Clive Moore

Pacific view: the meaning of governance and politics in the Solomon Islands

Based on the turmoil of the ‘crisis years’ (1998–2003) and the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Island (RAMSI) years (2003–2007), this paper explores epistemological issues that deeply divide the way that Solomon Islanders look at prosperity and good government and the way that foreign aid donors, RAMSI and Australia see the future for Solomon Islands. State-building or re-building is not the same as nation-building based on local concepts of the good life. The stakes are high, and as the Sogavare Government (2006–2007) indicated, substantial changes are needed to RAMSI, with a clear exit strategy or amalgamation of its central features into the central government structure. Unless RAMSI can come to terms with Solomon Islands’ epistemological and related political issues, there is no future for the Mission. The paper looks first at the post-RAMSI period, before concentrating on epistemological and political differences, and uses Malaita Province as an example of local circumstances that apply in all areas of the troubled nation. The argument on the epistemology of development is drawn from the writings of David Gegeo and Karen Watson Gegeo, and my personal experience.

The misappropriation of Malaitan labour: Historical origins of the recent Solomon Islands crisis

During the ‘crisis years’ in Solomon Islands from 1998–2003, Guadalcanal militants and the Guadalcanal provincial government showed resentment to the ‘foreign’ Solomon Islanders, mainly Malaitans, who lived there and forcefully claimed that the indigenous people of Guadalcanal suffered economic disadvantage on their own island. Malaitan counter-justification related to the need to protect their families in Honiara and stabilise the crumbling central government. This paper looks at the historical reasons why Malaitans left their island in the first place. The answer involves complex causes going back to the 1870s. Because Malaita has always been heavily populated, it drew labour recruiters from Queensland, Fiji and within the Protectorate, but for various reasons never attracted traders or planters. Unthinkingly encouraged by the British Protectorate administration and all post-independence governments, a pattern developed of ‘Malaitan muscle for hire’. Malaitan males became primarily a labour force for development projects elsewhere, and little attempt was made to introduce similar projects on Malaita. The paper also explores issues relating to resource development in Malaita Province and concludes that the problems there are no more difficult than on other large Melanesian islands.

Helpem fren: The Solomon Islands, 2003-2007

In its first three years (2003–06), the Pacific Islands Forum-sponsored and Australian-led Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) was successful in stopping violence, confiscating weapons and restoring peace. But RAMSI must now tackle difficult questions concerning its role and the underlying challenges of national development in Solomon Islands. Concurrently, relations have deteriorated between Australia and RAMSI on the one hand and, on the other, a new Solomon Islands Government under Manassah Sogavare. This Introduction offers a review and analysis of recent events and ‘opens windows’ onto the five articles and final comment that follow. As indicated by the title of this Special Issue, ‘Tingting baek, lukluk raon: Solomon Islands, History and Predicament’, these papers collectively look back on the past, survey the present, and look forward to the future.

Behaving outrageously: Contemporary gay masculinity

In behaving outrageously are gay men fulfilling the unrequited dreams of Australian mateship, being part of the queer generation, or perhaps just expressing dominant patriarchical sexuality, minus the constraints of societys construction of heterosexuality? One thing is certain: modem gay male identity extends far beyond the visible subculture, and it is intimately tied to wider concepts of Australian masculinity.

Honiara: Arrival City and Pacific Hybrid Living Space

ABSTRACT Honiara is a Pacific arrival city and hybrid living space that retains many village-like qualities. It shares similarities with Doug Saunderss ‘arrival city’ model: new arrivals are sustained by established networks that enable them eventually to integrate into urban life, along with considerable circulation through a constant flow from and to the provinces. Yet the relatively small size of Honiara and Solomon Islands, plus the resilience of aspects of village culture, bring into question theoretical models based on much larger, more anonymous developing world cities. Settlement and squatter areas are more dominant than fixed-tenure suburbs. Wantokism, kastom and linguistic diversity permeate this urban diversity and extend family networks. The conclusion argues that authorities must come to terms with new arrivals, squatters and settlements/urban villages and incorporate them into planning or face future urban turmoil.

Indigenous participation in constitutional development: case study of the Solomon Islands Constitutional Review Committees of the 1960s and 1970s

In 1950 the first four Solomon Islanders were nominated for the Advisory Council. Further constitutional reforms were made between 1960 and 1978, slowly preparing the Protectorate for a transfer of power through a unitary state operating under the Westminster system. British policy was guided by previous colonial experiences in Africa, Asia and the Pacific, and to a limited extent by local circumstances, particularly through constitutional review committees. This paper addresses three central questions. Did Solomon Islanders make their own decisions when establishing the structure of their constitution and parliament, or were these decisions made for them by British and other advisers? What attempts were made to include Indigenous political structures in the governing process? To what extent did events elsewhere influence Solomon Islands political development?

Peter Abu‘ofa and the Founding of the South Sea Evangelical Mission in the Solomon Islands, 1894–1904

Peter Abu‘ofa is a key figure in the history of the South Sea Evangelical Church in the Solomon Islands. While the modern church recognises that Florence Young created the Queensland Kanaka Mission from which the SSEC grew, Abu‘ofa is remembered as the indigenous founder on Malaita Island. This paper looks at the early years of the church and the activities of Abu‘ofa on Malaita between 1894 and 1904, the year that the decision was made to close the Queensland Kanaka Mission at the end of 1906 and replace it with the South Sea Evangelical Mission, based in the Solomon Islands. Historical memory is that Abu‘ofa returned from Queensland in 1894, which is true, although he also returned again in 1895, and the circumstances are quite different from the established story. Clearly an exceptional person, what has been forgotten is his challenge to the Queensland justice system in 1894, a case which involved the last major incident of kidnapping in the Queensland labour trade. Despite his prominence, our understanding of Abu‘ofa remains frustratingly opaque.

The End of Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (2003–17)

ABSTRACT The Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) ended in June 2017 after 14 years. It was an initiative of the Pacific Islands Forum authorized under the Biketawa Declaration of 2000, which enabled a regional response to crises in the region. Between 1998 and 2003, Solomon Islands had undergone a period usually called the ‘tenson’ in Solomons Pijin, or the ‘Tension’ or ‘Ethnic Tension’ in English, when government processes failed and two rival militia groups out of Malaita and Guadalcanal terrorized Honiara and its surrounds. Prime Minister Ulufa‘alu was removed in a de facto coup in 2000. Although all Pacific Islands Forum nations participated, Australia paid 95 per cent of the costs. This was the first time Australia and New Zealand had led a substantial intervention mission beyond their borders that was not under United Nations auspices. The article places Solomon Islands politics and governance issues into a 20-year perspective and examines the success and failures of RAMSI, which was far more adaptable than is usually admitted. The article also considers the appropriateness of the Westminster system to government in Solomon Islands.

Watriama and Co: further Pacific Islands portraits

grounds of race and gender would surely argue otherwise, despite the assertion that ‘many ordinary people...were formally excluded from political power, but they debated revolutionary ideals and participated in revolutionary activities’ (p. 142). Such issues as these, however, are essentially debating points. A broader matter of concern is that the book is stronger in its treatment of population movements to and from the continents that surround the Atlantic Ocean than it is on the ocean itself as a maritime space. One result is that the more northerly reaches get short shrift. Fisheries rate an occasional mention, primarily as part of a suite of ‘raw materials’ (pp. 94, 102) that are allowed a limited degree of significance in colonial contexts. Yet fisheries were crucial to the overall European outreach into the North Atlantic and retained sufficient economic centrality into the 18th century that fishery-related disputes came close to derailing the entire British–French negotiation leading to the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht. Similarly, the ocean as a theatre of naval operations is largely ignored, as is its significance for navigation, not just within the Atlantic itself but on major routes to other oceanic waters, notably those of the Indian Ocean. The Atlantic Connection does successfully avoid falling into one of the most criticised traps that Atlantic World historiography has sometimes encountered, that of being little more than US colonial history writ large, but it does not entirely escape the broader identification of an oceanic world with the terrestrial activities taking place around the water’s edge. Nevertheless, as an introduction to a complex field, Suranyi’s study retains many strengths. Its conception is bold, and the author does not hold back from advancing judgements that may or may not be acceptable to all specialist readers – but which are always thought-provoking and will undoubtedly engage the interest of the students and generalists who largely form the intended audience. For those whose interests lie primarily in the contexts of other oceans – most importantly for readers of this journal, the Pacific Ocean – another value is added in this book, in that its breadth of scope and its chronological span help to delineate not just the Atlantic World but also the nature of the oceanic ‘world’ as an interpretive concept. In that sense, The Atlantic Connection contributes to global as well as to Atlantic history.

The Ivory Tower and beyond: Participant historians of the Pacific

vast majority of abortions are morally unjust (12). But he is convinced that meaningful and respectful dialogue between defenders and critics of abortion is possible if two key truths are honored. The first is the difference between the subjective culpability of the agent and the objective morality of the act as determined by relevant moral principles and norms. We must not, indeed cannot, judge those who choose to have or defend abortions. “Whatever one’s view of abortion itself, refraining from making judgments about the character of those touched by abortion (in whatever way) is helpful in treating the topic properly, and more importantly, I believe (but won’t defend here), that it is an essential part of being a decent human being” (5). The second is to avoid loaded language such as anti-life, anti-choice, etc. and use instead terms such as defenders of abortion, critics of abortion (6).