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Kanak Identity, New Citizenship Building and Reconciliation1 by Isabelle LEBLIC* A R 2004-2005 is the twentieth anniversary of the Novem- 2004-2005 est le vingtième anniversaire des événe- ber 1984-January 1985 events which have greatly stig- ments de novembre 1984 à janvier 1985 qui ont marqué profondément la Nouvelle-Calédonie et sa vie politique matized the politics and the social life in New Caledonia. et sociale. L’accord de Nouméa (de mai 1998) a intro- The Noumea Accord (may 1998) introduced the idea of duit la notion d’une nouvelle citoyenneté et l’on peut se new citizenship for the people living in New Caledonia. demander sur quelle base celle-ci va pouvoir se cons- On which foundation could it be built, without denying truire, sans nier l’identité Kanak mais en prenant en Kanak identity yet taking into account the various popu- compte également les autres composantes présentes lations who lived in New Caledonia before 1988? In July depuis longtemps sur le territoire. Dernièrement, en 2004, 15 years after the drama of Ouvea, where Jean- juillet 2004, les Kanak de Maré,d’Ouvéa et de Hien- Marie Tjibaou and Yeiwéné Yeiwéné were killed (May ghène se sont retrouvés, en dehors de toute organisation 4, 1989), Kanaks from Maré, Ouvéa and Hienghène politique, pour une grande réconciliation, suite à l’assas- met without any political organization for a great recon- sinat à Ouvéa de Jean-Marie Tjibaou et de Yeiwéné ciliation. These facts will be analyzed for a better Yeiwéné le 4 mai 1989. Voilà quelques données qu’il understanding of the what is actually at stake for the nous faut analyser pour comprendre les enjeux de la future New Caledonia. Nouvelle-Calédonie de demain. - K: kanak Identity, Noumea accord, citi- M : identité kanak, accord de Nouméa, zenship, New Caledonia citoyenneté, Nouvelle-Calédonie «And to be Âji Âboro, Dö Kâmo or ‘‘truly a human being’’, is also to be ready to share with the others, yesterday ‘‘victims of history2’’ and tomorrow citizens of our country. [...] on our way to citizenship [...], ‘‘the future must be time of identity, in a unanimous destiny’’.» (Déwé Gorodé3, Nouméa, Tjibaou culturel Centre, 1st december 2004) «Going back to the tradition is a myth; [...] no one has experienced it. The search for identity, the model, for me, is in front of me, never behind. It is a constant reformulation. And I shall say that our present struggle is to be able to put forward the best of our past, our culture, to build the model of man and society that we want for the edification of the citizenship. [...] our identity is in front of us.» (Jean-Marie Tjibaou, 1985 : 1601) 1. A version of this text was pronounced at Marseille at the 6th Conference of the European Society for Oceanists (July 6-8, 2005). 2. Since the meeting of Nainvilles-les-Roches (July1983), which gathered, for the aim of reconciliating communities of territory, representatives of the , the and the , the (prefigurating the ). They spoke about the «victims of history» to designate people born in the territory whose parents (at least one) had been born there too. 3. Vice-president of the government of New-Caledonia, in charge of Culture, Feminization and Citizenship; excerpt from the opening speech of the symposium 2004: Lieux communs et représentations dans le Pacifique insulaire (Nouméa, 1st-3rd December 2004). * Ethnologue, 7107¢ , à Villejuif, [email protected] Journal de la Société des Océanistes, 125, année 2007-2 272 SOCIÉTÉ DES OCÉANISTES Map 1. — New Caledonia What is actually at stake for the future New doubt it was by keeping it out of the way, by the Caledonia? How can we measure the scope of cantonment in Kanak reservations, that it could political, economic, social and cultural conse- persist. If we have hardly finished putting it out quences of the colonization/decolonization pro- of our minds, it comes back occasionally, cess? We have to rethink the impact of the colo- through several famous revolts (see among nial evidence in New Caledonia at this time of others, 1858-1868, 1878, 1917). Since the Second globalization and current neocolonialism forms World War, when granted French citizenship5, in the Pacific. I have been asking about that for a the Kanak people have burst into the Caledo- long time and I will try to give a few replies, still nian life in a more and more disturbing manner partial, from my research4. throughout the years. First, its political partici- Marginalized for a long time by the colonial pation was through the Caledonian Union () system, specifically by the Indigénat rule, the whose slogan was « Two Colors, One People6 ». Kanak people have managed to survive. No In that, the was way ahead of its time7. 4. For more than twenty years I have been doing research on Kanak identity and social transformations in New Caledonia and I have published various papers about it. The book Les Kanak face au développement. La voie étroite is a summary of a great part of this research (until 1993, the publication date). 5. If the article 80 of the constitution dated october 27, 1946 allows Kanak people the right of citizenship, it is only the law dated July 26, 1957 which actually gave it to all of the Kanaks, notably with the right to vote. 6. February 8, 1953 was the first apparition of the with this slogan for the election to the General Council ( had won 15 seats on 25); the other slogans were «colonists and natives, join together» and «The year of the centenary would be the year of the liberation». We have to notice that until 1956, the Kanaks were more than 50 % of the population of the territory and it is only in 1963 that for the first time they lost the absolute majority in the Caledonian population. The group has still stayed in the majority until 1973 (Rock Pidjot was reelected deputy the 11 march 1973 with 52 % of the ballots). The anti-separatists had won as a matter of fact the territorial elections of 1972, further to the great immigration encouraged by the circular of the Prime Minister Pierre Messmer to his Minister of - Xavier Deniaux, dated 19 janvier 1972, who promoted «do some White» for acting against the separatist ideas of independence, only menace for «the French in Caledonia» ¢ the group, in a propaganda brochure dated 1st septembre 1971, had wrote «yes to the separation» (see Lenormand, 1991: 144). 7. The slogan of the Caledonian Union () through which Kanaks first participated to the political life of their country in 1953, «Two Colors, One People» is already used by the movement since May 2004 for the provincial campaign (see doc. 1). KANAK IDENTITY AND NEW CITIZENSHIP BUILDING 273 D.1.— The program at the provincial campaign in May 2004 Furthermore, Kanak political parties and We do not claim to be dealing with all these their claims progressively diversified. During the issues here. We simply want to start up a reflec- seventies, some began to speak about indepen- tion about Kanak identity in terms of «past and dance. In Novembrer 1984 and in the years after, present dialectics», in front of the future citi- the Kanak people have claimed strongly for it. zenship building. In order to do that, I shall During this time, New Caledonia was on front discuss first the current Kanak society, its cus- page of the news occasionally at the same rate as toms which are the result ¢ not definitive ¢ of the dramatic events which shook the country. history and a way of openness to others, by the Since the Matignon agreements (June-August rule of hospitality. Then, I shall look at the way 1988) and the Nouméa agreement (May 1998), this new citizenship can be built only through the the situation has apparently stabilized (the 5th appropriation of a communal heritage ¢ history. May 1989 Ouvea tragedy excepted). Does that But this remains to be defined. mean that Kanaks have obtained a positive res- ponse to their claims? Certainly not, but the so-called attempt at restabilization is said to be Tradition and Kanak society today on the way, a larger autonomy of this overseas country too. As for the independance, it is post- poned from one status to another. Is it still on the Today Kanak society is expressed by a double agenda? And what is an independant society system of factors: the Melanesian sociocultural today at time of globalization? According to specificity and the Western «culture» introduced Jean-Marie Tjibaou8, we must remember that since the middle of th century. We cannot independance is the ability to choose its interde- speak about Kanak identity without taking into pendancies! account these two factors. It is largely in front of 8. «The sovereignty is the right to choose one’s partners; independance is the power to manage all the needs created by colonization, by the system in place [...]. It is the sovereignty which gives us the rights and power to negociate the interdepen- dancies. For such a small country as ours, independance is to calculate the interdependancies well.» (Tjibaou, 1985). 274 SOCIÉTÉ DES OCÉANISTES the whole Caledonian society that the Kanak and a half years of colonization: while some of society can present itself as an entity because of its parts have carried on, others have changed. its greater diversity: linguistic (twenty eight lan- This is the result of this historical change that guages for ninety thousand people), sociological builds up the Kanak society and which governs (social and political structures, kinship systems the whole of Kanak practices and social rela- and the method changing in which groups are tionships.
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