CULTURES AND IDENTITIES

Central to many political and constitutional disputes in the Pacific Islands is the fact that cultural and national identities—and categories such as ‘indigenous’—are ambiguous and contested. People who once identified themselves with a tribal group, a locality, or a particular leader have been asked to accept over-arching affinities with strangers and former enemies. Particularly in Melanesia, the rhetoric of national unity is vulnerable to assertions of cultural uniqueness and the priority of local custom. Even in more homogeneous societies, national governments must contend with district and village demands for autonomy. In the post-colonial era as never before, ‘culture’ is an arena of argument. Political debate is largely about culture and the nature of indigenous institutions: whether a change has traditional precedent, or betrays tradition.

Political transformation in the Islands has been a creative, negotiated process, in which Western models of ‘kingship’, ‘nation’ and even ‘democracy’ have been refashioned. Polynesian chiefs, for example, have readily made the transition to politicians and statesmen, although the justice of their continued authority has been challenged in Fiji and Tonga. The Tongan scholar Epeli Hau’ofa argues that democratic change is inevitable. Commoners, church leaders, emigrés, and intellectuals drive the democracy movement in Tonga: