Pacific Islands Monograph Series, 27. Honolulu: Center for Pacific Islands Studies, School of Pacific and Asian Studies, University of Hawai‘i, Mānoa; University of Hawai‘i Press, 2013. xxii, 289 pp. (Map, figures, tables.) US$60.00, cloth. ISBN 978-0-8248-3818-8.
In-depth studies of New Caledonian politics have been rare in the English language over the past 15 years. Anglophones have been typically confined to the snapshots of Melbourne journalist Nic Maclellan in Islands Business monthly, as well as cogent updates by him and Frédéric Angleviel issued by the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies at Australian National University. Less accessible, but useful as well, has been an anthology edited in Tahiti by Regnault and Fayaud (New Caledonia: Twenty Years On, 1988-2008, Jean-Marc Regnault and Viviane Fayaud, eds., Paris: Société Française d’Histoire d’Outre-mer, 2010).
In Kanak Awakening (KA), David Chappell, an historian at the University of Hawai’i, competently chronicles the Melanesian insurgency in Caledonia over the past four decades. Yet inasmuch as his study displays political acumen, one further pines for a comprehensive exploration of the issue of the day—e.g., a broad supplement assessing whether the not-quite-a-majority Kanaks will prevail politically over the next four years. Granted, KA styles itself a political history; but with so few sources available, Anglophone students currently have nowhere else to turn for a detailed forecast.
But first to the book’s forte—its account of Kanak political development.
From the perspective of progressive Pacific Islanders, colonialism in the region has long become obsolete. In Caledonia, its continuation is attributed to France’s greed for the control and profits of the territory’s nickel reserves, as well as Paris’ desire to retain a military presence in the Pacific.
Yet dislodging the French is challenging. It’s typically assumed that those who identify indigenously remain nearly 45 percent of the population, while Europeans compose some 34 percent, Polynesian immigrants (largely from Wallis, Futuna and Tahiti) some 12 percent, and Asians (largely from Indonesia and Vietnam) some 4 percent. Building a consensus for independence, then, not only requires Kanak unity, but deft alliance with a progressive slice of Europeans and Polynesian and Asian immigrants.
Chappell’s study expertly recounts the development of Kanak organization. As an astute analyst, he understands that successful movements are typically launched by privileged elites. More objectively than previous studies, he documents the early agitation of Caledonian students in Paris in the late 1960s (organized as the Foulards Rouges [Red Scarves]), and their ensuing alliance back home with the Union des Jeunesses Calédoniennes (Union of Caledonian Youth) in 1973 and Groupe 1878 in 1974. (The three groups join the Parti de Libération Kanak in 1976, which itself becomes a component of the ongoing Front de Libération Nationale Kanak et Socialiste in 1984.)
The author poignantly reports a conversation in 2009 with the former leader of the Foulards, Kanak chief Nidoish Naisseline. The chief recounts that although the French insurrection in May 1968 catalyzed the founding of the Foulards, his comrades disparaged its ideology:
The Paris students only thought of throwing the culture and values of their parents in the gutter. We, in contrast, dreamed of rehabilitating that of our ancestors, which had been crushed underfoot by the colons. (248)
The quote is revealing, as it exposes a Kanak dilemma: is it possible to effectively federate with other ethnicities while prioritizing one’s traditional culture?
Granting Chappell’s premise that the political development of the Kanaks has been inspiring, the question remains how well the movement relates to its sina qua non—potential allies. Due to intermarriage and official denial of ethnic division, ethnic voting data is difficult to obtain in Caledonia. To measure the size of the European left in Caledonia, one would need to interview progressive figures in the media, universities, trade unions, environmental movement, and sectarian parties. This must be followed by interviews with ethnic leaders in the Polynesian and Asian communities. The subjective data might then inform an analysis of voting behaviour.
In the election to the territory’s Congress in May 2014, loyalists captured 29 seats while indépendantistes garnered 25. Some observers are skeptical the Kanak-led coalition can top this showing. A riposte would need to weigh Kanak turnout as well as the vote and turnout of potential allies.
It may very well be that Chappell is contemplating an extensive article or book that will address the prospects of independence. Or perhaps he knows of a political scientist who is about to publish such a study. But if neither article nor book appears in English, KA may retrospectively be regarded as a study of Caledonia politics that, true to its mission, ably reviewed the past … but left Anglophone students unguided about the future.
Michael Horowitz
Vava’u Academy, Nuku’alofa, Kingdom of Tonga
pp. 381-382