Not quite

the place for it

Paradise Postoned: essays on re search and development in the South Pacific. Edited by A.

Mamak and G. McCall. Pub lished by Pergumon Press, Syd ney, 1978. $A 16.00 (hard), $9.95

(soft).

Paradise Postponed is a collec tion of essays presented at the Young Nations Conference in Sydney in August 1976 ‘to re examine the concept of development and research into development, with a view to

adopting a more responsible

approach to the communities

being researched’.

Chaired by Esiteri Kamikamica and Filimone Jitoko (Fiji), Ata Ma’ai’i (Western Samoa), Epeli Hau’ofa (Tonga) and Stuart Kingan (Cook Islands) and involving others from their nations as well as New Caledonians. New Hebrideans.

Papua New Guineans and rep resentatives of international agencies, universities and transnational corporations, the sessions had a go at questions of research into and/or for social planning, communi cation, village government, motivation, women’s role, and more. Even cargo cultism received attention.

The discussions and the essays in this book varied from academic jargon-laden arguments about ‘value-free’ anthropology and semantic acrobatics (‘What is meant by development?’) to down-to earth issues such as making it possible and easy for villagers to take part in planning.

Appropriate technology and

agricultural extension were among the issues that came to the fore during syndicate dis cussions which, in my opinion, were of greater value to most of the participants than the reading of esoteric essays by

European academics.

Two Tongans, Bishop

Patelisio P. Finau in his open ing address, and Professor Sione Latukefu in his conclud ing remarks, made some telling

points. The bishop asked

whether Sydney is'the most suitable venue for this kind of conference (and I don’t believe it is) and he claimed that any development programme must be judged by the extent to which it increases the islanders’ power of decision-making.

Professor Latukefu said that Islanders must have freedom ‘to choose whatever new ideas, technology or values they feel are relevant to their ever

changing needs and aspir

ations, irrespective of their source, whether from capitalist or socialist systems, and add to them what is good and relevant in their own cultures, in order to improve the lot of their

people, not only with pride and

confidence, but also with hu

mility and compassion’.

Home-grown politicans are

now the captains of the Pacific young nations’ destinies and depend upon advice from

home-grown planners. The

Young Nations Conference of 1976, reflected in the essays in this book, enabled some of the planners to meet their counter parts from elsewhere in the Pa

cific.

Harry Jackman