North Charleston, SC: CreateSpace, 2015. 153 pp. (Illustrations.) US$7.50, paper. ISBN 978-1512235586.
In his second book, Giff Johnson provides a well-versed historical and intimate look at the most challenging issues of great relevance to the sovereign identity and development of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), Republic of Palau, and the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), although the focus is definitively on the latter, where Johnson has resided for several decades. This self-published work is a compilation of essays originally scribed as blog entries between 2013 and 2015 for the Pacific Institute of Public Policy. As the editor and major contributor for the RMI’s only newspaper, The Marshall Islands Journal, Johnson’s finger is undeniably and authoritatively on the pulse of the country’s state of affairs, and these pieces immediately bear that signature. The great advantage, and notable difference, between his contributions to the weekly news editions and these essays, is the freedom afforded him in the latter to provide more personal contemplation, analysis, and commentary not afforded to him in his professional role. This distinction is an extraordinarily valuable one, and Johnson’s best work is here in his critical examination of the many underlying political and cultural motivations behind high-level historical and contemporary decisions.
The book is divided into chapters that organize his essays into topics, such as the ongoing strained relationship between the US and the RMI thanks to its nuclear legacy, teen pregnancy, and the disincentives complicating healthy lifestyle choices. In the first three chapters, Johnson addresses the linked themes of corruption, development, and governance, offering the most valuable insights of the work. Pointing to the financial corruption scandals increasingly surfacing in the Marshall Islands, he identifies a “long-term, ingrained” problem of the failed nature of donor funding, western-style development plans, and local engagement. He provides several examples depicting a culture of active disengagement that he identifies as another (albeit subtler) “flavor” of corruption on par with direct theft or misuse of money. Quoting FSM’s former Yap Governor John Mangefel, he gets to the core of a viral incentive problem plaguing the young nations: “If you work, you eat. If you don’t work, you still eat.” In terms of societal and economic development, notably exemplified by the failure of many Pacific Island countries to meet even half of the Millennium Development Goals, funding continues to pour in and plans develop on paper regardless of visible evidence of effective results.
Johnson is not afraid to place a fair helping of blame on the failures of a local leadership that spends more than half their time abroad at conferences, and rarely suffers the consequences of poor decisions that unduly affect the larger community. It is not hard to empathize with local frustrations when leadership flexes its sovereignty muscles demanding more control (and less transparency) over its allocation of received donor funding, while dismissing and chastising local citizenry’s criticisms of the lack of reform or improvements in livelihood.
In a rare positive note, Johnson’s attention to fisheries in chapter four commends the great strides and advances undertaken by synergistic multinational efforts, notably the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA) regional fisheries entity, and the Micronesia Challenge conservation consortium. Revenues in fisheries have more than tripled under the PNA initiatives, and regulation and conservation efforts have increased in both scope and effectiveness, trickling further down to an increase in sustainable business ventures. Where Johnson sees a remaining challenge is the application of these more successful strategies in other arenas of governance, and the struggle for respectful buy-in by the international community.
Climate change is the most discussed topic of the day for many Pacific Island countries, and no work on challenges to the region would be complete without addressing it, which Johnson does in chapter five. His most notable contribution questions the relative worth of the aggressive international campaign for global climate change action, as well as calling out the so-called hypocrisy of the Marshall Islands’ economic profit from the fossil fuel industry (as the world’s third largest ship registry of drilling rigs and oil tankers), while simultaneously demanding the international community reduce dependency on said fossil fuels. Johnson’s suggestions include reducing local government employees’ attendance at all-too-frequent international meetings, and focusing human and monetary resources on scientifically supported local studies and focused mitigation projects.
The book’s slim final chapter begins to confront the double-edged dilemma of out-migration and the “local” challenges citizens of the Freely Associated States (those of FSM, Palau, and RMI) face abroad, an increasing trend that very well may be the future of a majority, if not the entirety, of the region’s population. While relocation in relation to climate change displacement or nuclear contamination is described in terms of loss and pain, it is clear that thousands of islanders are actively electing, often permanently, to relocate. In their selected homes in the United States, they face another set of challenges amidst a leadership regime full of inadequacies of its own.
While Johnson laments that many of the addressed dilemmas are unlikely to change in the immediate future, his repeated call for both an abandonment of the blind implementation of western-style development plans, and the rampant negligence and complacency by leadership, is sorely needed. It is unfortunate that there is no concluding essay or chapter tying all of these linked challenges he so carefully and passionately explores into a more broadly reflective and historical context.
The book’s essays appear to be minimally edited from their original versions, and are lacking dates of authorship or revised considerations, with relevant updates limited to asterisked sentences. As standalone pieces they are astute and timely reflections, yet some readers may find the oft repeated facts and sentences in back-to-back essays tiresome. Zealous academics too will find themselves yearning for citations for the splendid examples and statistics, or additional supporting evidence for many of the statements.
These additions and revisions would certainly improve the value of the collection’s shelf life, although their absence does not hinder the primary value of this work as a fresh, but historically deep and well-grounded reflections on witnessed and lived dilemmas in the North Pacific region. Johnson’s “calling it like it is” approach is rarely heard so sensitively yet unabashedly expressed outside of beer and kava sessions with trusted peers. Those familiar with the region will find a solemn salience to Johnson’s remarks, and perhaps even be challenged to address those less-than-idyllic accusations, but it remains to be seen who that readership will be. And will it fall on deaf ears?
Ingrid Ahlgren
The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
pp. 419-421