Jun 28 2006
Nation Re-submerged
Too bad the New Yorker does not have a electronic copy of Ian Parker’s article, “Birth of A Nation?” in the May 1, 2006 issue. Or did Parker submitted a typed manuscript?
The article is about the independence vote of Tokelau, an island (atoll) colony/property of New Zealand in the South Pacific. Tokelau is small (size, population), remote, slow-paced and dependent (”receives most of the $7m annual budget from the NZ government”)
Why the urge of independence?
1. UN: “non-self-governing”, anti-colonial spirit, 1960 Gen. Assemb. declaration of “transfer power”, International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism (1990s), established a Special Committee. “The only victory that the committee has had … is East Timor, which was deleted from the list in 2002 …” but since has not even met regularly. “While factions within some unlisted territories, such as Puuerto Rico, lobby to be noticed, some listed terrirtories lobby to be left alone. ‘It is fight, fight, fight … Gibraltans come and throw rocks at us’”
2. The New Zealander: Neil Walter, career diplomat, Tokelau administrator, “wanting to ‘take a crack’ at shpherding the island to self-determination”, NZ newspaper: “THE UN’S MISGUIDED PLAN TO CUT TOKELAU ADRIFT”, commentaries like this “had spread the thought …. that Tokelau’s vote on self-determination had been imposed from overseas”. To this, Walter observed, “I’d be glad of an independence firebrand (on the island)”
3. A sign when a nation should not go independent? Expatriate Tokelaunans in NZ and AU now far outnumber island residents.
4. Proponent’s argument: Tokelauans could best “learn how to be yourself” by returning to thepre-monetary economy of their ancestors … but the speaker has a TV in her home for her children. Others argue, “They don’t have a sense of manhood!”
5. Competing designs of proposed national flag, ” … a few had symbolism that clearly referred to four atolls–implicitly annexing nearby Swain Island, … which is culturally tied to Tokelau but is, by international treaty, a satellite of American Samoa”
6. The referendum song, “Be happy, the day of the referendum is coming, every Tokelauan is happy” (–just like the African national anthems as observed by Herbst)
7. The island is so small that the pigs have learned to float in high tides and fish seafood to survive.