Vltchek - Oceania

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OCEANIA

Neocolonialism, Nukes & Bones

Andre Vltchek

Foreword by Noam Chomsky

Badak Merah Semesta

2018

OCEANIA

Neocolonialism, Nukes & Bones

Copyright 2014 by Andre Vltchek

All rights reserved

Foreword by: Noam Chomsky

Introductions by: Dr Steven Ratuva & Mark Selden

Photos: Andre Vltchek, Yayoi Segi

Cover Design by: Rossie Indira

Cover Photo by: Andre Vltchek

Layout by: Rossie Indira

First e-book edition: 2018

Published by PT. Badak Merah Semesta

http://badak-merah.weebly.com

email: badak.merah.press@gmail.com

Acknoledgements

I would like to express deep gratitude to all people of Oceania who shared their stories and open their hearts during his work in region.

In particular, thanks to the great writer and friend Epeli Hauofa who offered his full support to this book, even elevating the author to the ranks of honorary citizen of Oceania.

I would also like to thank great Tongan poet and educator Konai Helu Thaman and Fijian educator and writer Joseph Veramu who traveled with the author all over Samoa and western part of Viti Levu island in Fiji, discussing many burning social issue his country is presently facing. I would also like to thank Espen Ronneberg, Climate Change Advisor at the Secretariat of the Pacific Environmental Programme (SPREP) - for his help with the environmental issues and everything connected to the Marshall Islands.

Also, I would also like to thank two brave Senators from Kwajalein Atoll of Marshall Islands (RMI): former foreign minister Tony deBrum and Paramount Chief Michael Kabua, the staff of the newspaper of Samoa Observer , Marshall Island Journal , Solomon Star and The National of PNG; the local government at Kwajalein, RMI, and the great educators in Tonga, Kiribati, Fiji, Palau and Cook Islands.

My warm thanks go to the Permanent Secretary of Education of Kiribati - Teekoa Ietaake.

I would like to thank UNESCO, FAO and UNDP staff in Oceania for their help and great discussions, and I would like to express my gratitude to several organizations including Greenpeace, Samoas Victim Association, Fiji Womens Rights Movement (FWRM), National Disaster Management Office in Tuvalu and very importantly, to The Center for Environmental Law and Community Rights and its chief lawyer Demien Ase.

I would like to thank Prof. Mark Selden who published many of my articles on Oceania in his highly acclaimed academic magazine Japan Focus and who later helped significantly with the editing process. I am very grateful to him for not murdering me in the process.

I would like to thank my proofreader and editor Terry Collins for dedicated and excellent work. I would also like to express gratitude to an Australian cultural expert with great experience in Oceania Emily Waterman.

My heartfelt thanks go to Noam Chomsky and Michael Parenti for reading my manuscript when it was still in the form of separate articles, commenting and supporting my efforts.

And most importantly, I would like to thank Yayoi Segi without her help, support and tremendous dedication to Oceania this book would never see the light!

~ Andre Vltchek

Foreword

A ndr Vltchek has compiled a stunning record in evoking the reality of the contemporary world, not as perceived through the distorting prisms of power and privilege, but as lived by the myriad victims.

He has also not failed to trace the painful and particularly for the West, shameful realities to their historical roots.

The remarkable scope of his inquiries is illustrated even by the titles of some of his major books: Western Terror: From Potosi to Baghdad, a vast range of topics that he explores with rare insight and understanding; and Exile, his interviews with Indonesias great novelist Pramoedya, who spent a large part of his life in internal exile, imprisoned by the murderous and vicious Suharto government in Indonesia, which was greatly admired by the West, and enthusiastically supported in its shocking crimes, after it won approval by carrying out a mass slaughter that opened up the rich resources of the country to Western exploitation.

In the present work, Vltchek extends his penetrating gaze to a lovely, desecrated, almost forgotten vast area of the world, Oceania, which he shows to be a microcosm of almost all major problems faced by our planet.

Again, he tears away the scabs and reveals the festering sores below with the insight, acuity, and sympathetic understanding he has shown in his earlier work.

At the same time, once again, he brings to light the strength and courage of the people, and their achievements, and explores the hopes for decent recovery and survival if the powerful can allow themselves to comprehend what they have done, and to accept the responsibility of actually protecting their victims instead of mouthing comforting and self-serving slogans.

~ Noam Chomsky

Introduction

The Perilous Oceania?

I mages of Oceania have graced novels, academic analysis, art canvases, films and increasingly, consultancy reports with often-diverse flavour and conclusions. On one extreme of the continuum are those who romanticize the Pacific as the unspoiled Garden of Eden of noble savages in their innocent and atavistic state and on the other extreme end are doomsday prophets who see everything in the Pacific as hellish and destined for eternal damnation. There are shades of perception oscillating between the two depending on the ideological orientation, cultural worldview and mood of the beholder.

This book by Andre Vltchek can be placed somewhere in between. It is a critical appraisal of the destructive consequences of colonialism and later neocolonialism and how they have reshaped and undermined the very essence of Pacific humanity, it provides a rather uncomfortable but justifiably powerful moral message that the perils of Oceania need drawing attention to for the future survival of Pacific peoples and cultures who, isolated from the main centres of global power, are often relegated to the margins of development and progress.

Underpinning the detailed and vibrant narrative is the belief that post-colonial development has gone horribly wrong because of the way in which former colonies in the Pacific have replicated the inappropriate and patronizing political, economic and cultural institutions and norms of the crisis-prone European civilization. Global imperialism did not come to an end after decolonization but rather reinvented itself into some complex, more sophisticated and more influential ways through investment, trade, education, cultural influence or just naked economic exploitation.

Oceania: neocolonialism, nukes and bones is a panoramic view of some of the smallest states but at the same time, some of the most vibrant cultures in the world. It provides both a broad brush of the Pacific as well as a more microscopic examination of specific problems of specific countries.

Beyond the sympathetic gaze of a foreign journalist, the book also echoes some of the deeply entrenched views and sentiments of the Pacific people who, because of their isolation and smallness, are often ignored in mainstream literature and discourse. Vltchek takes up the same challenge as Fijian-Tongan anthropologist, Prof Epeli Hauofa, whom he praises as one of the regions leading intellectuals. The challenge is to invert some colonially framed perspectives of the Pacific which have denigrated and distorted Pacific cultures, worldviews and sense of humanity and reframe the world in a more empowering way. In his book Our Sea of Islands, Hauofa redefines Oceanias ontology, not in terms of small islands but using the large ocean as the centre of intellectual gravity.

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