The Place of Culture

The West has to learn what the Pacific already knows about the ‘real stuff of

life.

PEOPLE of the Pacific know far better than the inheritors of European traditions how much their culture is themselves how it tells them who they are, where they fit into nature and the world. Western society has its stars of musical cul ture, both classical and rock, but it would not put a comparable effort into sharing the enjoyment of ordinary people of their own life as is regularly mounted in islands communities.

There is a danger, of course, that dances per formed as entertainment for tourists even arts that require periodic festivals to maintain them will become remote from the societies that developed them and no longer symbolise those societies. A dan ger only; it hasn’t happened yet in Fiji, for example.

The tourist taking comfort in the blunt sticks (rather than sharp axes) wielded by dancers would be mis taken to think these are not warrior people.

This was one subject under discussion at the re cent conference on Pacific literature at the Common wealth Institute in London (see Pacific Report), where participants looked at the interaction of writ ing and politics and noted the “link between political

upheavals and literary output”.

A healthy culture has to inform those in politics of what the values of the people really are: a healthy political regime is one where the values of the people are known and respected, even revered, and where politicians are engaged in enabling the fullest possi ble expression and enjoyment of those values.

Politics is how we make society and culture work. It is ‘the art of the possible’, a phrase hidden behind all too often by the politician seeking to tell people they cannot have what they want. The reason they cannot, say the politicians, is that they cannot afford it: the bottom line is money, and there is never enough of it.

The economic dimension is the basis of the whole social structure the sustaining dimension of life.

The trouble for too many in the West, however, is that money dominates rather than supports life.

The Western mind sees culture as an option, an extra; a form of relaxation from the ‘real stuff of life which is acquisition and control. The people of the Pacific has not yet lost the joy of celebrating who they are. It’s fine to dance or to write a book to let others see something of what you treasure, but it is real life to dance for yourself or write for the people you write about, so they can see themselves and learn to guard their treasures.

The people of the Pacific can hold for the world the true place of culture; to articulate and enhance the values the community’s economic effort should sustain; and that its political effort should enable. □