The Polynesian king

Books

By Alan Merridew TONGA’S King wants nuclear testing stopped for ever in the Pacific and France to quit Polynesia.

King Taufa’ahau Tupou IV called France “totally unreliable” in an inter view with American travel and fiction writer Paul Theroux.

The interview is in Theroux’s just published book The Happy Isles of Oceania.

The Sunday New York Times Magazine ran most of the interview in June.

The book and the 1.5 million circulation NTT Magazine excerpt will give Tonga and wider Oceania enormous exposure.

Theroux saw the King at the Palace “a bit like being in a well-furnished boarding house’ ’ in Nuku’alofa. “He

Paul Theroux’s sardonic view of Tonga’s king causes ripples in the royal household.

was vast, he was slow, an enormous shuffling man whose heavy-lidded eyes and whopper jaw gave him a huge frog like face you sometimes saw on ancient carved Polynesian tikis ... you would know immediately that he was the king “I had never seen anyone so politically powerful who was at the same time so

physically overwhelming.”

Tupou said he is trying to unite Polynesia into a federation of nations. But it could not be a political grouping.

“How could it be?”

Theroux quotes the King.

“The Cook Islands is a republic (sic). Hawaii is a state. French Polynesia is a colony. Tonga is a monarchy.

“There are too many differences. No, it will be concerned with culture and society. With lan guage and the arts ... We will publish a magazine.”

He said at Mururoa atoll, where France tests atom bombs, “I saw the holes in the reef ... They had made so many holes they had very little room left on the reef... So they had started to dig into the bed of the lagoon, which is of course very danger ous.

“Nuclear testing must stop. The French must leave. They import every thing from France, It is ridiculous. Although it will be hard financially

for the people of those islands, they must decolonize French Polynesia ... Soon.

Soon.”

Theroux quotes Tupou as saying that nuclear bombs “are needed to stop people like (Iraq’s dictator Saddam) Hussein ... He is like Hitler ... They should put a bomb under him.”

Asked if he trusted the French to test nuclear devices elsewhere in the world, the King said, “I don’t trust the French at all!” and roared with laughter.

“Totally unreliable!”

He protested to Theroux that he is not an absolute monarch he had a parliament. And he had committees looking into tourism, oil and television.

He said, “I am the committee!” and he laughed very hard. “We always have a majority.” Another laugh ... “No dissent ing voices!”

Carrying a collapsible kayak, Theroux covered countries or colonies ranging from Australia to Vanuatu, French Polynesia, Easter Island and Hawaii.

The book is focussed, erudite and witty albeit cutting at times. At every chance Theroux belittles those he con siders fools, humbugs, dishonest, stupid or hypocritical. He deplores church influences in the Pacific.

He finds paradises not in the mythical South Seas but in small isolated, uninhabited spots and paddling off the reef or shore.

The Happy Isles of Oceania: Paddling the Pacific by Paul Theroux. Published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York. U.S.

$24.95 Isbn 0-399-13726-2.

The king; resplendent in his finery

The book: cause for concern in Tonga