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James K. Baxter Complete Prose Volume 3

The Government and the Tokelau Scandal

The Government and the Tokelau Scandal

It is not good to impute motives to any person or group of people. Human motives are commonly very mixed. Therefore, in discussing the situation of Tokelau Islanders in New Zealand and the behaviour of our Government in relation to this Polynesian people, I imagine that the motivation of our Government lies somewhere in a middle area between a benign but clumsy paternalism and a cynical exploitation of one available source of manual labourers.

I am not trying to invent a new Devil. The old one is bad enough. According to our religion, he succeeded in afflicting the human race with the page 379 curse of universal stupidity. Darkness of the intellect is what the theologians call it.

Probably the destructive activities of our Government in the all-important sphere of inter-cultural relationships between people of European and people of Polynesiandescent, stems from nothingmoremalign than dense,prolonged and mind-benumbing social stupidity.

My contact with people of the Tokelau Islands began when Fr John Broadbent, now of Johnsonville parish, visited me at Jerusalem, accompanied by a young man named Hefo. One thing led to another. For a year at Jerusalem I had the privilege of Hefo’s help and company. Almost singlehanded he planted and cultivated a large garden to provide the less capable members of the community with vegetables. Whenever problems rose in the community I would discuss them with him. His wisdom and intuitive awareness of the feelings of other people, derived, I think, from his long participation in village life, were quite invaluable. I referred to him on occasions as the anchor of the Jerusalem community. When he left me to join his people in the towns I lamented his going.

He returned some time later on a day’s visit with his stepfather Kimi, an elder and leader in the Tokelau village community from which they both came, who had come to New Zealand to assist his people in the difficult task of adjustment to New Zealand social conditions. With Hefo as translator Kimi said to me: ‘The words of the Government are words of love. But I think their actions are not actions of love.’ He was referring to the programme of the Government to encourage young Tokelau Islanders to migrate to New Zealand. The emigration of young men had plucked the heart out of the Tokelau Islands economy. The old people and the children were left to do the village work. And the Tokelau Islanders who did emigrate found themselves in many cases employed by the Forestry Department, in unsatisfactory conditions. Our colder climate, to which they were unaccustomed, affected their health adversely.

Their chiefs were not treated with the respect owing to them. The offer of my friend Hefo, who is articulate both in English and in the Tokelau Island language, to act as interpreter between his people and the Government was inevitably rejected. As far as I am aware, no other person was appointed to fill the gap.

I do not wish to stress denominational matters. An issue of social justice is involved in our Government’s treatment of the Tokelau Islanders, and social justice is not a denominational matter. But Hefo and his stepfather are both Catholics. There are many Catholics among the Tokelau Islanders, many adherents of the London Missionary Society and a number of Jehovah’s Witnesses. All men are our brothers, but those who kneel at the altar rail with us are brothers twice over. I trust we will be able to rectify injuries that are being done to our brothers by our elected Government.

page 380

This year I visited members of the Tokelau Islands community in Petone and Porirua. I attended two meetings of the elders and discussed their problems with them. They gave me permission to write this article. And these are their problems, as clearly as I can set them down:

(a)

The original problem of the Tokelau communities on their own islands still exists.

If the islands were over-populated, the Government has not solved satisfactorily any difficulties of the islands’ economy by enticing or removing their strongest and their youngest men to work as labourers in New Zealand.

The suggestion of a Minister of the Crown that the islands should be turned into a coconut plantation, if my source of information is correct, sounds most peculiar. Who will own the plantation? Will the villagers be demoted from free men holding land in common to labourers on a Government estate? The suggestion, if correctly reported, carries echoes of exploitation which one would have hoped to have died at the turn of the century.

(b)

In settling Tokelau Islanders in the towns the Government is either being incredibly clumsy or setting into action a policy of enforced assimilation.

The Islanders are put in houses far apart from one another, among neighbours of European descent. They have as yet no meeting house where community problems can be discussed and, hopefully, solved.

Help in the construction of a meeting house is a matter of the first priority. And it is the Government which should foot the bill, since it is the Government which has engineered, consciously or unconsciously, the Islanders’ present difficulties.

(c)

The sick and aged of the Tokelau Islanders domiciled in New Zealand receive neither sickness benefits nor old age pensions.

This information seemed incredible to me, since the Tokelau Islanders are New Zealand citizens. But I have checked it at several sources, and that is the way it is.

Are the sick and the aged supposed to live on air? Undoubtedly they will survive, on account of the magnificent Polynesian tradition of care for one’s kindred, not yet shattered among the Islanders.

But it is a disgrace to our entire nation that New Zealand citizens should be treated like this. I confidently wait for the Bishops and priests and laity of the Catholic Church to move into action, demanding that our Government should immediately remedy this injustice.

(d)

There are cases of Tokelau Islanders, employed for some years, even in the Government service, receiving lower pay than employees of European descent who have been appointed more recently.

page 381
(e)

The Tokelau islanders come from three islands and belong to three denominations

To achieve rapport and cooperation among groups from the three islands is a domestic problem which the Islanders themselves must solve, though the construction of a common meeting house would be a step along the road. But cooperation between the denominations involved is an ecumenical matter in which New Zealanders of European descent, or of Maori descent, could properly play a part.

(f)

The elders were troubled by the difficulties of their young people, inevitable in a bicultural environment.

There is the usual record of belligerence in pubs, rising from social frustration, difficulty in getting employment, and ensuing police action under our outdated and wholly negative I. and D. (Idle and Disorderly) Act. There are also the usual instances of apparent police discrimination against Polynesians.

(g)

There is the problem of the sometimes negative relation of the Tokelau Islanders to the Maori community.

I believe that several mature members of the Maori community have shown friendship and cooperation to the Tokelau Islanders. The difficulties arise more among the younger people of both races. One Tokelau Islands elder suggested that it might help if his people began to learn the Maori language.

I remembered the words of Peter Gordon, a man with a great heart and a Presbyterian of Maori descent, who said to a Maori group: ‘The Islanders are standing today in the shoes that we were standing in yesterday. We must be ready to help them.’

(h)

There is the problem of the maintenance of the Tokelau Islands language and culture, necessary if the Islanders are to maintain their national identity and robust spiritual values.

This, too, is a domestic problem for the Islanders themselves. But it would be lessened if the Department of Education were to try to bridge the gap, and provided at least for the singing of Tokelau Islands songs in the schools by Tokelau Islands children.

My joy at being among the elders of the Tokelau Islands people was great. The spiritual impact of direct contact with the communal Christ, expressed in ceremony and hospitality and the love of the group, is always like a wave lifting a boat towards the sky.

My sorrow was also great. I fear that the communal Christ will yet again be crucified among us – by the shattering of the Tokelau Islands culture, by page 382 the types of crime and sickness of mind and body that come when the small fish is swallowed by the big one, by the headless and heartless advance of commerce and technology that pays no heed to minorities. If that happens, it will be as if we had thrown the Crown Jewels out on the rubbish heap.

The Polynesian spiritual values are of enormous importance for the growth of our souls, we people of European descent, who are so often too arrogant to recognise what we lack. Even in a day and a night spent among the Tokelau Islanders I found myself invigorated by contact with the communal Christ.

It is not so much that we should help them – though certainly in mere justice we owe them our voices and hands to convince the Government that it cannot treat minorities as it pleases – it is rather that we need the opportunity to avail ourselves of the strength and support of their brotherly love. We would deny ourselves most of all if we remained indifferent to their situation.

1971 (662)