NiuZila: Land of full fat milk and welfare money

Man it’s been ages since I’ve last written a blog entry.  Sorry guys, just been travelling a bit (while I can still afford it ha!).  And there’s sooooo much to write about too: from sports - David Tua’s fight, the Samoan Sevens team win in Hong Kong; to politics - recent selection of Carmel Sepuloni as the Labour candidate for Waitakere, to Michael Jones possibly standing for National; to cultural arts - Pasifika and Polyfest.

But today I thought I’d keep it not-so-serious and talk about some of my recent travels, and the contrasts and similarities between the various locations.

The long Easter weekend has just finished, and the four-day break here in New Zealand/Niu Sila provides a much wanted time-out for workers.  My wife and I usually spend our Easter weekends cleaning the house, catching up on laundry, paying bills etc, and if we have time, visit family.  This year we had time to get out of urban Aukilani and headed up north to Wellsford to visit my cousin and her family.  She and her Tongan husband had bought 12 acres of farm land a couple of years ago, along with a beautiful house.  Five car loads of family left Aukilani Saute and headed for the country.

Now, Aukilani’s transport system is pathetic.  Every holiday period there is a backlog of people entering/leaving the urban cities, congesting the nations motorways, meaning people are often stuck in traffic for over twice as long as it would have normally taken to travel the same route.  In Aukilani there is an attempt to build a western ring - highway to avoid having traffic to travel through the centre of the CBD.  Fortunately for us, we took this Western ring (albeit unfinished) route, and avoided the traffic on the Aukilani harbour bridge. 

But of course, as is typical of Niu Sila’s “improvements” to infrastructure, the Western ring got us past one bottle-neck, only to join the rest of the traffic north of the city, to wait in another bottle-neck.

It got me thinking how Niu Sila’s obsession with the private vehicle has produced a city imitated on the American cities, along with all the congestion problems etc.  This was in stark contrast to me and my wife’s trip to London a couple of years back.  In London the underground train system was wide-reaching and varied.  From the airport to my mates place in Arsenal, my wife and I used public transport.  Throughout our stay in London, public transport was the best way to get to see the sights, to get from one mate’s house to the next, to get around to do shopping etc. 

I remember my wife and I got off the green line and raced up the stairs to catch a connecting train on the blue line.  Just as we turned the corner and entered the platform, we saw our train whisk away.  Looking pretty gutted (and out of breath) we were pleasantly surprised when another train turned up a couple of minutes later!  If we were back in Aukilani, we would’ve had to wait up to half an hour for the next train.

Here in Niu Sila, however, you need a car.  A friend of mine from Sweden who was working in Aukilani on a temporary visa couldn’t understand how there were only two train lines in a city of a million people.  He was staying in the CBD at the time and I had invited him to a party out in Manukau (southern end Aukilani).  Unbeknown to me, he had caught three buses to get to the party, spread over two hours, after he assumed public transport was adequate.  Of course I offered a ride home after the party, but it illustrated the different understandings of what sort of public transport system should have for large cities.

Even in Bangkok, you could see they knew public transport is the best way to move large amounts of people.  Last year we travelled from the airport into the city of Bangkok, and along the motorway that was built several stories above ground, we saw a parallel road being built.  The taxi driver explained that the road was in fact the new sky trains that will link the city directly to the airport.  Meanwhile in Aukilani we have more congested motorways heading in and out of the Auckland Airport out in Magele/Mangere.

Anyway, my cousin’s little slice of paradise in Wellsford reminded me so much of Samoa, living in Tiavi.  Tiavi is higher up in the mountains of Upolu and much cooler than at sea level.  The dense vegetation and the distance between dwellings was similar to what we encountered in Wellsford.  Water tanks, shops were a good 15 minutes drive away, a pig pen, cows in the next paddock, gravel road etc… made me miss Samoa a lot. 

At Wellsford, for toonai we had the usual suspects, faalifu kalo, pisupo, sapa sui, the one bowl of salad, curry, and lu (Tongan version of lu’au), along with a pig cooked on the spit (Tongan style! - Yum!).  We were also lucky to have some oysters… yum!

We took the kids for a swim at a nearby lake (Lake Tomarapata), which was a refreshing change to going to the beach.  Aukilani is blessed with two major harbours on either side of the volcanic isthmus on which the urban city sits.  So swimming at beaches is as part of growing up in Aukilani as it is skiing in a resort town like Aspen.  One of the things us beach-lovers noticed at the lake was that there were no waves or tides. 

Bahaha… I know, it was something obvious but only hit us when I started building a sand castle with the kids, only to realise the water wasn’t getting any closer.  It had always been a childhood obsession to build complex sandcastles with full blown trenches and steep walls and a draw bridge, with little hamlets on the outside, ready to be swamped by the onslaught of the incoming waves on the beach.  Instead, at the lake, I told the kids just to stand all over it.

As I swam in the lake, I kept on thinking I saw gold-fish.  It must’ve been a trick of the mind as a local said there were no gold-fish in this lake.  I was a bit sceptical because I remember going to Lake Lanoto’o in Upolu.  After the couple of hours of trekking from the road to the lake we were astonished to find the lake full of wild gold-fish.  Apparently, German settlers had released some gold-fish almost a century earlier into the lake.

I wrapped the kids clothes in an old plastic bag I had quickly got out of the bottom drawer in our kitchen (just underneath the cupboard where we store all our hundreds of tea-towels).  I noticed the bag I had got out of the drawer said Tesco on it.  Tesco is Britian’s largest super-market chain.   It was a bit chilly after the swim in the lake, but compared to the British summer we experienced on our trip, we were warm.  In fact when we were in London, it had been one of the coldest summers in recent years, as they had experienced several heat waves.  Of course coming from Niu Sila, the cold summer wasn’t unbearable.  But my cousin who lives in London said the winter is the season to watch out for.  It’s not like here in Niu Sila where you can get away with wearing a t-shirt and a jumper outside on a winter day.  In London you’d have to wear at least three layers or jumpers and then a jacket on top to keep warm outside!  No thanks!

Just this morning I used another plastic bag to hold my lunch, that said WalMart on it.  It’s a bit like those people who collect t-shirts from places they’ve visited, instead we’re collecting plastic bags, only to use it for rubbish/lapisi or holding my lunch bahaha (- although we didn’t have one from Bangkok - I think plastic bags are prohibited there).

Tesco’s is like Starmarts here in Niu Sila - a smaller version of a supermarket, but very expensive.  Walmart in Amelika, is more like K-mart meets the Warehouse here in Niu Sila.  But what I get annoyed about the most in the US is that their advertised prices don’t include taxes.  So while I’m getting the exact change out for my shopping, once I get to the checkout I have to trawl again through my bags and pockets looking for the coins to pay the tax… grrr.

On our drive back from the lake to my cousin’s house, we would get fleeting reception when on top of a hill, for our cellphones.  A barrage of text message alerts would go off and the teenagers in the car would start twiddling their fingers to respond while the reception lasted.  The same was for the car radio.  On that day, however, I made the comment how I noticed that a lot of Kiwi adverts on TV and radio had voices with British accents.  I don’t have statistical evidence to back up my assertions, but I’m sure TVNZ has a male British accent voice over for one of its adverts.

Not that it mattered much, as there has been a constant flow of British migrants to Niu Sila ever since Palagi’s came to these shores.  But again, it reminded me of our trip to England/Egelani.  My wife and I giggled a little bit when we went to a kebab shop in Arsenal, and the shop keeper looked like every other Arab-Kebab-shop-owner in Aukilani - except he spoke to us with a thick British accent!  I guess many of the Kebab shop-owners in Niu Sila are recent migrants, so still have a thick Arabic accent.  But nearly everyone - black, white, yellow and pink - we spoke to in London had thick British accents. 

In fact the two people that we spoke to that didn’t have British accents were two Palagi men working on a construction site.  They had what appeared to be, Ukrainian/Russian accents.  I guess that’s the same as us Samoans here in Niu Sila.  Many of us have perfected the Kiwi accent to the point where sometimes I ring up Telecom over the phone, regarding my account and I don’t realise I’m talking to my cousin until they say “Ehh sole!  It’s me cuz.”

In another occasion, one of our cousins from Ausetalia/Australia was trying to describe her brother’s (who lives in London) new-wife’s accent, an English girl from Norwich.  My girl-cousin said it sounded like an English “bumpkin” accent.  Now, I’m no expert on accents or English geography, but in my mind an English “bumpkin” accent was something like the cockney accent.  But since my cousin’s wife was not an East Londener (nor was she ‘working class’ - apparently her father is a millionaire and she’s been a model for most of her adult life), I ruled out the cockney accent.

I then thought about the two woman who I worked with at the time who had both migrated to Aukilani from Wales.  Perhaps it was a Welsh accent my cousin was referring to.  But Norwich was on the other side of England than Wales.  What stuffed up my linguistic investigation skills even more was the fact that I had been saying Norwich wrong.  Apparently it’s pronounced “Norr-ridge” and not “Nore-witch”.  In the end, my cousin’s wife spoke proper Queen’s English!  My girl-cousin said: “yeah, like a bumpkin!” bahaha…  Bloody Samoans!  So for all I know, the “British” accent I apparently can hear in Kiwi adverts could just be my bloody Samoan hearing thinking I can hear an accent when I can’t.

Of course I took a plate of oysters home from Wellsford.  So as I was licking my fingers, I thought, one thing I did miss whether it was on the lake just outside of Wellsford, in the middle of shopping in Bangkok, or travelling on the trains in London, was the fact that I missed seeing brown faces.  The world certainly is your oyster, and it was great seeing different parts of the world/city, but I love being around Samoans, around people who look, dress, and talk just like me.

Ok that’s all for now… back to some serious topics next up!

Survivor has been named the television programme that has defined a decade.  Arguably other reality TV shows (such as American Idol) would not be far behind.  But these shows are hugely popular for a reason.  It’s real people, putting themselves before the world, revealing human frailties and strengths; the weaknesses and triumphs of humanity.  Pretty good for the producers too.  But there’s no denying there is so much intensity in these programmes because we are seeing the familiar.

(Reality TV is a fascinating area to blog about, but I’ll leave my critique of it for another time - in terms of subjecting indigenous cultures into the ‘exotic’ for economic gain.)

Survivor Samoa was no different.  And man was it intense.  Not sure how it was aired elsewhere, but in Niu Sila/New Zealand, TV3 screened the last three days of the Survivor Samoa competition.

I had only been watching the show sporadically, but last night’s finale was exhilarating!  For those not familiar with the contestants, the most controversial and polarising finalist was Russell Hantz - an oil company owner and self-confessed millionaire.  He is the man!  He masterminded his way to the finals, whether by making various alliances, making promises, breaking promises, lying, manipulating his team, tough playing in challenges, and finding immunity idols with no clues!  He is probably the best Survivor contestant in the history of the show.

Unfortunately, getting to the finals is just not enough in Survivor, something Russell failed to appreciate.  While he was successful in getting to the finals, there is the social element that he either was too cocky about and took for granted, or misread the impact of his actions on the contestants that eventually became his jurors. 

So who did the greatest Survivor contestant lose to?  Natalie White, a 25-year-old pharmaceutical sales rep from Arkansas.  Her strategy, many would say, was to ride on the coat tails of Russell’s master plan.  Natalie said aligning with stronger players was a necessity to make it to the end. “There were a lot of things to my game that I did right, starting off by assessing the cast right,” she said.

“I built really strong personal relationships, and they were genuine. I will be friends with these people for the rest of my life.”  Staying “humble” was also the key to winning, Natalie said. “In this game if you get overconfident it’s a huge mistake, especially this season. Any time anyone was overly cocky and arrogant it seems like it didn’t work out for them.”

If being the passive member gets you to the final and the jury is more sympathetic to you, then yes, Natalie did outwit, outplay and outlast Russell.

And it wasn’t all a one way road in this allegiance of Russell and Natalie.  He needed her, because as he calculated, Russell needed a “weaker” player as oppose to Brett who was voted off Survivor just before the finals.  Russell believed people would respect him for his ruthless tactics.  Unfortunately either hated those tactics, or they did respect Russell, but respected Natalie even more.

When the winner was announced, Russell was visibly upset.  Russell even tried to buy Natalie’s title of Sole Survivor from her during the reunion show for $10,000, but she refused.  It was clear how much the title of “Sole Survivor” meant to him.  It appeared as though the motive was not about money.  At that point I thought to myself, hmmm perhaps he did deserve to win.  He’s a millionaire, so perhaps he wasn’t doing it for the money.  Russell was adamant his personality on the show was not the same as that in the real world.

However there is a consolation prize for the person who receives the most votes from the American public.  The three finalists were Brett Clouser, t-shirt designer (who almost toppled Russell’s master plan by winning the immunity challenge), Russell, and Shannon Waters aka ‘Shambo’.  Shambo served her country for five years, and went onto become a chef before changing gears to be a sales representative for a food service company.  Russell won the consolation prize of $100,000.

What would’ve confirmed to me that Russell was only in it for the title, and money was not a goal, would’ve been if he had offered that $100,000 to either the popular young Brett to help him with his t-shirt business, or the equally popular Shambo, a sales representative, both a long way from being an oil millionaire.  Then I would agree with the millions of Russell fans, that he truly did deserve to win the competition.

Yip, this is human drama in the 21st century, broadcast to millions who only want more.

Recently I’ve become fascinated with the global phenomenon known as Flash Mobs.  Type the term in YouTube and hundreds of examples will pop up, of ordinary people, strangers to one another, come together and randomly perform a stunt/dance/song in a public place, and just as fast as they appeared, they dissolve back into the crowd, as if nothing ever happened.

There’s one where a couple of hundred people suddenly freeze for a few minutes in the middle of Grand Central Station in New York.  Bewildered passer-byer walk past in wonder.  While others take a quick glimpse and walk off.  Another Flash Mob, this time set in a train station somewhere in Europe, has two couples starting off dancing to “Do-Re-Me”, shortly joined by another couple, then 5 others, then 10, 20.  And you’re never too sure who’s really a stunned innocent passer-byer, or who’s in on the act, as one by one people join in the dance.  Another similar dance happens in Liverpool, England, with the whole station filled with people dancing to a medley of songs, and once the music stops, they all walk off into different directions as if nothing ever happened.

It’s amazing because in these modern western societies we live in, it is the self that is paramount.  Individualism, private rights, self-freedom, are tenants of the modern western civilisation.  While there have been great advancements, many can list the negatives of such a society: materialism, corporate greed, environmental impacts etc.  And yet in this highly competitive world, where the pursuit of the dollar is the driver for many, Flash Mob brings a fun form of anarchy to otherwise mundane lives.  It’s reminding society that although we are a society of individuals, together we can accomplish great things.

I had one of the best experiences in my short life on Monday night at the “I Love the Islands” concert at Vector Arena, Aukilani/Auckland.  In an arena full of 10,000 kiwi’s, we came together to not only enjoy New Zealand/Niu Sila music, but we came together to support the Samoan Tsunami relief effort.  Although not quite a Flash Mob, the coming together of the Niu Sila public to show their support for the relief effort had that strong communal feeling of achieving great things together, just like a Flash Mob.  People from all walks and life, different ages, ethnicities, social backgrounds, all came together to dance and sing with one another.  To our right were two Palagi women in their 40’s, while to our left were a young Maori couple.  Behind us were very noisy young Samoan girls, and directly in front were an Asian couple.  Yet every song we all sang, whether we knew the words or not.  Every act, we danced liked no-one was looking.  Every cheer, we shouted and yelled up to the heavens.

Always keen to be where the party’s at, my wife and I got there early and were near front of the stage.  And sure enough we were head banging through the Rock songs, jumping up and down to the Hip-hop jams, and swaying side to side to the country music.  And they were all Niu Sila performances too!  From Dave Dobbyn, Neil & Tim Finn, to reggae band Sweet and Irie, pop urban Hip-hop Nesian Mystic, Soul sounds of Holly Smith, to the rap battle between Scribe and Savage.  J Williams got the whole arena to wave their cellphones in the air, creating an awesome spectacle for us on the floor.  The sweet sounds of Adeaze singing in Samoan, followed by Feelstyle’s raps in Samoan.  $250,000 was made only on door sales, not including the money put into the donation boxes.  The concert has already performed in Christchurch/Kalaisitete, and Tauranga, and will end in Wellington/Ueligitone.  A smaller scaled fundraiser concert is being planned for this coming Monday (Labour Day holiday), $10 at Telstra Pacific, Manukau.  Other fundraisers included containers full of donated food, clothes, utensils etc, school and church rallies, art exhibitions etc, with one little boy raising $30,000 in his region.

But it was great to be part of a special night, where random people, had come together to show their love and support to our family back in Samoa, while enjoying the eclectic range of music we have here in Niu Sila.  The communal reaction and outpouring of assitance from our homeland here in Niu Sila to our homeland of Samoa allows us to take a little glimpse of the bigger picture.  That sometimes, there’s more to life than being in the rat-race, that life can have so much more meaning, that great things can be achieved when we come together.

Thank you to the performers and organisers who volunteered to make the concerts happen.  But also on behalf of Samoans, if I may, thank you to the people of Niu Sila, for sharing the love.

On 29 September 2009, shortly after 6am, an earthquake, measuring 8.3 on the Richter scale, hit with its epicentre 190 kilometres south of the Samoan capital of Apia.  A few minutes later a series of quake-triggered tsunami waves hit American Samoa, Samoa and the small northern island of Niuatoputapu in Tonga.  The tsunami waves are said to have been as high as 6 metres.  The death toll in Samoa is 137, with 310 people injured and six still missing.  About 3,200 people (640 families) have been left homeless in Samoa.

Even typing this is gut-wrenching.  When the news hit here in Niu Sila / New Zealand, I feared for the worst, and hoped the best.  The early reports were few and far between, keeping my hopes alive.  Early in the morning a work colleague, who had just come back from a holiday in Samoa a week earlier, came into my office and casually joked about the tsunami hitting a few huts, might kill some chickens and a few roaming pigs.  I know she meant it jest-fully, and I think I smiled and went along with it, because I was still hoping she was right, that it was just a few things. 

But fear began to grow, a large lump in my throat, my stomach turned, as news throughout the day progressed and the magnitude of the disaster only just became apparent.  All the news was about the Samoan Tsunami.  My work colleague came in later that day and expressed her sadness and asked if my family was affected.  As did many other work colleagues.  I lied to them all, and said my family in Samoa is safe.  But only minutes earlier, my mother had rung to say my cousins who had left for school in Samoa were still missing.  Why did I lie?  Because sometimes it’s easier to deal with a situation without worrying others.  Despite feeling a deep hole in my soul, of worry and hurt, the need to lie also helped me cope with the unknown.  Lying was also a form of keeping as much of normality intact despite your world crumbling around you. 

Throughout the week I would stare outside my office window, high up in this glass tower, in this concrete jungle, looking into the distance of the beautiful Waitemata Harbour, beyond the mighty Rangitoto island and into the horizon towards the great Pacific ocean, towards Samoa.

It was an emotional rollercoaster every time I answered a call from family for updates, or clicked the refresh button on news websites.  My heart was torn, ripped apart, and pulled in all directions.

At mass on the following Sunday they showed a video clip from Lalomanu hospital on the big screens in Malaeola.  The congregation gasped and became teary eyed as the images came on screen of bodies lying on the foyer floor covered in ie’s.  More images of the injured, the crying survivors.  Another shot was of bodies in the pick up truck also covered except for feet hanging over the side.  It was so hard to watch because it was so familiar.  The people, the faces, the tears.  Although we might not know them by name, they were our flesh and blood from the same land.  Those feet weren’t of strangers, but are the same feet we walk with every day.

There was an interview on TV3 the day after the tsunami hit.  A TV presenter for Campbell Live interviewed a lady from the Taufua family, who had lost 13 people to the tsunami.  The Samoan woman spoke calmly and responded to each question respectfully.  You could see she was a strong woman, and although fate had bore a great tragedy upon her, the need to be strong was greater than a full on showing of grief and emotion.  But towards the end of the interview the Samoan woman was asked if she had any comments to make after responding to each question.  It was here the eloquence and poetry of Samoan oratary was seen through her words.  Rather than giving a methodical answer to a question, the Samoan was given the opportunity to speak freely.  “There were sometimes where I wasn’t sure if my family should be facing forward or facing back” she said.  But it was a “test of our faith” that this had happened, and we must continue to look to the future.

A few days later, in another interview, a woman who had lost her children from the grips of her hand as the waves swept through her fale, was asked at the burial of her children if she was angry at God for taking her children away.  She responded, no, she thanked God for giving her the precious time she had with her children while here on earth.

This is a true testament to the Samoan character of perseverance, strength and faith.  While others may curse God, it was God, our comforter, God our strength, God our protector.  There is always a time for mourning, for allowing grief, but there must always be a time to live.

Samoans have another great coping mechanism, laughter.  One of the survivors of a village in the south coast, was an elderly man too old to evacuate fast enough.  Instead he took hold of a pole of the house and survived the surges that destroyed his village.  Along with the rest of his house, his ie lavalava also went out to sea, meaning the old man was found naked holding on to the pole.  His missing ie lavalava has become the running joke in the village.  We find it so easy to laugh at ourselves, even in times of need, not because we have no sensitivity, but because laughter is as much part of life as sadness and joyfulness.

The week did end with an encouraging story, though.  Despite the many losses, the win by David Tua brought back some of the good into our lives.  But David Tua’s story is again, another illustration of perseverance.  Despite many having written him off as a has been, his decisive KO over a younger, taller opponent showed the world that Samoans live for another day.  David Tua had lost an aunty in the tsunami but said to media he had to “stay strong for the living”.

And now that I think about it, the biggest reason as to why I lied to my work colleagues, is because it kept the life going.  Continuation of life is always at the back of your mind, and despite the tragedy, there’s always a tomorrow to live for.  It’s not about forgetting, but as the woman from the Taufua family said, we must continue to look forward.

God bless Samoa.

Don’t you love it when you hear of those outrageous and out-of-this-world happenings from people on the other side of the world, and you can sigh and think “Only in [insert country name]“. 

Of course we all love it when it’s Amelika / America, because that’s the place where ‘dreams’ come true, and everyone is rich and famous, but when you see the weird and wonderful happening, you think, “gee, I’m glad I don’t live there”.  Or the alternative feeling, if we have a connection with the place is “gee, I’m glad [insert country] is the way it is”.  Makes it unique and brings a smirk to your face.

Well, our beloved Samoa is no stranger to either of the above feelings. 

The Samoa Observer reports that not only one ship has grounded into Mulinu’u reef in Apia, but two! (”Only in Samoa… gee I’m glad Samoa is the way it is”.)

The first was a container ship, Forum Samoa II, which was recently bought for AUSD$10million.  Some three weeks ago, Pacific Forum Line and Samoa Shipping Services bought the ship.

Samoa Observer says the ship was on its maiden voyage when it struck problems during the weekend.  And yesterday, it was still stuck on the reef. It is expected to spend at least two more days there.

Shortly after another vessel ended up on the reef at Mulilnu’u Peninsula.  This time it was a fishing boat, the Tifa i Moana.  It was grounded a few yards from where Forum Samoa II is stuck.  The two crew of the vessel who “walked” to shore at low tide said they were grounded at 6am yesterday.

Now that’s some pretty funny news.  The blind leading the blind?  Hehehe.  But to be fair, the fishing crew didn’t know the bigger ship was grounded and requested information from Samoa Ports Authority and Fisheries about the ship in the way but “They didn’t reply to us.”  (Again, “only in Samoa… gee I’m glad Samoa is the way it is”.)

I also get the other feeling when I hear about the road switch.  (”Gee, I’m glad I don’t live there”.)  I’m sure many Samoans abroad are glad their not back home dealing with the impending road switch.  It seems like a nightmare.  Having recently come back from Samoa, that’s all everyone and anyone talked about.

But I half agree and half disagree with the protesters.  I don’t think the road switch will be as bad as people fear.  In fact it might make some of the taxi drivers BETTER drivers as everyone should be extremely cautious on the roads.

It does make you wonder why the switch wasn’t made before the recent roading infrastructure for the build up for the South Pacific Games 2007.  But it’s better it’s done now before any more development is made.  Once infrastructure is in, it becomes costly to change.  Imagine Niu Sila trying to do the change?  That’d be a logistical nightmare!

But I do agree with the protesters in that Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, Palemia / Prime Minister (PM) of Samoa can be a bit of a tyrant at times.  I’ve already written my spin on his outbursts on Frank Bainimarama of Fiti / Fiji, but sometimes people need to be heard.  His head strong will to get this switch through is not good politics.  Appeasing fears would be easy in Samoa.  But of course the Samoan political landscape is not like here in Niu Sila, which gives Tuilaepa a lot more free reign to act the way he does.

Only in Samoa can the Palemia call others names, retort cheekily to other international leaders, and thumb down dissent.  Only in Samoa can you bulldoze through with a road switch, change the rules on opposition parties and change the constitutional land rights of Samoans (other matters I blog about later).  But only in Samoa can I feel free to make such an opinion, because that is my homeland, they are my family, that is my history and my future.  Because only in Samoa it is Samoans for Samoans.

At the end of the day, I can sigh in relief and think “only in Samoa…”

I was driving with my dad through Matautu, Apia a few years back, and we went through the popular swimming spot, Taumeasina.  My dad said he remembered the tide used to be a few metres out to sea, yet now the waves are crashing into the roots of several niu / coconut trees.  He also pointed out to an island in the harbour where there used to be a few trees growing, but now it’s submerged with just shells and what appears to be tree stumps.  Was this global warming in action?

In the last couple of years it appeared as if the political world was finally getting their act together to tackle the issue of global warming.  Yet recent events around the world has shown either the instability of the political will against economic interests and their forces at play, or the big publicity stunt and winning of brownie points with the nations’ citizenry by appearing to be doing something, but in reality they were never going to do anything.

A few days ago, Niu Sila / New Zealand had announced a 10-20% reduction in greenhouse emissions (the Green Party argued for 40%), after scrapping the emissions trading scheme set up by the last government.  Today, the Australian Senate voted down the Australian Government’s climate policy, forcing it to try again in November to have its legislation passed.  This same scene is being unravelled in the political classes all around the world.  Where there once was what appeared to be a unified global will to tackling the issue, there is disagreement and compromise at national levels debunking any hope of any true attempt to resolve the climate issue.

I’m not an expert in the area but what many of the deniers and sceptics of global warming always try to say, is that the science is not settled.  They are partially true, because science is never an exact instrument.  But that doesn’t mean society doesn’t act on scientic basis and theories.  In fact that’s exactly what we do.  Our civilisation is built on scientific theories.  But these theories are largely accepted by the scientific community as norms but never 100% perfect truths.  Evolution took a while to gain acceptance, but today many other technological advances have been based on the evolution theory.  It’s not an 100% accurate theory, but the scientific community have largely accepted it. 

And so, the scientific community has come to the conclusion (although not 100%) that global warming is an accepted theory.  It is up to the political classes whether they accept and act on the scientific community’s conclusion, as they have done many times over throughout history, or is there some other overriding barrier for the political classes to take action?

That barrier is the economic interests that will suffer (ie loss of profit) under political changes to deal with global warming.  Read the newspapers and you will see the business elite, whether it’s the business round table, multi-national conglomerates or farmers federation, trying to convince the public that it will hit us all in the pocket (ie they’ll lose their profits).  That’s a self-serving interest which contrasts starkly with the scientific community’s motives.  What self interest is there for the scientific community to broadly agree that global warming is an accepted theory?  Pursuit of the truth.

Opponents call the scientists and those that agree alarmists.  They claim the alarmists have a vested interest in the new green economy that politicians ‘were’ willing to legislate.  They say millions will be wasted on a big hoax (like the Y2K bug that never eventuated), that it’s all just a lot of hot air.  Some even claim global warming will be good for us!  In Niu Sila the sceptics argue the weather will alter to make it more productive for farming and agriculture.  They also say, the Earth has gone through ice ages and global warming many times before.

That’s true, but the change happened over hundreds and thousands of years.  We are now talking about climate change created by human activity over only 150-200 years.  The Earth will adapt, animals evolve (well some will die off and other eventually evolve), environs change, new life cycles and ecosystems will be created.  But will humans be able to adapt as fast?  We took generations to evolve.  Can we evolve fast enough once the climate changes?

Back at Taumeasina, I wasn’t sure if it was global warming, as I had read in a science paper I took at Uni that there is a lot of natural submerging of land around Samoa as it was along a volcanic fault line.  However, what many of the scientific research I did read about on global warming in the Pacific, did say, was low lying islands like Tuvalu, Kilipati / Kiribati and To’elau / Tokelau (where the highest point is only a couple of metres high) will one day be wiped off the face of the earth as the sea levels rise. 

Countless papers have been published reporting the world’s glaciers, the northern ice sheets are melting, and great chunks of Antartica’s shelves are breaking away.  And this ice is not being replaced, further accelerating the melting and breaking up of these fresh water reservoirs into the world’s oceans.

With this added water volume, scientists have said places such as Tuvalu will need to be relocate their peoples, most likely becoming the world’s first climate change refugees.  I’ve seen a documentary where Tuvaluan’s have bought an island in Fiti / Fiji, as a possible new homeland, whereas Niu Sila has already offered to relocate Tuvaluans into Niu Sila.  But the sad fact will be the disappearance of Tuvalu who emit’s a pittance of greenhouse gases compared to the industrialised and developing world.

Samoa is a little bit more fortunate as it is an archipelago of volcanic mountains.  But the cost of adjusting to a new climate will not be cheap for an already struggling nation.  Again, it is those who pollute the least who will bear a lot more of the burden than others.

Are the political classes of the world willing to make a fundamental shift in our civilisation based on scientific evidence?  Or will they cower to the economic interests and think only about the now, and not the future?  Because all I see at the moment is a lot of hot air.

Driving home on Sunday night I was listening to talk-back radio.  The radio hosts were talking about the landing on the moon 40 years ago, and were asking listeners where were they or what were they doing during that historical moment?  They expanded the question to include any historically significant event.

I’m glad they did expand on the question because I wasn’t even born when man first reached the moon.  But I did remember where I was and what I was doing during a more recent historically significant event: September 11 2001 attacks on the World Trade towers.

I was living in Samoa at the time and I remember going up to Sebs sports shop in Motootua.  It must’ve been about 11am.  There were a few people standing around a TV but I didn’t really take notice.  I needed some shoes as I was flying out to Pagopago that day to a sports meet, and all I had was seevae tosotoso / jandals in Apia.  I saw they didn’t shelve the right shoes I was looking for so I left. 

I drove down through Apia then towards the only other sports store in Samoa (forgot it’s name - next to Scoops).  Again there were people staring at the TV.  A young New Zealand Samoan came running out of the shop shouting to his brother in the car that America was being invaded!  I thought it must be a good movie showing on Televise Samoa - poor little boy couldn’t tell the difference between a block-buster movie and reality.  But then even Palagi tourists were watching the TV screens, so I decided to see what this intriguing movie was all about. 

And sure enough, my suspicions were right: everyone was watching what looked like a Hollywood movie, with planes smashing into buildings, horrified people running around in the streets, and news reporters lost for words.  But things didn’t look right with this movie.  The news reporters where people I recognised as actual news reporters for actual news channels.  All of a sudden the screen cut back away from the American news channels to TVNZ news presenters.  That’s when I thought “this ain’t a movie”.

It was a real shock though, apart from the actual tragedy and loss of life, but how accustomed I had become into believing that those things only happen in movies.  Despite all the hints it took me a while to click that it wasn’t a movie but reality, that the little boy was right.

But from there I can confidently say some really stupid knee-jerk reactions came over Governments.  Not just the American Government or British, or Australian Governments.  I’m talking about American Samoa.  And I’m not talking about the heightened security measures governments enacted, nor the crushing of civil liberties.

I’m not sure what the chain of command is, but in mainland America all the airports were shut down.  And for some reason, someone along that chain of command thought they should shut down the airport in Tutuila, American Samoa!  Apart from the little inconvenience and big cost it was for my travel plans, it was just plain stupid! 

I mean, what terrorist would want to hijack a plane and think Pagopago is a great place to attack?!?!  What terrorist would fly halfway across the world to the other side of the Pacific and spread terror by making an example of a small Pacific island American territory?

Shortly after 9/11 everyone started thinking they saw terrorists in our Samoan midst’s.  Samoa Observer had a few articles where members of the public reported there were suspicious looking Arab-like people taking photo’s of buildings in Apia.  In actual fact they were fair skinned afakasi / half-castes Samoans with a dark tan holidaying in Samoa!  Bahaha.

But the hysterics didn’t stop there.  The whole of Sinalei, a luxury tropical hotel in Siumu (where the Rock stayed), was booked out for nearly an entire year by a New Age type group.  Unfortunately some of the staff mistook yoga and meditation for some sort of evil terrorist plan to take over Samoa!  Bahaha!  Rumours spread like wildfire across Samoa.  My aunty who married a man from Siumu even said, while visiting the village, late one night they saw laser beams coming from Sinalei across the coast towards Siumu village! “Ae ke’i a ua palasi mai ma leisi moli emoemo…”  I was waiting for her to say “and a mothership came down from the skies or something like that.”

Retelling the story with a straight face, my aunty was confused as to why I was rolling around in fits of laughter!  Man, us Samoans can be very conservative and we are easy to give into our fear of the unknown, fear of the “other”.

Unfortunately for Sinalei, the New Age group had enough, cancelled the booking and took their people, and their money to Niue.

Man I’m guilty of seeing things which aren’t really there too.  After work one day, I was sitting in a packed train trying to mind my own business.  But sitting next to me was a young Arab boy who I noticed was reading some Arabic writing.  He was holding on to a backpack pretty tight.  He was also muttering away what sounded like a chant.  But then he started to sway a little back and forth in his seat.  But what really got me going was when he started to weep!

I started to think, is this his last prayer to Allah before he blows up the train?  Were those tears of goodbye before he pressed the detonator in his bag?  I wasn’t the only one getting worried.  Other people had noticed the boys behaviour and were getting twitchy themselves.  I started to think, should I tackle this guy before he blows us up, and I’d save the day?  I decided against being a hero.

After striking up a conversation with him, he said he was trying to learn scriptures from the Holy Koran.  That didn’t totally abate my fears of a terrorist attack, until he explained he was teary eyed because he was scared of his dad giving him the beats for not learning the scriptures.

That’s when I calmed down and thought, man I know that feeling.  How many times had I been fasi’d / smacked by my dad as a kid for not learning my tauloto / scriptures for lotu tamaiti / White Sunday performances?  Bahaha.

Despite my racist inclinations that day on the train, I came to realise we are not that much different.  And once we realise how similar we all are, we’d realise there’s nothing to fear of the “other”.  The real terrorists are out there, but lets not let our fear of the unknown start judging people just because we don’t know them.