about meeting uncertain sources in case they might be abducted.
Journalism under duress. Video: Pacific Media Centre
‘There is a sinister new threat’
Even the appearance of journalists sometimes makes them look like an extension of the military — with helmets, flak jackets and camouflage fatigues. This accentuates their targeting by fundamentalist groups who regard them as an extension of the “state”.
China is the elephant in the room when it comes to freedom of information. While China’s leaders embrace the internet, they believe they can, and ought to, control the web. It is clear that China has the technological means and resources to make internet control a reality.
Chinese authorities use monitoring and filtering to keep a lid on the cyberspace “conversation” to prevent repercussions.
United States responses to the Wikileaks scandal in 2013 and the massive surveillance revelations by Edward Snowden encouraged allegations of hypocrisy from critics pointing out that Washington’s commitment to internet freedom dragged when its own geopolitical interests appeared threatened.
Earlier this month in 2015, I had the good fortune to be in Brussels as one of the people giving feedback at a stakeholders meeting for a massive European Union-funded research project on the media reporting on six major violent conflicts around the world, including the Syrian civil war and conflict in Burundi.
Story of an editor
While there I happened to pick up a new “Euro” style newspaper called Politico, which steered me to a remarkable media development in Spain with the headline: “He brings news of the future”
“Who was he?” asks the subeditor in me when it was always drummed into us to have a name in the headline. (The online version changed the headline).
This was the story of Pedro J. Ramírez, one of the leading editors in Spain, who had been in charge of El Mundo for 24 years. But he was sacked by his newspaper’s owners.
Why? Because under his leadership, El Mundo pursued a robust investigation into corruption implicating the governing Popular Party and the Prime Minister [Mariano Rajoy].
When he was fired, Ramírez used his massive €5.6 million pay-out to help fund a new online newspaper, El Español. His pay-out plus record-breaking crowdfunding doubled what had been previously raised by a new Dutch publishing venture, De Correspondent.
Another interesting success story has been in France, where investigative journalist Edwy Plenel, famous for his Rainbow Warrior bombing investigation in 1985 for Le Monde, founded Mediapart.
He has assembled a team of some 60 journalists and his fearless brand of investigative journalism is shaking up the establishment.
Innovative ventures
Even in New Zealand, where the mediascape is fairly dire with hundreds of jobs cut in recent years — and a loss of 180 jobs in a recent shake-up at Fairfax New Zealand, the country’s biggest news publisher, there are stunningly innovative things happening.
Pacific Scoop talks to Dr David Robie. Video: Pacific Media Centre
This brings me to the achievements of the University of the South Pacific and its talented new crop of graduates. Close to 200 USP journalism graduates are now contributing to the Fiji and the Pacific region’s media and related careers.
Through its long-standing award-winning newspaper Wansolwara — now 19 years old, surely a remarkable accomplishment for any journalism school in the Australasian and Pacific arena, the student journalists have played an important role in independent, engaging and truth-seeking journalism.
Personally, I shall always remember with pride my experiences with USP and Wansolwara over the five years I was with the campus — the longest by far of any expatriate educator. Wansolwara was founded by student editor Stan Simpson and lecturer Dr Philip Cass. And Pat Craddock of the USP Media Centre was another key person in building up the programme.
One of the highlights for me was the reporting of the George Speight coup in May 2000 by the courageous USP students. They won many awards for this.
It was thanks to the groundwork and experience that I gained at both USP and previously UPNG as a journalist turned academic that I was able to go to the next level at the Pacific Media Centre.
Blending media studies, journalism
There I have been able to blend some of the best elements of academic media studies and practical journalism that makes a difference.
A tribute too to Dr Shailendra Singh and his team, Irene Manarae, Eliki Drugunalevu and Dr Olivier Jutel. Shailen was recently the first home-grown academic at USP to gain a PhD in journalism at the University of Queensland with the first major survey of the Fiji mediascape for more than a decade. Congratulations Shailendr for a very fine thesis!
My concluding message to graduating student journalists is that no matter what government, political or industry pressure you face, you should hold on strongly to your core values of truth, accuracy, honesty and courage in the public interest.
Our communities deserve the best from their media in these deceitful times. University media are among the few that can still be trusted and they should do their best to contribute to democracy with integrity.
So go for it and change the world to the way it should be!
French Ambassador Michel Djokovic (third from left), head of USP Journalism Dr Shailendra Singh (fourth from left) and Pacific Media Centre director Professor David Robie (fifth from right) with the prizewinners at the 2015 University of the South Pacific journalism awards. Image: Lowen Sei/USP Journalism
In a keynote address at the 2015 University of the South Pacific (USP) journalism awards, Pacific Media Centre director Professor David Robie, formerly head of USP’s South Pacific regional journalism programme in its early stages, reflects on the progress and challenges facing media in the Pacific and worldwide. This is the first in a two-part report of his speech. Part two is here.
By David Robie
As I launched these awards here at the University of the South Pacific in 1999 during an incredibly interesting and challenging time, it is a great honour to return for this event in 2015 marking the 21st anniversary of the founding of the regional Pacific journalism programme.
Thus it is also an honour to be sharing the event with Monsieur Michel Djokovic, the Ambassador of France, given how important French aid has been for this programme.
France and the Ecole Supérieure de Journalisme de Lille (ESJ) played a critically important role in helping establish the journalism degree programme at USP in 1994, with the French government funding the inaugural senior lecturer, François Turmel, and providing a substantial media resources grant to lay the foundations.
I arrived in Fiji four years later in 1998 as head of journalism from the University of Papua New Guinea and what a pleasure it was working with the French Embassy on a number of journalism projects at that time, including an annual scholarship to France for journalism excellence.
These USP awards this year take place during challenging times for the media industry with fundamental questions confronting us as journalism educators about what careers we are actually educating journalists for.
When I embarked on a journalism career in the 1960s, the future was clear-cut and one tended to specialise in print, radio or television. I had a fairly heady early career being the editor at the age of 24 of an Australian national weekly newspaper, the Sunday Observer, owned by an idealistic billionaire, and we were campaigning against the Vietnam War.
Our chief foreign correspondent then was a famous journalist, Wilfred Burchett, who at the end of the Second World War 70 years ago reported on the Hiroshima nuclear bombing as a “warning to the world”.
Human rights, justice
By 1970, I was chief subeditor of the anti-apartheid Rand Daily Mail in South Africa, the best newspaper I ever worked on and where I learned much about human rights and social justice, which has shaped my journalism and education values ever since.
I travelled overland for a year across Africa as a freelance journalist, working for agencies such as Gemini, and crossed the Sahara Desert in a Kombi van. It was critically risky even then, but doubly dangerous today.
Eventually I ended up with Agence France-Presse as an editor in Paris and worked there for several years. In fact, it was while working with AFP in Europe that I took a “back door” interest in the Pacific and that’s where my career took another trajectory when I joined the Auckland Star and became foreign news editor.
The point of me giving you some brief moments of my career in a nutshell is to stress how portable journalism was as a career in my time. But now it is a huge challenge for you young graduates going out into the marketplace.
You don’t even know whether you’re going to be called a “journalist”, or a “content provider” or a “curator” of news — or something beyond being a “news aggregator”– such is the pace of change with the digital revolution. And the loss of jobs in the media industry continues at a relentless pace.
Fortunately, in Fiji, the global industry rationalisations and pressures haven’t quite hit home locally yet. However, on the other hand you have very real immediate concerns with the Media Industry Development Decree and the “chilling’ impact that it has on the media regardless of the glossy mirage the government spin doctors like to put on it.
We had a very talented young student journalist from the Pacific Media Centre here in Fiji a few weeks ago, Niklas Pedersen, from Denmark, on internship with local media, thanks to USP and Republika’s support. He remarked about his experience:
“I have previously tried to do stories in Denmark and New Zealand — two countries that are both in the top 10 on the RSF World Press Freedom Index, so I was a bit nervous before travelling to a country that is number 93 and doing stories there ….
“Fiji proved just as big a challenge as I had expected. The first day I reported for duty … I tried to pitch a lot of my story ideas, but almost all of them got shut down with the explanation that it was impossible to get a comment from the government on the issue.
“And therefore the story was never going to be able to get published.
“At first this stunned me, but I soon understood that it was just another challenge faced daily by Fiji journalists.”
Pacific leaders speak out with ‘one voice’ on climate change. Video: Niklas Pedersen/Pacific Media Centre
Climate storytelling
This was a nice piece of storytelling on climate change on an issue that barely got covered in New Zealand legacy media.
Australia and New Zealand shouldn’t get too smug about media freedom in relation to Fiji, especially with Australia sliding down the world rankings over asylum seekers for example.
New Zealand also shouldn’t get carried away over its own media freedom situation. Three court cases this year demonstrate the health of the media and freedom of information in this digital era is in a bad way.
• Investigative journalist Jon Stephenson this month finally won undisclosed damages from the NZ Defence Ministry for defamation after trying to gag him over an article he wrote for Metro magazine which implicated the SAS in the US torture rendition regime in Afghanistan.
• Law professor Jane Kelsey at the University of Auckland filed a lawsuit against Trade Minister Tim Groser over secrecy about the controversial Trans Pacific Partnership (the judgment ruled the minister had disregarded the law);
• Investigative journalist Nicky Hager and author of Dirty Politics sought a judicial review after police raided his home last October, seizing documents, computers and other materials. Hager is known in the Pacific for his revelations about NZ spying on its neighbours.
There is an illusion of growing freedom of expression and information in the world, when in fact the reverse is true
Legacy media failure
Also, the New Zealand legacy media has consistently failed to report well on two of the biggest issues of our times in the Pacific — climate change and the fate of West Papua.
One of the ironies of the digital revolution is that there is an illusion of growing freedom of expression and information in the world, when in fact the reverse is true.
These are bleak times with growing numbers of journalists being murdered with impunity, from the Philippines to Somalia and Syria.
The world’s worst mass killing of journalists was the so-called Maguindanao, or Ampatuan massacre (named after the town whose dynastic family ordered the killings), when 32 journalists were brutally murdered in the Philippines in November 2009.
Philippines : Testimonies of the Maguindanao massacre Video: Reporters Without Borders
But increasingly savage slayings of media workers in the name of terrorism are becoming the norm, such as the outrageous attack on Charlie Hebdo cartoonists in Paris in January. Two masked gunmen assassinated 12 media workers — including five of France’s most talented cartoonists — at the satirical magazine and a responding policeman.
In early August this year, five masked jihadists armed with machetes entered the Dhaka home of a secularist blogger in Bangladesh and hacked off his head and hands while his wife was forced into a nearby room.
According to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists in figures released this year, 506 journalists were killed in the decade between 2002 and 2012, almost double the 390 slain in the previous decade. (Both Reporters Sans Frontières and Freedom House have also reported escalating death tolls and declines in media freedom.)
Asia Pacific Media Network chair Dr Heather Devere presents a bouquet to Tuwhera's Donna Coventry at the Asia Pacific Media Network's AGM yesterday. Image: Nik Naidu/PMW
A media network publishing an international research journal has vowed to expand its activities into community media and training initiatives.
The non-profit Asia Pacific Media Network, publisher of the ranked Pacific Journalism Review, says media and community advocates believe there is a need for minority and marginalised groups that feel neglected by the mainstream.
Network chair Dr Heather Devere told the annual general meeting of the publishing group in Mt Roskill yesterday that now that APMN had been consolidated it could turn to some of its wider community goals.
The Asia Pacific Media Network’s AGM yesterday. Image: PMW
Members from Australia, Fiji and Tahiti joined their New Zealand colleagues via Zoom in discussing many plans, including community media mentoring and training for diversity groups.
A proposal for a media conference in Suva, Fiji, next year by Pacific journalism associate professor Shailendra Singh was tabled and adopted in principle.
Dr Devere told the members that the network, established in 2021 to fill the void left by the closure of the Pacific Media Centre and to take on publication of PJR, had made great progress.
The ad hoc group was registered as an incorporated society last year.
“This first year of APMN we have concentrated on establishing a sustainable network that maintains the respected reputation that had been established at the Pacific Media Centre,” Dr Devere said.
“And I am happy to report that thanks to the commitment of a number of people who have the skills and expertise to continue some of this work, APMN is in a good place to look at moving forward into the coming year from a firm base.”
Members of Asia Pacific Media Network at their annual general meeting in the Whānau Hub in Mt Roskill yesterday. Image: David Robie/PMW
Pressing need
Community advocate Nik Naidu, an APMN member from the host Whānau Community Centre and Hub, said there was plenty of potential for the new network and there was a pressing need for media skills training to empower marginalised groups.
Retired Sydney journalism professor Chris Nash lamented that journalism schools had become very conservative and were “failing journalism”.
Pacific Journalism Review founder Dr David Robie and network deputy chair said he was encouraged by the developments and believed that APMN was consolidating its innovative role.
Current editor Dr Philip Cass said work on the July 2023 edition of PJR was underway.
“We have received a number of submissions that fall far outside our frame of reference from very distant countries,” he said.
“While this is slightly puzzling, it does indicate how far our name has travelled.”
‘Excited’ by developments
This second AGM of the network attracted new supporters, including Filipino media educator, filmmaker and PSTv5 podcaster Rene “Direk” Molina and broadcaster and community social media campaigner Ernestina “Tina” Bonsu Maro.
Some of the publications on AUT’s Tūwhera platform, including Pacific Journalism Review and Pacific Journalism Monographs. Image: PMW
Maro, of Pacific Media Network, who works with Cook Islands and African communities, said she was “excited” by the developments.
“We need more opportunities to tell our own stories,” she said. “The mainstream media isn’t interested in us or our stories.”
Pacific Journalism Review, founded at the University of Papua New Guinea in 1994, has published two independent editions with the APMN, and hopes to celebrate its 30th year in Suva next year.
A presentation was made to AUT scholarly communications librarian Donna Coventry and the Tūwhera digital journals platform team in gratitude for the “tremendous” support for PJR since the online edition was launched in 2016.
Broadcaster and community campaigner Ernestina “Tina” Bonsu Maro . . . “We need more opportunities to tell our own stories.” Image: David Robie/PMW
