No bomb fuss in Tahiti

From JUDY TUDOR, on her way to Europe

PROBABLY the calmest place during the French bomb tests was French Polynesia itself.

French Polynesians, who have been anti-bomb for years in their own sort of way, are surprised at the wave of hysteria that swept over the other South Pacific countries for the test series of 1972. The yachtsmen attempting to sail into the danger area seem, to most, to be beyond common sense.

“Any minute now,” said a French friend at the time of the first blast of the series, “I expect to hear of a Catholic nun being dropped by parachute over the test site —then I’ll have heard everything.”

The Australian and NZ trade union black bans on French ship ping doesn’t seem to have penetrated as far as here, except for goods trans-shipped in Sydney from Hong Kong. Fresh meat is being flown in from NZ by Air New Zealand, although UTA is denied the right, and is being consumed by people directly employed on bomb business as well as by others.

Meantime, on money infused into the economy by the CEP French Polynesia continues to float along on a high level of prosperity, seen most, of course, in Tahiti. Tourism is contributing its quota but the bomb-test element is an increasingly im portant factor. It was obviously never intended that it should become a permanent fixture in local economics but the un fortunate thing is that it has.

No doubt those who are long in pure thought but short on political reality can be easily con vinced that the moral thing would be for France to now divert the money it spends on nuclear ex periments into local Fr. Polynesian coffers so that the 130,000 or so inhabitants can continue to live in the bomb era manner.

But as it is unlikely to happen, the question still arises as what is likely to happen next year if France does bow to pressure and drops the tests; or for that matter, what happens when they finish of their own accord in scheduled 1975?

Apart from tourism, which was, locally, as unpopular as bomb testing when it was first proposed as the panacea of all economic ills, Fr. Polynesia has had virtually no basic industries since Makatea phosphate gave out.

Family planning is neither part of local culture nor part of gov ernment policy and population grows apace, while education services improve and more and better-educated youngsters are graduating each year. Tourism is now not enough to take care of the economy and to date CEP funds infused indirectly and direct grants from metropolitan France have bridged the gap.

Local Polynesian politicians have said on numerous occasions that the people would prefer a return to subsistence level if they could rid themselves of both bombs and tourists. But so far this has not been put to the test and it is a fair bet that having emerged so far from an over romanticised grass-roots economy, it would be impossible to reverse the process without producing social chaos.

Polynesians individually, may be unreliable as a labour force; periodically, they may metapho rically flip their tails and return to the home taro patch; they may not really give a damn for the fact that Papeete has a multi-mil lion franc harbour, beautiful water front boulevard with fountains, luxury hotels, an Olympic pool, a fantastic cultural centre rising alongside it, or that outer-island people can get an airstrip if they want it and it’s topographically possible. All this may all be true yet, collectively, they are now dependent on a cash economy and all like the privilege of taking or leaving something of the good life.

They should be—but, of course, they are not—asking themselves: After the bomb, where do the francs come from next? As usual they are leaving it to the French.

The French, who have since the Pacific War come up with a couple of much criticised methods of keeping French Polynesia economically afloat, show no signs at the moment of performing a hat-trick by producing a third.