Holier-Than-Thou Advice

Cook Islanders Want No More Holier-Than-Thou Advice

By Johnny Hebenstreit

Two European residents of the Cook Islands sent petitions to the United Nations in August, accusing the New Zealand Goverment of deliberately keeping the Polynesian natives of the Cooks in ignorance in order to delay independence. This was then denied by the NZ Prime Minister, Mr. Holyoake.

IDO not pretend to know what the Government’s policy has in fact been, nor do I understand the motives of Mr. Dashwood or Mr. Syme for attacking it. But the issue has brought certain ideas of my own to a head that I have been wanting to write about for some time.

At the moment, it appears that most of the talk about the NZ Ad ministration holding back Cook Is landers is coming from Popaas (Euro peans); not from island Maoris.

In this, we are experiencing a subtle but still insulting form of condescension of one race to another.

It is the “white father” complex; the “holier-than-thou” attitude; and the “let us save you from yourselves” approach to inequality. (In the bar gain he will save you from other “saviours” as well.)

Pompous Europeans

To me, there is nothing as mis guided as the Popaa who takes it upon himself to save the Polynesians from other Popaas. His very attitude makes for a self-important and pompous individual and it is this type who is least likely to be respected by us.

This is the type we laugh about (though usually in a kind way) and tell jokes about, and he never seems to know.

Because most of the present soul searching in the Cook Islands has been raised by Europeans, I don’t think it should be taken as seriously as if islanders themselves were behind it.

I suspect the motives of the men who are now raising the issues. Why did they not do so decades ago when conditions really were bad? It would have been more believable then.

Today, these unhappy Popaas should lower their ambitions to those of the people around them. Teach them pride, not discontent.

And please do not preach.

No matter how long a white man

studies and lives with the Poly nesians, his knowledge is second hand. Rare is the man who can really “feel” the emotions of a race other than his own.

Many think they can. I was actu ally told recently on Rarotonga, by an Administration official, that I could not possibly understand the Polynesian mind as well as he since I had lost touch by long travel abroad and had even become an American citizen.

I have lived in Samoa, Tahiti, Hawaii, many of the Cook Islands, Japan and New Zealand and (if the US State Department will forgive me the admission) I have always felt myself a Cook Islander first.

With the exception of 1962, I have been away from the Cook Islands 10 years, but I can truly say that I have never forgotten for one day that they are my real home and that half my blood is of the Cook Islands. I am extremely proud of it and I have

worked hard to keep my soul Poly nesian.

But this does not mean I do not respect the half of me which is Popaa. I have pride in both my fal 2!!j e T n , nill/ i i; .

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SmT^„ b , y „ ‘Jjf. ™ V *IA 1 “P™ Ito get back OUr p Thjs cannot be done by outsiders. whether they be representatives of the NZ Government, the United Nations or just politically-minded is land Europeans. It can only be done by our people when their pride is re born.

Until we stop feeling that everyone

is superior to ourselves, we will be like a canoe without an outrigger and will be buffeted by each new sug gestion or plan formulated for us by others.

I do believe that the Administra tion, in the past, did not try very hard to push the Cook Islanders for ward, and it even held them back.

This was a disadvantage to those of us who left the islands .to make our ways in the outside world, but it also helped preserve our way of life— a life that I, for one, remember fondly.

Today, however, no one can say that New Zealand is trying to hold us back any longer.

In fact, it is probably because of the recent concessions that some Popaas, who have been at odds with the Administration during the past, now feel safe to come out into the open and get even. They sense the Government on the run.

But surely it is our own people who should fill the gap a New Zea land withdrawal will leave, and if we are not yet ready, then a few more years under the present relaxed ar rangement cannot harm us.

Where Are We Heading?

After all, where are we heading in such a hurry? Are islanders them selves really demanding that their lives be changed to suit the outside world? How can an islander feel that he is held back from independence when he has never really felt a true lack of it?

I have not heard such complaints from the simple-minded people them selves and this is not because they are afraid to speak.

Is it not the more ambitious of the merchants (Maori and Popaa ) as well as those Popaas who have been rebuffed in the past, who see great opportunity in an independent country?

But, of course, the common is lander can be taught to be discon tented.

Already a certain Popaa element is whispering racial intolerance to help solidify its position.

They fear the Japanese, and per haps rightly so. But they raise ob jections on grounds of race. They say the islanders will lose their land if the Japanese are allowed to enter the islands with tuna fish, even though they know the law forbids the ownership of land by non-Cook Is landers.

Perhaps some islanders will join in this fear, but when the Popaas shake their heads in dismay over the

prospects of “Jap babies”, the islanders smile for they do not fear such a thing. Of course, they can be taught to do so but at the moment, with limited contact, many feel closer akin to Japanese than to Europeans.

Anyway, is it not a paradox that Popaas, who find their own blood a fine addition to the Polynesian strain, feel that it would be a crime to pollute island blood with Asiatic?

I lived long enough in Hawaii to

know the foolishness of such parochial thoughts, Personally, I don’t care if the Japanese visit the Cook Islands or no. (My husband works for a company that would like to see it happen, but my own thoughts regarding the Japanese were developed long before any talk of tuna fishing in the Cooks, I formed a high opinion of the Japanese during the two years I lived in Japan in 1954-1956.) (Over)

But for some Popaas in the Cook Islands, it is as if we are still fight ing the 1941 war. Islanders are still talking about the bad treatment given the crew of a Japanese fishing boat wrecked last year on Rarotonga.

While countries like America and England are spending millions to im prove relations with Japan and other former enemies, a few pipsqueaks in the Cook Islands could take it upon themselves to deny the shipwrecked crew beds, cups to drink from and toilet paper.

“If the natives can use leaves, then leaves are good enough for the Japs,” they said.

Great Improvements

I am not wholly in favour of the way things are today in the Cook Islands, but I am aware of a great improvement since my youth.

The Administration, I think, is honestly trying now to help.

For an underdeveloped country itself, NZ is not really ignoring the needs of the Cook Islands. Much money is being spent solely for the benefit of the islanders. They have given us schools, some good roads for the rich to drive on (and for others to pedal their bicycles on), the hospital which is to be rebuilt some day, agricultural improvements and a ship.

Let us not blame the Government for everything. Let us utilise the good they have done and correct the bad.

And if we ourselves do not know how to run a Government now, let us speak up and let the NZ Administra tion know how we feel so that they can help us in the way we want to be helped, not necessarily the way they think we want to be helped.

When “do gooders” stop instruct ing us how to think and feel; when they stop feeling they must fight our battles for us, and confine themselves to giving us the tools to work out our own destiny; then we Cook Is landers can again feel pride in our selves.