Aussie Islanders
THE trickle of Australian South Sea Islanders returning to the home of their ancestors in search of their roots is becoming a flood.
Last century more than 60,000 Melanesians were taken from what is now Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and New Caledonia to work as indentured labourers on Australia’s
sugar plantations.
After the introduction of the White Australia policy, which banned islanders from many jobs, only a few stayed.
Some 12,000 of their descendants are known as Australian South Sea Island ers.
As Patricia Corowa Secretary of the New South Wales branch of the Austra lian South Sea Islanders United Council puts it “Our story is different from other
South Pacific migrants. Our ancestors didn't choose Austra lia, many were forced. Shipping companies and sugar industries needed cheap labour and men and boys were ‘blackbirded’.”
“That’s what happened to my grandfather Jack Corowa in 1893. He was only 13 or 15 years old. He was taken from Tanna in Vanuatu and had to work under very harsh conditions in Queensland.”
The Australian South Sea Islanders have embarked on a campaign to win recognition from the Australian government for the disadvantages they have suffered.
Those who did not return home after the introduction of the White Australia policy became fringe dwellers ekeing out an existence on the edge of society; growing their own food and taking the occasional work that was offered.
A Human Rights Commission report tabled in parliament in May showed South Sea Islanders suffered the same disadvantage as Aborigines. Their levels of income, health, education and home ownership put them amongst the very poorest in Australian society.
Despite the treatment metered out to them Patricia Corowa is adamant the South Sea Islanders are Australians and want to stay that way.
“We’ve been divorced from our land and traditions for over 100 years. Some of us have been here for six or seven generations. We see Australia as our country.”
The South Sea Islanders want recognition as a unique black minority in Australia and special benefits which will recognise the disadvantage which has been forced on them.
“Our history has parallels with Africans who were carried across the Atlantic to America we need to find our identity and recognition. Our connections with the land of our origin need regeneration” says Corowa.
In Solomon Islands and elsewhere people have strong memories of the stories that were passed down about the young men and women lost to the ‘blackbirders’.
On an initiative from home affairs minister, Michael
Maeliau, the new government in Solomon Islands has proposed a formal reconciliation with Australia over this shameful part of our past.
The initiative which could see a reconciliation ceremony take place sometime next year was put to Australia’s Pacific islands affairs min ister, Gordon Bilney, during his visit to Solomons in September.
Says Solomons deputy prime min ister Francis Saemala “some of our people were taken to the sugar plantations in Queensland rather than look at it in a negative way we are looking at it in a positive way”.
Saemala wants recognition for the role Solomon Islanders played in the development of Queensland, and indeed, Australia.
Maeliau sees the reconciliation ceremony taking the form of a traditional exchange of gifts and speeches. “I think it is a very powerful aspect of our culture before we can live together we have to have this ceremony of reconciliation which carries with it a force of a kind of treaty,” said Maeliau.
The proposal for a formal reconciliation was embraced enthusiastically by Bilney. “It seems to me well over time that we should make peace between this culture and the culture of Australia” Bilney said during his trip to Solomon Islands.
“There are a large number of people of Solomon Island descent, indeed of South Seas descent, who stayed in Australia and kept in some measure their cultural roots. I’d like to find a way of reviving those roots’ Bilney said.
To do that Bilney announced a scholarship scheme which will enable six people each year to return to the country of their ancestors to research their history and culture.
The reconciliation ceremony will most likely take place at next year’s South Pacific Forum which will be held in Brisbane.
For Maeliau, a minister in the South Seas Evangelical Church, another important aspect of the reconciliation involves preserving the heritage of the events of last century.
His church was founded in Australia amongst the indentured labourers and taken back to Maeliu’s home island of Malaita by a Solomon Islander who had finished his term.
“Today we have 50,000 people who belong to that church” says Maeliau “therefore we have that link with the South Sea Islanders”.
At Fairy Mead just outside Bundaberg in Queensland is the site where the South Seas evangelical church began. As part of celebrations for the church’s 100th anniversary Maeliau would like to see the site restored.
“A couple of buildings, a church and a Sunday school hall are still there. Our desire is to preserve those buildings at the very spot where it all began and make that as a heritage, not only of our church, this is like a Bethlehem to our church, but for Australia too. d