Recolonizing Islands and Decolonizing History | |
MicSem Articles | Historical |
Here we are, gathered together from all quarters of the Pacific and
beyond, to take time to reflect on where Pacific history - and we who
have some stake in it - are headed.
Here we meet, in Guam: "where America's day begins", as the masthead
of the local daily paper once proclaimed. Guam - host to the US
military since the turn of the century, and now one of the most
popular tourist destinations for the newly affluent Japanese.
Over there on Tumon Bay, where we will be holding our sessions, is
the heart of the tourist trade that brings some 600,000 visitors each
year. It is also the spot where, 300 years ago, the Jesuit priest
Diego Luis de Sanvitores met his death - a death that some see as
martyrdom, and others claim was just retribution for the calamities
his compatriots unleashed on the island.
Guam is a destination of another sort for the hundreds of
Micronesians who have begun streaming into the island since the
Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of the Marshall
Islands signed the Compact of Free Association with the US in
1986.
Guam, colonized for over 300 years and still a US territory, now has
satellites of its own in its surrounding islands.
I hope you are not disappointed with this venue for our conference,
you who may have expected something a little more small-islandish. No
one expects to see nipa huts at a conference site any more, but wooden
frame houses on wave-washed shores are still a pleasant reminder of
the ambience that everyone associates with the Pacific.
Still, Guam is an ideal site for this conference not only because of
the warm hospitality of its people (who remain profoundly Micronesian,
appearances sometimes to the contrary), but because the island
exemplifies so much of what has happened and is happening throughout
the Pacific.
Every island group in the Pacific can legitimately lay claim to
certain things: a wealth of indigenous wisdom embedded in its unique
cultural legacy; a parade of foreigners - traders, missionaries, naval
parties and others -that crossed its shores to bring the mixed
blessings of what Westerners called "civilization"; and, of course,
colonization.
Virtually every group in the Pacific has been colonized at one time
or another, and some still are. Micronesia's distinction for Pacific
historians, however, may lie in the duration and variety of its
colonial experiences. There is no island in Oceania that has had a
longer colonial history than the one on which we are now meeting.
Together with the rest of the Marianas, it was first colonized long
before most other island groups even found a place on Western maps. We
might consider island Micronesia, then, a showcase of colonialism,
past and present.
The Carolines, Marshalls and Marianas were ruled by four different
nations in turn, one of them an Asian country (Japan). Each of these
colonizing nations espoused its goals and employed its own strategies
in the islands it rules. This procession of colonial powers offers a
rare opportunity for us to compare the colonization process under
several flags. But it offers us much more than this.
It affords us a view of the differing ways in which six or more
cultural groups responded to the various forms of colonial rule. The
Yapese, for instance, collaborated as willingly with the Germans as
the Marshallese did, but for quite different reasons.
Marshallese chiefs, who had extensive land rights, profited so
handsomely from tax collection and their cut of the copra trade that
some of them had a higher yearly income than the German
commissioner.
Yapese village chiefs, who had no claim over any other land than
their own estates, did not stand to profit financially, but could call
on the German police force to bolster their authority among the
villagers and punish those who were slow in responding to their call
for village labor.
Chuukese found in German rule what they needed: a strong central
government that would rid them of the enervating warfare they had
carried on from time immemorial.
Palauans and Pohnpeians were more divided in their response - the
former along status lines and the latter by geographical districts. In
Palau the chiefs worked with the Germans to rid themselves of the
powerful sorcerers who were threatening to usurp them. In Pohnpei, the
northern kingdom of Sokehs had especially strong grievances against
the Germans, lead to an uprising there, while the other kingdoms
complied outwardly with German demands.
There are sometimes more effective ways of defeating colonialism than
by open rebellion. Micronesians became skilled in working around
foreign rulers to accomplish what they wanted. Most island societies
worked out ways to satisfy, at least to a minimal degree, the
expectations of their current colonial ruler, while using the system
to achieve their own aims and minimizing damage to their
societies.
Yapese chiefs, for example, used two or three colonial
administrations to shore up their authority, but successfully
prevented their rulers from intruding in village affairs. Neither
Germans not Japanese ever tampered with the political workings of the
village, acquired land within the villages, or even intermarried with
Yapese to any notable degree.
Other island groups drew the line differently. Palau encouraged
intermarriage and surrendered large amounts of land, especially to the
Japanese, to provide the inflow of money needed to fuel the
competitive accumulation of riches that had always been central to the
Palauan way of life.
The experience of working around foreign governments for a century
stood Micronesians in good stead in recent years as the new nation
states negotiated for their future political status. Well aware that
the US intended to maintain its political influence in the northern
Pacific, the island nations have accepted this as a nonnegotiable
premise and tried to turn it to their advantage.
In an effort to make the best of the geopolitical realities and the
battle between superpowers for dominance in the Pacific, they have
maintained strong ties with the US in their new political statuses, To
the newly independent countries of the south Pacific, this may have
seemed like an unacceptable compromise. To Micronesian
decision-makers, however, it appeared the only realistic course.
Consequently, the Micronesian states, even those that proclaim their
sovereignty, have chosen to maintain continuing political and economic
bonds with their former colonizer, the US. While accepting the
realities of their situation, as they were compelled to do in earlier
colonial times, they are using their present political status to
advance their own programs and goals.
As a result, there are now multiple political systems in Micronesia
today: commonwealth, territorial status, and free association with the
US in all its finer variations. There is also, of course, the outright
independence that Nauru and Kiribati have enjoyed for some years
now.
Even these quasi-legal terms mask some of the differences between the
societies and what they hope to achieve. Chuuk, one of the states of
the FSM, has come to depend on an external government to keep the
peace, for it has never had a very highly developed system of
government beyond the lineage. Yap and Pohnpei have had more elaborate
traditional political systems, and Kosrae was forced to invent one
after the collapse of its indigenous chiefly system in the last
century.
All need the American money to some degree or other. They feel that,
with US financial aid and their control over their own government,
they can gradually move towards self-support and a greater degree of
political autonomy in the future.
The irony is that Guam and the Northern Marianas, which have made
such rapid economic gains that they could now support their own
governments, are bound much more tightly to the US by virtue of their
political status than their more indigent neighbors. Guam and the
Northern Marianas may have the money to become independent, but they
no longer enjoy this political option, and may have even lost the will
to be independent.
It may be worth noting that Micronesia, unlike some other parts of
the Pacific, has had a relatively free hand in realigning its
boundaries. Nauru, for instance, was joined with the Marshall Islands
under German rule for a time. At the beginning of World War I, it was
seized by Australia and subsequently ruled as a trust territory. It
became independent in 1968, some years before the Ellice Islands
separated from the Gilberts to become independent.
Whatever fragile unity the Carolines, Marshalls and Marianas enjoyed
since the beginning of this century was fractured in the course of its
status negotiations during the 1970s. What was once the Trust
Territory of the Pacific has now become four separate political
entities. All of which simply shows that even the boundaries
established or ratified during colonial years are far from
permanent.
But this conference proposes to do more than consider examples of
colonization at work. In fact, one of its major concerns is that
decolonization of history. There are several issues that we can expect
will be discussed here, even if not addressed explicitly in the
presentations. It may be well to review some of these here.
First, there is the old question that has dogged Americans,
Australians and Europeans for years. Who may presume to do Pacific
history, and under what terms? By what right do we Westerners presume
to make the judgments and interpretations that are so much a part of
our craft? Who are the people we are attempting to describe and what
claim do they have upon our work - not only to be portrayed
accurately, but to be represented in making the judgments that we have
arrogated to ourselves?
An old and tiresome question, as I was once told when I tried to
discuss this with someone, but important nonetheless. Let me simply
say that the number of islanders present for this conference is an
encouraging sign. There are new indigenous voices being heard today,
and they are well represented at this conference.
Second, what is the proper medium of history? Many of the best
intentioned of us foreigners have assumed that the natural vehicle of
history was the written word. But this assumption, I am happy to note,
is being challenged in one of the conference sessions on
historiography. History need not be read; it can be performed.
Other media - dance, song, oral tales and the graphic arts - are just
as suitable for expressing history and far more congenial to most
island peoples. If the only thing we did at this conference was to
broaden the term "historian" to include more than those of us who fill
blank pieces of paper with words, we would have done a great
thing.
At least we would have finally rid ourselves of the arrogance of
thinking that we possess a monopoly on Pacific history. This may not
completely still the identity concerns that plaque Western
practitioners of history (and perhaps it should not), but it could
free us to do what we can do best, even as it calls our attention to
the many others who can rightly be called our colleagues.
Third, what additional tools of the trade do we need in order to
practice history in the Pacific? What do we foreigners have to learn
from Pacific islanders by way of a methodology of history? How can we
see to it that the people we describe will not become mere objects
rather than subjects, voiceless because we do not possess their words.
What can we do to ensure that they do not become simply a generalized
faceless mass?
I believe that this issue will emerge in the sessions on
historiography, but let me touch briefly on one or two possible
implications.
If history of the Pacific is really to be done island-style, then it
will have to be history by consensus, a point taken up by De Verne
Smith in a recent review article of hers on Rick Parmentier's book on
Palau. It is not enough to record the "truth" of the matter; that
truth must be asserted by all parties with a major stake in the
question. Hence, the historian is not the final arbiter of truth, the
one who after analyzing and contrasting variant forms makes the
judgment as to what actually happened and why, he or she is more the
meeting house secretary, or the chairman of the committee, the one who
negotiates the compromise that will prove acceptable to all parties.
In island practice, variant forms or ideas are not openly discussed,
but are hidden from view so as not to disturb the appearance of
consensus.
What meaning does this have for those of us who are accustomed to
doing history in the solitary splendor of our office or study'?
However far-ranging our sources, we do history by ourselves, as
individuals seeking to understand and impose meaning on what we have
heard or read or experienced
Very few of us work in the hurly-burly of the meetinghouse where
agreement must be worked out with painful slowness and political deals
made over kava or the local drink of choice.
We who are so concerned about "Pacificizing" our histories might take
better account of what meaning consensus history might have for us as
we practice our trade. This is all the more true since, as Smith
points out, our histories take on an authoritativeness that we may
never have intended.
In this day of increasing literacy in the Pacific, they are often
consulted by islanders and used for their own historical
reconstructions on such sensitive issues as land law, chiefly
genealogies, migration, and other things.
And that leads us to the fourth and final question: What is the
proper point of departure for historical inquiry? Western historians,
in principle if not always in practice, pride themselves on serving
the truth. We toil in the belief that there is an essence, buried deep
within the complexity of the facts and the one-sided accounts with
which we work, that can be reached.
Our hope is that what comes from our word processors will approach
"what truly was", even if we know that we can never entirely capture
it. Yet, I know of few island historians who would adopt such a
clinically sterile notion of the truth.
Micronesians are unabashedly pragmatic about their goals: to serve
the "truth" of society as it exists today, or as it should exist if
the present order were properly righted.
The reconstruction of island history that is going on today might be
compared to the "invention of custom" that is absorbing the attention
of anthropologists everywhere in the Pacific. Both may serve the very
practical, and often political, purpose of furnishing the
underpinnings for the present social order.
This should be no surprise to any of us, for Herodotus, the authors
of the Pentateuch, and just about everyone else who did history for so
long worked from the same premises and for the same reasons.
The canons that guide our historical research today are a recent
invention, no more than a century or two old.
My point here is not to belittle local historical methods at the
expense of the modern ones in which some of us were trained. It is to
ask Western historians and those islanders trained in that tradition
how far they are prepared to go to accommodate island history. If we
are going to pride ourselves on doing history Pacific-style, then we
should be ready to go a good deal further than we have already.
Authentic Pacific history means far more than a pen in a brown hand
rather than a white one. In fact, it may mean taking up the nose flute
or guitar rather than the pen, in the first place. It also means
different presuppositions about "truth", and different modes of
inquiry into the truth. It means a very different orientation to our
work, far more different than we have acknowledged in our
historiographical musings up to now. Perhaps far more different than
any of us in this room are capable of making.
These four issues, and the many others that are related to them, will
never be resolved at this conference, but they may form the backdrop
of our dialogue in the various sessions. Whatever happens, we should
at least recognize one thing. The genuine indigenization of Pacific
history involves more complex questions than are normally dealt with
the prefaces of our books. Let us not be discouraged, however; we can
do good history without trying to pass it off as bogus "tropicallized"
history.
Lastly, I would like to offer an observation or two on the direction
of Pacific history in our day, even at the risk of appearing
banal.
Pacific history, like all history, begins with a story to tell. For
many reasons, its story has tended to focus on the confluence of
traditions. local and western, in the area. Its concern has been
largely the impact of these more recent forces on these island
societies, small and vulnerable as they are. What changes did the
early copra traders bring to these islands? How were the islands
affected by the Spanish-American War? For that matter, what has been
the effect of the oil price hike on the local economy?
On another level, however, Pacific history tries to tell the story
behind the story. Its growing interest is not just to chronicle the
evolution of the island societies as one group after another, from
early European explorers to the US Marines, hit the beach. Pacific
history today tries to lay bare the workings of these societies, their
psychocultural guts, to reveal the why and wherefore of their response
to outsiders and what they attempted to impose
It is not enough, for example, to know that the Pohnpeian
chieftainship survived German land reforms in which land was granted
fee simple to people who had been only tenants before. We must know
why. How is it that certain foreign elements were totally rejected,
others adopted with some modification, and still others incorporated
with almost no change?
Our pursuit is to understand not just how meanings have changed, but
the very dynamics of the change process in each culture. Like the
anthropologists with whom they fraternize and collaborate, historians
are becoming absorbed in the study of the cultural workings of Pacific
societies. It may not be too far-fetched to suggest that we are on a
quest to identify the shape of some cultural analogue to the DNA
molecule the inner mechanism that determines the shape and form of the
future society.
There are other levels, too. As we historians run out of shoreline to
survey on these rather small islands, there is nowhere to go but
inward. So we explore other questions, on still other levels, often
enough having to do with our own identity.
Who are we, self-proclaimed historians with degrees on the wall to
attest to our competence, to practice our trade in others' homelands?
What are the epistemological assumptions under which we work, and how
do these differ from those of the people we study`? What claim do the
people whose history we study have upon our work? How can we ensure
that they will not become objects rather subjects, voiceless like the
people we describe of a century or two ago? Is our historical work,
when all is said and done, a truer image of ourselves than of the
peoples about whom we write?
All of this leads us full circle, in our work as in this talk. Yet we
-and, we can hope, the people whose past we study - are richer for all
our academic meanderings. My sincere hope is that this conference
will, in some small way, contribute to the fruitfulness of our
studies, just as they will have contributed, again in a small way, to
the self-identify of the peoples of the Pacific.
[The address was delivered at the Opening Banquet in Island Garden
Ballroom, Cliff Hotel, Agana on December 4, 1990.]