New Flags Flying - Pacific leaders remember. 2011.

19 episodes. Pacific leaders talk about the times of change as they remember their journeys to independence and self-government.

[Note: In 2012, selected highlights were broadcast on Sunday Morning on Radio New Zealand National - see accessions 12/073, 12/187, 12/264, 12/400 - which contain audio clips and host Chris Laidlaw talking to the programme producers. See also #30088 (03/27) and #303835 (16/147) which contain raw unedited recordings of some of these interviews. Eps 1-16 supplied by RNZI, eps 17-19 downloaded from RNZ website; GW 11/10/16]

The following information is sourced from the broadcaster's website:

Preparation for leadership:
After the Second World War, in the late 1940s and '50s, most of the leaders who tell their stories in New Flags Flying were away from their homelands studying at schools, training colleges or universities, three or four in Britain and Australia, most of them in New Zealand.

For two sons of influential families, Tonga's future King Taufa'ahau and Fijian aristocrat Kamisese Mara, an overseas education was a matter of course, but most of the others, from humbler backgrounds, had gone away only because they had earned good marks at primary school and won government scholarships. Winning those scholarships, then studying for years in unfamiliar schools and colleges and gaining a degree or diploma earmarked them for leadership. When they came home they would join the tiny group of academically qualified Pacific Islanders and step quickly into positions of authority to work as economists, doctors, teachers, priests, accountants, public servants, for the government, businesses or church missions.

Changes at home:
But even as they returned to Rarotonga, Honiara, Suva, Tarawa and other Pacific capitals to take up those jobs, they must have noticed how the islands they had left as schoolboys were changing.

The established order in the Pacific had been fractured by war. Supposedly great powers had been humbled by the Japanese. Servicemen from the Pacific had travelled and fought for freedom and individual rights.

Experiences recalled by Peter Kenilorea, Tom Davis and Solomon Mamaloni show that old notions of racial superiority were under challenge. In Asia and Africa, the British and French empires to which most Pacific Islanders had 'belonged' were beginning to break down. At first, news of such change was discounted because, as Kamisese Mara comments, "we thought they were distant hurricane warnings that would never affect us".

New opportunities:
But some Pacific Islanders keen to run their own affairs were ready to take advantage of the new opportunities history had brought them. Tofilau Eti Alesana describes how quick Samoa was, in 1946, “to submit their application to become a self-governing state” and recounts with pride “we were the first independent nation within the South Pacific”.

Other leaders followed as they began to discern that instead of guiding and helping their people, as they had expected, in a hospital ward, government office or classroom, they now had to change direction and learn to be politicians. Through the 1960s, each leader came to realise that his people – or their colonial governors – had decided his country was to become self-governing or independent and, like it or not, his task was to lead his people there.

New roles:
Some, Hammer deRoburt, Solomon Mamaloni and Albert Henry were more than ready to take on that task and pushed their Australian, British and New Zealand governors to follow the example set in Samoa; withdraw and let them take over leadership of their country. Others were less keen. Peter Kenilorea would have preferred to remain a public servant and Kamisese Mara wanted to become a doctor, until each was instructed that his duty lay elsewhere. Kessai Note and Walter Lini seem to have accepted they would have to lead if their countries were to be freed from powerful and intransigent rule, while Bikenibeu Paeniu faced the challenge of building a nation from half a colony with few resources. Leaders like Michael Somare, Ieremia Tabai, Young Vivian and Tom Davis seemed simply to acknowledge that independence is always preferable to servitude, and they were ready to do whatever had to be done to bring it about.

Popular respect:
The leaders had two very valuable assets. The first was that each of them could count on the respect and support of his people. In some cases, that was because of their chiefly or privileged background; King Taufa’ahau Tupou IV of course, and Tupua Tamasese Lealofi IV, a key leader in Samoa at independence, Hammer DeRoburt of Nauru and Fiji's Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara of Fiji, whose noble rank and personal mana gave him authority among Fijians and Indo-Fijians alike.

Others with clear chiefly connections were Sir Tom Davis of the Cook Islands and Sir Robert Rex of Niue. Some were admired for their charisma, political adroitness and ability: Sir Michael Somare of Papua New Guinea, Albert Henry of the Cook Islands, and Solomon Mamaloni of Solomon Islands. Sir Ieremia Tabai of Kiribati and Bikenibeu Paeniu of Tuvalu were clever, well-informed, and respected for their courageous example. Churchmen Father Walter Lini of Vanuatu and Sir Peter Kenilorea of Solomon Islands inspired trust through their firm religious belief.

Trust:
The other important asset enjoyed by these distinctively Pacific men (and it is, perhaps, a distinctively Pacific advantage) is that they knew and trusted each other. The patricians of Samoa, Tonga and Fiji were linked by blood and marriage; others had common church connections; a number had forged friendships at New Zealand schools and colleges. All had common purpose – a successful move to self-government or independence for their country – and it was important, especially for the smaller countries, that they should be able to talk frankly to each other about the best way of bringing that about.

Opportunities for such talk occurred at gatherings such as South Pacific Conferences (the business meetings of the South Pacific Commission) held annually in Noumea or other Pacific capitals. Funded by Australia, Britain, France, New Zealand and USA, the commission provided Pacific territories and colonies with technical help, from agricultural production to language teaching, but when regional leaders gathered to discuss the work programme, political matters were not allowed on the agenda. This prohibition was vigilantly policed by the representatives of France, anxious to ensure that talk of self-government did not infect delegates from the territories they controlled and wished to keep controlling: New Caledonia, Wallis and Futuna and French Polynesia. Not surprisingly, leaders found ways round this ban, discussing topics that were really important to them – constitutions, timetables, negotiations and the like – informally, vigorously, and sometimes late into the night until the session was brought to a close with Albert Henry's famous ukulele rendition of Pearly Shells.

The colonial powers:
Meeting each other at those conferences gave leaders the chance to compare notes about their controlling powers; Australia, ready to grant independence; Britain, keen to do the same for all its colonies; France, anxious to keep control of its territories and delay self-government in the New Hebrides; New Zealand, itself part of Polynesia, ready to combine self-government and continuing support; and USA, determined to force the major colonial powers to agree to decolonisation but equally determined to keep its own colonial possessions in the Pacific.

The most potent, over-arching international impetus came from the United Nations, founded in 1945. The Labour Government then in power in New Zealand was strongly committed to decolonisation and its prime minister Peter Fraser played a major role in the drafting of the large section of the new United Nations Charter that both recognised a right to self-determination and established a trusteeship system under which many colonial dependencies and trust territories would achieve independence. Through the 1960s and '70s, the United Nations was a very important source of encouragement and support for Pacific territories, most of whom were among the last – and, some might claim, the most poorly prepared – in the world to achieve self-government or independence.

Readiness to change:
Some leaders would have been happy to continue under colonial rule. Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, sometimes a titled English gentleman, sometimes a high chief wholly committed to traditional ways, acknowledges he had no sense that the colonial period was ending because “we were part of the Queen’s regnum; we were happy – why should we change things?” He hoped the “winds of change … would never come to Fiji … I belonged to the school that believed we should never be parted from the United Kingdom … We ceded our islands … how can we bring it back? This is not chiefly”.

Other leaders were more philosophical. President Ieremia Tabai of Kiribati and Bikenibeu Paeniu of Tuvalu give the clear impression of accepting as a fact of life for their countries that Britain was departing. Bikenibeu Paeniu remembers:

“Of course they wanted [to get] rid of us as soon as possible. Because of course we know in those days Britain was letting go of her colonies, the empire was breaking down.”

But in Samoa, Nauru and the Cook Islands leaders were enthusiastic and determined to bring freedom to their countries as soon as possible. One of the most outstanding leaders in these early days was Tupua Tamasese Lealofi IV, in many ways the guiding force leading Samoa to independence. A large and formidable-looking man, enormously able and respected, he was kind and gentle and always courteous. His son, the present Head of State, explains the success of the small group of men, Samoans led by his father, and New Zealanders, who brought Samoa to independence:

“There wasn’t argument. There wasn’t the emotion, the drama. And these personalities [were successful] not only because of the issues but because of the people that they were…”

New Zealand territories first:
Not surprisingly, Samoa (1962) and the Cook Islands (1965) were among the first. Both were proud of being trail blazers, not just because their freedom came so early, but also because of the unique aspects of the constitutional arrangements that were agreed.

In Samoa’s case the original constitution recognised tradition and custom in according suffrage only to matai. (Kamisese Mara in Fiji would not consider any tinkering with the Westminster system, “It was the only system that I know”, and later, before political instability struck Fiji, he used to say that Samoa and New Zealand had made a serious mistake that one day would cost Samoa dearly.)

In the Cook Islands (and later Niue) the adoption of a relationship of self-government in association with New Zealand broke new ground constitutionally. As Cook Island official JH Webb explains here:

“I was all for independence in association with New Zealand. I couldn’t see anything wrong with it. I thought we were very very lucky. I thought ‘Good Heavens, this is going to be a mark in history. Other countries will probably follow this…’ I think they have, too.”

The old masters and their legacy:
But self-determination and independence were just first steps in empowering Pacific peoples. The challenges early leaders faced were enormous – and varied from country to country. The colonisation of no two Pacific countries had been alike. Some had experienced Spanish rule dating back to the seventeenth century. Indeed, all the major imperial powers – France, Britain, Germany, the United States, the Netherlands – took control of territories in the Pacific and ruled them for periods in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Sometimes Pacific islands “changed hands” and suffered more than one colonial ruler – although only one, Vanuatu, had the particular pain of two colonial powers, Britain and France, trying, not very successfully, to rule it jointly. Father Walter Lini, prime minister of Vanuatu, recalls:

“The French and the British in fact did not do anything to develop us. They waited and waited until we saw, ourselves, how we should begin to move to get self-reliance, no, self-government and independence. … I became mad because the French were deliberately trying to tell us lies and deliberately trying to show that they were in control, not us.”

And one country, Tuvalu, was in effect sliced from the previous Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony and started life with no central administration or infrastructure. Bikenibeu Paeniu, a former prime minister, remembers the concern that Tuvalu had to “form a nation of our own and be given no assets and a mere budgetary provision. All the colonial assets were left with Kiribati. We had only one ship.”

Different challenges were thrown up by the different motivations of colonial powers. Colonialism in the Pacific was certainly driven by self-interest. Greed was a factor, and access to the cheap phosphate deposits of Nauru and Ocean Island was a good example; security concerns were also important, as with American determination to retain the deep harbour at Pago Pago and conduct nuclear tests in Micronesia.

Access to resources and the pursuit of trade were often important, most clearly perhaps in the activities of Germany and France around the end of the nineteenth century. And more generally, the “partition” of the Pacific islands was strongly influenced by the ever-changing dynamics between and among the leading colonial powers of the day. Britain, for example, could not countenance its European competitors stealing a march on it, even in the remote Pacific. Britain was also persuaded by public opinion in Australia and New Zealand to play a more active part in the colonisation of the region than many policy-makers in London would have preferred.

Profit and loss:
Many subjective comparisons are made between the respective virtues and vices of the different colonial powers. It is said, for example, that Germany was known for the efficiency of its colonial administration in the early days; that Britain placed beneficial emphasis on the education sector; and that France actively discouraged the study of indigenous languages. In terms of colonial exploitation, Australia, Britain and New Zealand reaped enormous benefits from Nauru and Ocean Island phosphate, and France similarly profited from New Caledonian nickel. The United States gained benefit, presumably, from conducting nuclear tests in Micronesia (to the enormous disadvantage of the indigenous people) and the same applied in respect of French nuclear testing in French Polynesia. And today Guam is being developed into a major base to enable the United States to maintain a forward Pacific military presence in the wider Pacific.

On the other hand, the United Kingdom (in respect of Fiji, Solomons, and the Gilbert and Ellice Islands), Australia (in respect of Papua New Guinea) and New Zealand (in respect of Samoa, the Cook Islands, Niue and Tokelau) gained little economically or strategically. Australian commercial interests in island countries have clearly been profitable. (There may have been a little truth in the saying, well known in Fiji and elsewhere in the years following independence: Britain governed us, New Zealand educated us, and Australia owns us.) New Zealand, for its part, has gained enormously from the infusion of hundreds of thousands of Pacific islanders into its society and economy.

Inevitably, colonial rule had an impact, directly or indirectly, on the peoples of the Pacific, but it was unevenly felt. For those affected by nuclear testing in Micronesia and French Polynesia, it was catastrophic. For others it was beneficial – Bikenibeu Paeniu of Tuvalu remembers high educational standards and comments that, compared to its neighbours, “Tuvalu is far better off in terms of education, that is one good thing Britain did”.

For many, in the highlands of Papua New Guinea or on remote Pacific atolls, the impact of colonial rule was slight. Overall, it probably influenced the lives of Pacific Islanders less than many westerners would assume. Educational opportunities and prospects for advancement have improved in many countries. But subsistence lifestyle, family and the ocean remain at the heart of most Pacific cultures.

Conscious of this, the late Tongan historian Epeli Hau’ofa, wrote:

“Nineteenth century imperialism erected boundaries that led to the contraction of Oceania, transforming a once boundless world into the Pacific island states and territories that we know today. … It was continental men, Europeans and Americans, who drew imaginary lines across the sea, making the colonial boundaries that today define the island states and territories of the Pacific.”

Hau’ofa laments colonialism’s “contraction of Oceania” but seems confident that decolonisation can undo those unwelcome changes. Foreign descriptions of Oceania as a Spanish Lake, a British Lake, an American Lake are short-lived…

“ … we all know that only those who make the ocean their home and love it, can really claim it as theirs…”

Here are the stories of the men who led Pacific peoples as they reclaimed their ocean and their homes.

Credits:
New Flags Flying - Pacific Leaders Remember by Ian Johnstone and Michael Powles
A book plus CD version - a complete record with full interviews, illustrations and text - was published in 2012 by Huia Publishers.
Contact us for more information: NewFlagsFlying@gmail.com

The interviews:
Sir Robert Rex (provided by Alexander Turnbull Library) recorded by Tony Johns (1977).
Tupua Tamasese Tupuola Efi, Tofilau Eti Alesana, JH Webb, Sir Tom Davis, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, HM King Taufa'ahau Tupou IV, Sir Michael Somare, Hon. Solomon Mamaloni, Sir Peter Kenilorea and Father Walter Lini recorded by Ian Johnstone (1995); and Hon. Young Vivian, Sir Ieremia Tabai, Hon. Bikenibeu Paeniu, Hon. Kessai Note (2011).
Dr Ludwig Keke recorded by Michael Powles (2011).
Interviews conducted with support from Radio NZ International and NZ Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Text written by Ian Johnstone, former East West Center Jefferson Fellow who has worked for SPC, TVNZ and RNZI and Michael Powles, former diplomat, author and founding chair of Pacific Co-operation Foundation.
Editors Ian Johnstone and Michael Powles are grateful for the help of:
UNESCO office in Apia
Radio New Zealand
Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat
NZ Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade
Pacific Co-operation Foundation
NZ Institute of International Affairs
Brian Lynch; Tony Johns; Hugh Laracy; Margaret Pointer; Tahu Hikuroa; Margaret Keni; Rhys Richards; Alison Quentin-Baxter; Annette Note; Teresia Teaiwa; John Laming; Christopher Chevalier; Giff Johnson; Roger Clark; Karen McDowell; Anna Powles; Guy Powles; David Filer; Ateca, Mue, Johnson at PI Forum; Fiji National Archives staff; Islands Business staff; and especially Linden Clark and Gordon Shroff, whose support and foresight made the project possible.

Bibliography:
The Pacific Way, Rt. Hon. Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, University of Hawaii Press 1997
Fiji, Sir Alan Burns, HM Stationery Office 1963
Tears in Paradise, Rajendra Prasad, Glade Publishers 2004
Atoll Politics, ed. Howard van Trease, Univerity of Canterbury Institute of Pacific Studies 1993
Tuvalu – a History, ed. Hugh Laracy, Institute of Pacific Studies/Govt Tuvalu 1983
Rabuka – No other way, Dean/Ritova, Marketing Team Int. 1988
The South Pacific, Ron Crocombe, USP 2001
Cook Islands Politics, various, Polynesian Press, AK 1979
SP Social Sciences Assn.
Politics in Polynesia, ed. Crocombe/Ali, USP Inst. Pac. Studs. 1983
First 10 years of Solomon Islands Independence, ed. Crocombe/Tuza, USP Honiara/Institute of Pacific Studies SICHE 1992
Wealth of the Solomons, Judith A Bennett, University of Hawaii 1987
Politics in Melanesia, ed. Crocombe/Ali, USP Institute of Pacific Studies 1982
Journeys in a small canoe, Lloyd Maepeza Gina, USP Institute of Pacific Studies/Pandanus 2003
Where the waves fall, KR Howe, Geo. Allen & Unwin 1984
An Ocean of Islands, Tom Kennedy, Nandina Press 2004
Nauru - Phosphate & Political progress, Nancy Viviani, ANU Press 1970
The people from the Horizon, P Snow and S Waine, Phaidon Press 1979
The Tropical Pacific, NV Harris, University of London Press 1966
A Pattern of Islands, A Grimble, John Murray 1952
Day of Two Suns, J Dibblin, Virago 1988
Embattled Island, AH Leibowitz, Praeger 1996
Guide to Pohnpei, Gene Asby, Rainy Day 1983
Papua New Guinea, Griggin, Nelson, Firth, Heinemann 1979
The Phosphateers, Williams, Macdonald, Melbourne U Press 1985
Moment of Truth, Ian Todd, Angus & Robertson 1974
The Pacific Islands - an encyclopedia, Brij Lal and Kate Fortune (editors), University of Hawaii Press 2000
A History of the Pacific Islands, IC Campbell, University of California Press 1996

[source: http://www.radionz.co.nz/collections/u/new-flags-flying/nff-overview ; http://www.radionz.co.nz/collections/u/new-flags-flying/nff-overview/about-nff ; 11/10/16 GW]