Niuean policewoman Sisiliah Puleheloto was working in the Solomons with the RAMSI police force. She is one of two people confirmed drowned in the Princess Ashika tragedy in Tongan waters. The ferry capsized last Wednesday carrying 141 passengers - 93 people are still missing.
NUKU'ALOFA: Energetic and outgoing, young Niuean policewoman Sisiliah Puleheloto is remembered as a happy, smiling person who loved serving her own community and the people in the Solomons. The 24-year-old woman was working on the RAMSI mission before coming to Tonga last week for a joyful reunion with her cousins.
Her Tongan cousin 'Akesa Luani, of Puke in Tongatapu, said Sisiliah was looking forward to a trip on the ferry to the outer islands, and on Wednesday afternoon had boarded the ill-fated Princess Ashika with 'Akesa's brother, Dwenelle, 25.
"Unfortunately the dream holiday has turned into a nightmare, which has cost her life and the lives of many innocent people. I am shocked and still can't get over the fact that Sisiliah is one of the victims and I will never see her happy face again," says 'Akesa, who is now dressed in black.
Gripping seats Dwenelle, who returned as a survivor, was in tears when recalling the tragedy. He last saw Sisiliah gripping the seats inside the passenger lounge, as the floundering ferry rolled over, swamped by waves in the middle of the night.
Sisiliah remains one of the 93 people who are missing after the ferry sank in Ha'apai waters on Wednesday, August 5.
With one female body recovered so far, 'Akesa feared for the worst and was down at the Longolongo Police station on Saturday morning, August 8, giving police a full description and a photograph of Sisiliah.
"But they said it's not her," she says.
'Akesa's elder sister 'Ana also emailed from New Zealand, trying to find out about Sisiliah. She said her family there are absolutely devastated with the news that she is still missing.
Service She said that Sisiliah, a New Zealand citizen, a police officer for the Niue Police Force, was currently serving in the Solomon Islands under the Regional Assistance Mission (RAMSI).
She arrived in Tonga for the first time on Monday, August 3, on leave from work. Because it was her first visit, Sisiliah wanted to do some sightseeing and see what it was it like in the outer islands.
"She had so much to live for she enjoyed working and serving the people in the Solomons. And she just had so many dreams and vision for the future," says 'Akesa.
Outgoing Sisiliah is being described by both her cousins in Tonga and New Zealand as a very outgoing, energetic and down to earth person who was always happy and smiling.
"She loves children, her job and working with the community. We are not giving up hope that she may still be alive out there, waiting for help to come. She's a strong person and I am sure she is out there somewhere," says 'Akesa.
Sisiliah was due back for duty in the Solomons at the end of the month and was to depart Tonga this week.
Devastated Dwenelle, who accompanied his cousin, said he happened to go out onto the upper open deck of the ferry to have a smoke and talk with a friend, while Sisiliah remained inside the passengers' lounge.
Then suddenly, as the ferry overturned, the water came up so quickly that he could not get back into the passenger room to help her. He said that as he was gripping onto the seat outside on the deck, he last saw her gripping onto the seats inside the passenger room as well.
"I am thankful that I am alive, but I am still devastated that my cousin didn't make it and is still missing out there," he says tearfully.
Dwenelle had Sisiliah's camera, which showed the happy pictures of her Solomon's service and reunion with her cousins.
PORT VILA: The Suva-based Pacific Islands News Association (PINA) continues to struggle to establish itself as a champion of media freedom in the Pacific Islands.
Meeting in Port Vila last week, about 200 PINA members and observers from around the region were addressing the important issue of access to information.
But what appeared to be a sincere intention by the former PINA board to turn its biannual convention into a Pacific Media Summit under the theme "Breaking Barriers - Access to Information'" did not live up to expectations.
Despite the great effort to attract as many participants as possible to attend the Vanuatu PINA inaugural summit, their contributions did not see the light of day, because most participants were not permitted to attend the AGM, and so some serious observations made by working journalists and media people were not translated into the decision-making process.
No decisions The few members who were tasked to evaluate and to take action on matters raised during plenary sessions and panel discussion simply could not make any decision, and for the first time ever at the end of a PINA convention there was no communiqué.
The PINA secretariat and its board restricted its thinking capacity by closing its membership registration in March, so that any member who did not pay its membership fees by March 31 would not be able to vote at the annual general meeting in July.
Unfortunately, many regular members of PINA had not paid their dues by that date and so were not permitted to either attend or to vote in the AGM in Vanuatu, although they were present to participate in the various workshops, plenary and other sessions preceeding the AGM.
It was an unfortunate decision to disallow voting of a significant number of members who were there, particularly at a time when PINA needed as many constructive contributions that it could get to help with its decision-making process.
A mere 24 members (who were paid-up at March 31) were left to deal with the numerous pressing issues that PINA has to deal with to regain its credibility.
Fiji media suppression The Fiji government suppression of its media dominated the summit plenary sessions, for very good reasons, because the PINA secretariat and its regional news outlet PACNEWS are based in Suva, Fiji, and of course participants were saddened by stories of Fijian journalists of how their work was being censored and how they were working under threat by the military government. Even the Fiji journalists testimony in Vanuatu was made difficult by the presence of Fiji military censors taking part in the meeting who said they were there to report back to their military government.
It appears that PINA voluntarily decided to become a lap dog instead of a watchdog:
* PINA shied away from revoking the PINA membership of the Fiji Ministry of Information - the same ministry that places censors in news rooms in Fiji;
* PINA brushed off the suggestion to remove the PINA secretariat and the PACNEWS from Fiji;
* PINA did not make a strong statement against media suppression in Fiji, which had been a proposition that a majority of participants supported during the summit.
Meanwhile, one of two decisions that the PINA AGM made that was relayed through the "coconut wireless'" was that there had been a new approach to the selection of the president and the vice-president of PINA.
The president of the host country, in this case Vanuatu, would become president and the vice president would be the president of national news association that will host the next PINA convention, the Cook Islands.
The new PINA board members are:
President: Mosese Stevens, president of the Vanuatu Media Association, a public relations consultant Vice-President: John Woods, editor of the Cook Island News Radio representative: managing director of the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Commission TV representative: Tapinga Lavemaau, a camera operator with the Tonga Broadcasting Commission Print representative: Michael Jackson, publisher/editor of a newspaper in Niue National organisations representative, Samisoni Pareti, a journalist with Islands Business International, Fiji. (Fiji apparently no longer has a national media association).
Feeble The feeble outcome of the PINA Pacific Media Summit 2009 is a matter of grave concern for many Pacific Islands journalists and media people who sincerely believe that there is still a need for a credible regional news association.
A pioneering new Pacific studies programme at Tonga’s ‘Atenisi University is set to change the way Tongan and Pacific history has been written, while embracing the institute’s classical philosophy.
“Traditionally history passed through generations orally and writing is a comparatively new thing,” says Pacific studies researcher Dr ‘Opeti Taliai.
The past was originally documented by missionaries who came to the Pacific in the 19th century and was therefore written from a colonial and outsider perspective, he says.
‘Atenisi Institute is encouraging Pacific Island students to rewrite their own history from an insider indigenous perspective.
“The emphasis on the new programme will be to encourage Pacific Island scholars and people that come from a background of oral history to start writing their own history,” says Dr Taliai, one of six international scholars inducted as fellows of the institute in a ceremony last month.
The four-day celebration honoured the life and achievements of founder and philosopher Professor Futa Helu.
Although the course structure is based on the history of the Pacific region, an emphasis is placed on research and the problems associated with it in the Pacific and the paradox of the insider and outsider viewpoint.
He says using the insider perspective with an outsider training will pull together both sides and give a clearer point of view.
“It ensures ‘Atenisi’s Pacific Studies will be able to publish a clearer interpretation and provide balance in the discourse and unity,” says Dr Taliai.
Misunderstanding can come from the misinterpretation of language.
“Tongan language is heliaki and this is quite common throughout the Pacific,” he says. “It is saying one thing and meaning another.”
Literal translation “In comparison, English is a literal translation,” says Dr Taliai.
“Tongan language is poetic and English language scientific” and it is important to acknowledge the differences in the two languages, he says.
“English people go straight to the point and Tongan people go around and around before coming to the point because Tongan society is hierarchical and stratified.”
The key element in such a society is respect of people and their superiors.
“In Tongan society, we don’t go straight to the point as in Western society,” he says.
Special places and sacred historical places are used symbolically for particular chiefs and high-ranking officials and these symbolic places take the place of the high-ranking person in the conversation.
“We start with different places associated with those superiors,” he says.
It is common to use geographic locations and flora significant to chiefs and other high-ranking officials.
“Places they have come from and certain flowers can be very significant and these are distinguished in a metaphorical way,” says Dr Taliai.
To understand this it is necessary to know what and where these places are that people are using and talking about.
“This underlying meaning is only known to the indigenous people,” says Dr Taliai.
“We are starting to see more books written by indigenous people and we want to see more of that.”
Equal emphasis There will be equal emphasis on teaching and research, says Dr Taliai.
The Pacific studies programme wants to recruit people who will teach and research at the same time and postgraduates who are already doing research in the Pacific.
“We hope to achieve from this programme more understanding of one another, not only in the Pacific but in the world.”
What makes the ‘Atenisi University Pacific studies programme different from the University of South Pacific in Fiji and other universities in Auckland is the method of analysis used in looking at data, oral traditions and literature, he says.
Dr Taliai says his life changed when he started attending ‘Atenisi Institute.
“I started to question,” he says.
“Education and religion co-exist like a coin,” says Dr Taliai. He says they cannot be separated and sees education as being scientific and objective while religion is mainly subjective.
Dr Taliai recently completed a PhD in social anthropology. His thesis, “The legitimation of economic and political power in Tonga: A critique of Kauhala’uta and Kauhalalalo Social Moieties”, discusses how the struggle for the control of power works in Tonga.
Tonga is a stratified society and has kings, nobles, and commoners; who make up the majority of the population he says. “The power in Tonga is in the hands of a very small group,” says Dr Taliai.
“In the Tongan riots people questioned the way the country was run and the position of the monarchy and started to demand the decentralisation of power,” he says.
Future dream His investigations throughout his PhD researched the relationships and interconnectedness between Tonga and other Pacific Islands into parts of South East Asia. He wants the Pacific studies programme to be filled from people all over the Pacific.
“You can’t separate the rest of the Pacific from Tongan history,” he says.
My dream in the future will be to bring in experts and students from the Pacific and we will work together to write a comprehensive history of the Pacific from both the insider and outsider perspective, says Dr Taliai.
“The ideal student will have a combination of western methodology of analysis and local knowledge.”
Dr Taliai describes ‘Atenisi Institute as a small but independent institution. He relates it to the institute’s Latin motto, Pauca sed matura which translates literally as few, but ripe.
“It is always small but the outcome of the product is mature,” he says.
“We will do it more effectively at ‘Atenisi because there is also the philosophy in place to develop it further,” he says.
The institute’s name ‘Atenisi is Tongan for the Greek capital, Athens. It was founded by professor emeritus Dr Futa Helu who embraced the scientific and democratic ideals of the ancient Greeks into ‘Atenisi Institute’s philosophy of education.
It places criticism at the very heart of education and has as part of its core curriculum traditional subjects such as philosophy, logic, art and literature. It is unique compared to other educational institutions in the Pacific region, which are described as utilitarian in nature.
‘Atenisi Institute is portrayed as a “people’s university” and many of its students come from isolated and poor communities.
Picture: Dr 'Opeti Taliai (right) next to Professor Futa Helu at the fellowship induction at 'Atenisi Institute last month. Also pictured are Dr David Robie and Dr Ian Campbell. Photo: Pacific Media Centre.
Pippa Brown is an AUT Graduate Diploma in Journalism student on internship with the Pacific Media Centre.
A New Zealand-based Pacific radio network has moved to defuse a controversy over a Fijian-language interview critical of the Methodist Church and alleged involvement of some leading clergy in past coups.
Pacific Media Network acting chief executive Tom Etuata told Pacific Media Centre reporter Pippa Brown today that the ban on experienced broadcaster Bulou Amalaini Ligalevu-Legge had been lifted after she had been suspended off air following last month’s wide-ranging interview with Citizens’ Constitutional Forum executive director Rev Akuila Yabaki.
Yabaki also spoke about the abrogation of the Fiji constitution, censorship of the media and freedom of expression in the June 6 broadcast, but the programme's criticism of the Methodist Church in the wake of the regime’s cancellation of the annual conference drew three written complaints to Radio NiuFM/531pi.
The controversy was picked up by the independent media watchdog blog Café Pacific.
Etuata said the radio tried to achieve balance in its programmes.
“She was suspended only from one programme, not from work,” he said. “She is still being employed as an announcer while we investigate and get an independent translation because we did get a number of complaints.
“Our community radio aims to provide both views of the topic and provide balance as a responsible broadcaster on air.”
Bulou Amalaini said the off air suspension was “very unfair”.
She denied claims by complainants that she was a supporter of regime leader Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama, saying little information was coming out of Fiji and she had been trying to provide more insight and research into political developments.
'Too scared' Formerly of Radio Fiji and with 25 years’ broadcasting experience,” Bulou Amalaini said: “People are too scared to talk, but Rev Yabaki was not too scared to be interviewed.”
Rev Yabaki, who is an outspoken champion of human and constitutional rights in Fiji, spoke about the Methodist Church after the banning of the conference, saying Fiji’s largest and most influential religious institution was “in disarray”.
“If you look at the history of the stand that the Methodist Church has taken in the past 20 years, you will note that it supported the first coup of 1987 and also George Speight’s coup in the year 2000,” he said.
“But it opposed the coup of 2006 because it believes that Fiji should be governed by Fijians, who are their members, as if it were their divine right.
“This was the case when Dr Timoci Bavadra and Mahendra Chaudhry’s Labour Party won the general elections of 1987 and 1999.”
One complainant to 531pi/Niu FM said: “It would have been fair ... if Ligalevu [had interviewed] a member of the church in New Zealand or an official of the church in Fiji on matters concerning the church.
“But to do exactly the opposite does not only degrade the biggest domination in Fiji but also angers the members of the church who are in New Zealand.”
Bulou Amalaini said she had been told by the station management that "the interview was good but it was not balanced - that I should have interviewed somebody from the Methodist Church as well".
She said Fijian programme producer Nemai Vucago had asked the head of the Fiji Methodist congregration in New Zealand, Rev Peni Tikoinaka, to speak on the programme but he had declined because he said he was not "fully versed" over the issue.
Another Methodist clergyman was also asked but declined.
Rev Yabaki told the PMC that Bulou Analaini had been dealt a "raw deal" by the radio station "in a manner that lacks transparency".
He said she had been denied a hearing involving the three complaints.
Pictured: Broadcaster Bulou Amalaini Ligalevu-Legge (top) and the CCF's Rev Akuila Yabaki.
Cook Islander Tau Greig and her husband Wayne Meyer hope this month’s granting of the right to sue over British nuclear testing in the Pacific will be the turning point in their private battle to succeed.
They are tired of fighting the wall of silence that greets them when they open up the debate.
They now want someone to help coordinate the victims and their descendants affected by the radiation from these tests.
About 1000 veterans from Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Britain, who took part in atomic tests in the 1950s, won the right to sue Britain’s Ministry of Defence for exposure to radiation.
From their first letter to British Prime Minister John Major, 14 years ago, Tau Greig and Wayne Meyer have been fighting - and they are sick and tired of it. Other letters have been written to other ministers as well, among them former prime ministers Tony Blair, Jim Bolger and Helen Clark, and Phil Goff and Winston Peters.
They feel they have been ignored by the New Zealand and Cook Island governments who they think should assist them.
It is hard to recognise that Tau Greig was a very competitive sportsperson.
Greig is now in an Auckland rehabilitation home and has been told her condition is degenerative.
She is in a wheelchair, has difficulty speaking and is dependent on 24-hour care.
Sea sickness It was 14 years ago that Meyer realised his wife Tau was sick, when after a bout of sea sickness she never got better. It took another 10 years before a diagnosis of the genetic disease spinocerebellar ataxia was made.
Her diagnosis is atypical, in other words, she only carries three to four genetic imprints and not the 10 that make up the disease.
“It doesn’t fully conform to the diagnosis,” says Meyer.
They think Tau’s ill-health is related to nuclear radiation exposure received from Britain’s Operation Grapple tests in the Pacific during the 1950s at Christmas and Malden Islands.
About 50 years ago, when Greig was only 10 years old, she and her family witnessed a test while playing on the island of Rakahanga, in the northern Cooks, when she saw a brilliant flash across the sky. Then the ground shook. In the evening the sky turned red and stayed red all week. A few days later the lagoon became white and frothy. The fish all died and floated on the surface. The villagers burnt the fish.
The Grapple tests happened 10 years after the Japanese were devastated by nuclear bombs in Hiroshima. It is hard to believe they thought it was safe, says Meyer.
“We were never told to leave.
They said they would come back,” says Greig as she struggles to talk.
“They never gave food and never came back,” Meyer says.
Exploding bomb The aircraft carrier HMS Warrior visited Rakahanga and advised the islanders they were going to explode an atmospheric hydrogen bomb over Christmas Island, north of Rakahanga. The islanders were told not to drink the water nor eat any vegetation or fish for the next three to four months.
“The Warrior never came back so we had to live on coconuts for the next three or four months,” writes Greig in an earlier letter to the British Home Office.
After the bomb families started dying as soon as the next day, a lot of children died. They got dysentery and started vomiting and died, says Meyer.
“[Former Cook Islands Prime Minister Dr Terepai] Maoate told the people they had dysentery because they were unclean,” he says.
In fairness to him he said he didn’t know what caused the children to get sick and die, says Meyer.
“We don’t know how many died.
“There are no records,” says Meyer.
Sir Terepai Maoate, who worked as a young doctor on neighbouring Manihiki Island, told a Cook Islands Research Association conference in 2008 that he had treated fatal cases of diarrhoea and vomiting. He said he had seen people with enlarged thyroids, but there had not been any connection to nuclear testing.
Birth defects There were a lot of children born with the birth defect club foot in the northern Cooks, says Meyer.
“The islanders buried their limbs in the sand to stop them twisting, but a lot still died.
“People left the northern Cooks because they thought there was a curse on them,” says Meyer.
He says the Cook Islands government refuses to acknowledge the likelihood of damage because of the distance of Rakahanga from the Christmas and Malden Islands. There was a no-go zone of 400 nautical miles.
It is estimated that the northern Cooks are in an area 300–500 miles south-west of Malden Island.
Roy Sefton, nuclear test veteran and chairman of New Zealand Veterans Association, served on the ship HMNZS Rotoiti during Operation Grapple. He suffered his first bout of ill-health at 21 which has continued throughout his adult life.
The HMS Warrior was part of an exercise involving most of the ships at Operation Grapple where their job was “showing the flag” aiming to generally placate and ease any fears Islanders had, says Sefton.
The area of the exclusion zone that was declared dangerous to ship and aircraft covered 750,000 sq miles but there was no logic to how this zone was drawn up he says. It was not drawn out in a square or circle and there are large areas that are just cut out from the edge of the square in the ocean.
“It looks very much like a doctored scenario,” says Sefton.
Wind hotspots The only reason he can think that this was done was to lessen the concern of people on the islands.
“Even with exclusion zones there is no guarantee that the radiation will stop exactly at that point,” says Sefton.
Other factors such as the unpredictability of wind at altitude and the phenomena of hotspots or blowback affect the spread.
Hotspots and blowback are created where either large or small areas are affected by radioactive fallout that has been blown together as weather conditions change. It was predicted that the wind would blow in a north easterly direction for 5000 sq miles but it may not have, he says.
“There may have been areas which were quite a considerable distance outside the exclusion zone where these hotspots have occurred,” says Sefton.
In 1973, the New Zealand government took a legal case against the French nuclear testing at Moruroa Atoll through the International Court of Justice at The Hague.
They argued about the danger of the tests and consequential spread of radiation to the population and environment of the radiation in New Zealand and other Pacific Islands, says Sefton.
“In relation to Tau’s case, it illustrates the ability of radioactive materials to go anywhere,” he says.
Grapple 4 was a particularly dirty bomb and it made atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki look like firecrackers,” says Sefton.
Painless, invisible “If you have been impregnated with this stuff, it’s painless and invisible and you don’t know about it.
“If you get hit with a bit of shrapnel you know and you have an idea if you are going to survive or not,” he says.
Dr Al Rowlands is the molecular scientist and the lead researcher of the Massey University study which strongly influenced the veterans’ win to sue Britain’s Ministry of Defence.
In his research, Dr Rowlands found huge disparities between the control group and veterans group.
The control group showed genetic damage of 10 translocations per 1000 cells against the veteran’s group where the frequency was 29 translocations per 1000 cells. In comparison workers close to the Chernobyl accident and clean-up had about 20 translocations per 1000 cells.
“The New Zealand government never fail to surprise me,” says Sefton.
Back in 1973, when they took their case to court at The Hague in a very well researched case on the dangers and ill-health of radiation to the Pacific, they would have spoken with a lot of expert advice.
Sefton claims the government and Veteran Affairs have applied double standards and never used this information.
• This week French Polynesian nuclear test veterans, who had their case for compensation rejected, have vowed to fight on. The French government has previously said it would compensate for any victims from nuclear testing carried out in French Polynesia from 1960 until 1996.
Eight former test site workers who took their case to the Tahiti court have been unsuccessful because under local ruling the complaints cannot be ruled on.
Thousands of Pacific children – possibly up to 5000 – may be missing out on education in New Zealand because their parents are overstayers, says a Pasifika school trustee spokesperson.
“It is an issue that affects not just Pacific students, but all students whose parents are non-residents, no matter where they come from,” says Ben Taufua from the Pacific Island School Trustees Aotearoa.
A select committee looking into New Zealand’s relationship with Pacific Island countries has been told hundreds of Pacific children were missing out on education, according to Radio New Zealand.
Ben Taufua from the Pacific Island School Trustees Aotearoa, told the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee in Manukau City that granting overstayers amnesty might help.
Taufua later told the Pacific Media Centre that the figures were probably much higher and New Zealand needed to take responsibility otherwise thousands of children may end up without access to health or education.
He says these children have lost their voice because they have been tied into the immigration status.
“Their rights have been breached.
“It is not their choice they end up being here,” he says.
Taufua said although Dr Jonathan Coleman, who has both the Minister of Immigration and Associate Minister of Health portfolios, said on Radio New Zealand that every child had access to education, he had failed to say that every child in New Zealand can access free education and free health.
Huge problem “It is huge,” says Taufua. “We are talking about a generation of people without education and who when they grow up might still be in our system.
“To do nothing about this issue is both immoral and criminal,” says Taufua.
He says New Zealand needs to honour its signature to the Ottawa Charter and give children free education and health.
“The Labour government initiated a law that says children born in New Zealand of non-residential parents are not automatically New Zealanders,” says Taufua. He wants to see this changed.
Taufua told the committee that they must deal with immigration issues that affect these people as their children are suffering.
According to Radio New Zealand, Makelita Kolo, from the Tongan community, said the children rarely got health care and never used their own name when they saw a doctor. Select committee chairman John Hayes responded by saying the amnesty call was beyond the scope of the committee’s brief.
Pippa Brown is an AUT Graduate Diploma in Journalism student on internship with the Pacific Media Centre.
Publisher and broadcaster Kalafi Moala led an intimate and spirited philosophical public discussion last night on what it means to be Tongan with a sense of place in the world.
The issues of modern Tonga and how to take the country forward without losing its sense of identity dominated the discussion as the kingdom moves into a fresh era as it progresses toward developing a new constitution.
When Tongans express a sense for democracy there is also a voice saying “please don’t touch my Tonganness, my identity that was established over 3000 years ago,” says Moala.
“Even radical reformists do not want to break up this system.”
Moala, who publishes both the Taimi ‘o Tonga and Tonga Chronicle, was being hosted by the Pacific Media Centre at AUT University to talk about his new book In Search of the Friendly Islands and the constitutional reform consultations.
As the problems of diaspora and the dispersing of people and culture become greater with the issues of globalisation, consequential loss of identity were likely to become more prominent, he says.
Moala introduced the statement, ‘I belong, therefore I am’, and contrasted it to ‘I think, therefore I am’, as being fundamentally important to Tongans and other Pacific peoples in knowing who they are.
He says young people are starting to question who they are as they move among other social structures and although this can relate to anyone, it applies in particular to people in the Pacific.
The quest for identity is a huge thing in the sense that for so many years being Tongan has been taken for granted.
Social relationships “It is not so much that ‘I have’ but my belonging that shapes everything else that I am,” says Moala.
“In Tonga, the social relationship starts with the family, from the immediate family to the kainga (extended family) which contribute to the grouping of the families who make up the village which combine together to become a region and a nation which then become the fonua.
Moala says the more people look at this belonging and social structure within Tonga, it shows how the relationships work within the family and the strong traditions and headships that lead.
“It’s the people, it’s the land, it’s the nation,” says Moala.
The difference is that Western identity is based on what a person does while Tongan and Pacific identity are based on who people are and the relationship with family, village and so on.
“It is not what you do that really matters in the relationship,” says Moala.
“I belong, therefore I am: Belonging is the relationship of who we are and how we base our relationships in Tonga,” says Moala.
The structure is clearly defined even before Christianity. It is always important that we have a head of the structure from the immediate family where the father figure protects, provides and teaches to the emotional support the mother brings, he says.
Within the relationship courtesy, loyalty, sharing and love are very much part of the social structure. In this sense of structure or Kainga there is always a headship person to relate to. It is very clear in this society knowing who people relate to, family, kainga, village, and nation and within this nation, the head, says Moala.
“We as a nation are progressing toward reform and the people want changes to happen but they are saying please don’t let it affect my Tonganness and my relationships and relationships to the land and the issues that need to be resolved spiritually for our future,” he says.
Concept of land Tongans have a strong relationship to the land. The Tongan concept of land and the spirit and life of the land we belong to always remains even as generations come and go, says Moala.
The system of tenure and generational inheritance remains in the sense of Tonganness when returning to the homeland.
“The issues of land extend to the ocean and seabed,” says Moala.
The oceanic kingdom of Tonga comprises 169 islands, 36 of them inhabited and extends over a distance of about 800 kilometres.
Spirituality plays a large part in Tonganness. Moala sees the strong thread of spirituality that binds the people in their relationship with one another and the land as becoming stronger.
“The movement of people across borders is opening up more spirituality as there is more out there to explore,” he says.
Modernisation has made some issues difficult to grasp within the Tongan and Pacific world which are clearly defined in Western terms.
“It is important for us to find conceptual tools that we can use to construct new thought patterns to allow us to find what we are looking for,” says Moala.
“As scholars, media and academics we are trying to probe into this new era of Pacifica and we need to find and create the right conceptual tools."
“The challenge of walking into the future is how we develop new tools,” he says.
Consensual methods The consensual methods we traditionally use to provide solutions to problems are deep in our culture together with the peace and harmony that come with it says Moala.
He says one of the problems of cultural dispersion and diaspora is that wherever Tongans and Pacific Islanders are in the world they encounter these issues of identity.
“In international cities where there are large populations of Pacific Islanders churches become very important and almost like a refuge,” says Moala.
He thinks the Pacific as a region identifies with a lot of similar issues that we need to find a solution for.
“It is important to find the tools to walk down the aisle together and discover who we really are,” says Moala.
Vaea Hopoi is a student who also works with youth who are dependent on alcohol and drugs. He thinks the biggest problem for Polynesians is a loss of identity and not knowing where they come from.
“I believe you must know your history to know who you are now and to know where you are going in the future,” says Hopoi.
Moala questions why the Pacific region is trying to solve the current Fiji political problem in an confrontational way.
“Why not solve it in a Pacific way and let the Pacific sovereignty leaders meet Fiji and see how we can open up the dialogue,” he asks.
Moala thinks New Zealand is a country that is standing in confrontation with Fiji so Māori may offer a solution. Going in as an outsider hasn’t worked but to look at the issue as Pacific brothers in the broader sense of fonua may work.
New framework “It hasn’t been solved within the current framework so we need to find another one,” he says. He thinks the Forum had the right to suspend Fiji “but we don’t need to keep beating them up.”
Moala says the heads of government in the Pacific Island Forum may have some conflict with the duality of the Pacific and Western frameworks.
It is important to apply criticism and look at the challenges facing the Tongan and Pacific Island people he thinks. He says rather than standing outside and looking in we need to come to the culture.
“While it hurts talking about these things it feels good to be a part of it,” says Moala. “We need to report on it but report on it from our own perspective.”
David Robie, associate professor in communication studies at AUT and director of the Pacific Media Centre, commented on how Moala was one of the only journalists in the Pacific who is reflecting on these new issues of belongingness and sense of identity.
“Media reflects a society and its sense of identity and yet in the Pacific this is very much influenced by New Zealand and Australia,” says Dr Robie.
Moala thinks people need to learn to be comfortable with the two sides of traditional belonging and Western way of thinking, to overcome the confusion with identity.
He says some concepts cannot be explained because the tools are not there and “it may be a role for Pacific scholars to investigate and construct these tools and find how to put it in words”.
Top photo of Kalafi Moala last night by Pippa Brown; photo of Moala and Taimi in Nuku'alofa by David Robie. - PMC .
Pippa Brown is an AUT Graduate Diploma in Journalism student on internship with the Pacific Media Centre.
Post to us! This blog is for stories filed by the Asia-Pacific Journalism course Global Watch postgraduate student team and your responses. Post comment on articles published on the PMC and Pacific Media Watch websites at AUT University, Auckland, Aotearoa/New Zealand. The views expressed on this blog are those of the authors and do not represent the university. PMC director: David Robiewww.pmc.aut.ac.nz
Niuean policewoman Sisiliah Puleheloto was working in the Solomons with the RAMSI police force. She is one of two people confirmed drowned in the Princess Ashika tragedy in Tongan waters. The ferry capsized last Wednesday carrying 141 passengers - 93 people are still missing.
over, swamped by waves in the middle of the night.
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