THE LIMITS of SELF-DETERMINATION in OCEANIA Author(S): Terence Wesley-Smith Source: Social and Economic Studies, Vol
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THE LIMITS OF SELF-DETERMINATION IN OCEANIA Author(s): Terence Wesley-Smith Source: Social and Economic Studies, Vol. 56, No. 1/2, The Caribbean and Pacific in a New World Order (March/June 2007), pp. 182-208 Published by: Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies, University of the West Indies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27866500 . Accessed: 11/10/2013 20:07 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. University of the West Indies and Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Social and Economic Studies. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 133.30.14.128 on Fri, 11 Oct 2013 20:07:57 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Social and Economic Studies 56:1&2 (2007): 182-208 ISSN:0037-7651 THE LIMITS OF SELF-DETERMINATION IN OCEANIA Terence Wesley-Smith* ABSTRACT This article surveys processes of decolonization and political development inOceania in recent decades and examines why the optimism of the early a years of self government has given way to persistent discourse of crisis, state failure and collapse in some parts of the region. It argues that the to essential context for understanding .these trends lies in the limits genuine self-determination imposed by theprocess of decolonization itself it and by the universalized ideas of state and nation introduced. Despite their awkward fit with indigenous institutions and practices, these institutions are continually reinforced through significant international pressures including intervention. in Generations of students have viewed political developments An Oceania through the lens of national self-determination. on influential account in this genre is David Robie's Blood their in Banner: Nationalist Struggles in the South Pacific, first published the of 1989. Challenging media coverage informed by trope a Paradise, the book explored the "ugly side of Oceania" through survey of violent conflicts in East Timor, West Papua, New For Caledonia, French Polynesia, Palau, Vanuatu, and Fiji. Robie, these events reflected the inevitable confrontation between colonialism and the liberation movements itprovoked, "a quest for more than national sovereignty that takes into account the legacy of two centuries of colonialism" (Robie 1989: 23). Here Pacific peoples as a of are represented latecomers in grand narrative anticolonial to blood struggle, complete with references Che Guevara, sacrifice, a new and nationalist banners symbolizing "the dawn of hope and future" (Robie 1989: 23). This is a narrative that seeks salvation for a of decolonization at least oppressed peoples in global process and, * was at the Sixth Conference of the An earlier version of this paper presented 6-8 2005. Thanks to the European Society for Oceanists, Marseille, France, July on the submission. anonymous reviewers for extremely useful comments original This content downloaded from 133.30.14.128 on Fri, 11 Oct 2013 20:07:57 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions The Limitsof Self-Determination 183 of "modernization" by implication, vigorous post-colonial projects and "development." used to make sense of the The conceptual framework Robie events of the 1980s appears distinctly problematic today. Even if there was a time when "nationalist aspirations" defined regional moment has and The politics, then that well truly passed. optimism to a of the early years of self-government has given way persistent discourse of crisis, state failure and collapse in some parts of state Oceania. By early 2003, after 25 years of independence, institutions in Solomon Islands had effectively ceased to function, of the Australian and today the country remains under the control to Solomon Islands led Regional Assistance Mission the (RAMSI). as decades of Writing in 2005 Papua New Guinea marked three Guinea Professor of sovereign statehood, University of Papua New Politics Allan Patience described debauched political institutions, human collapsed essential services, gratuitous rights violations, and "thousands of people suffering needlessly and dying 2005: senior Australian prematurely" (Patience 1-2). Meanwhile, that "itwould take two or journalist Graeme Dobell speculated only a three years of bad luck and bad leadership" to push Vanuatu into more 25 similar downward spiral towards state collapse than years after the colonizers withdrew (Dobell 2005: 8). not its The problem with Robie's approach is necessarily on If he underestimates emphasis colonialism. anything and even colonialism's ability to redefine lifeways and aspirations, to determine the essential characteristics of the political community (or "nation") waiting to be liberated. More important, Robie misunderstands the United Nations-organized process of decolonization that commenced afterWorld War II. Significant as it was, that initiative could not represent a definitive break from the were colonial past, since the traces of that past too deeply etched even into the economic, political, cultural, and physical landscapes was a of Oceania. Indeed, the process not designed to achieve such rupture. Nor did decolonization reflect the spontaneous emergence of new national communities somehow awakened by the inevitable pull of modernity, as Benedict Anderson (1991) and others have suggested. Control and conformity, rather than spontaneity and innovation, have been the hallmarks of the international system of states over the last half-century. This content downloaded from 133.30.14.128 on Fri, 11 Oct 2013 20:07:57 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 184 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC STUDIES was so Decolonization not much the natural expansion of an established global political order as the deliberate construction of a new one. This is a global system based on ideas of state, nation, and sovereignty that took on novel forms afterWorld War II. Since then, local social processes and practices have everywhere unfolded within the context of a universalized model of the nation-state. Not as only is this model projected normal and desirable, "the natural choice of every people modern and free, past, present, and future," are but its precepts and protocols continually reinforced through one or significant international pressures of sort another (Kelly and Kaplan 2001, 20). The recent history of the postcolonial entities of Oceania is not really about the linear quest for national sovereignty informing or even Robie's account, the dialectical struggles between "traditional" and "modern" forms of politics and economy that continue to structure much analysis of the "developing" world. Rather, it is about the constant renegotiation of the awkward fit on one or between, the hand, local institutions and practices formed era on reformed during the colonial and, the other, superimposed, externally monitored ideas of state and nation. The result is the wide variety of political forms found across the vast reaches of Oceania. These forms might be considered hybrid except for the significant power imbalances involved; they emerge within the strict limits established by the intrusive model of the nation state. as They can, however, be seen more-or-less functional in the ways they maintain day-to-day order and distribute resources, and in some cases political tensions have burst through the patchwork of local and global constraints to produce disorder and violence. The essential context for understanding the "ugly side of Oceania" does not in today lie the quest for national sovereignty, although elements of this persist, but in the limits to genuine self determination encountered after independence has been achieved. Self-Determination in Oceania Although undoubtedly "one of the most important political developments in the twentieth century," decolonization was not necessarily driven by the noble principle of self-determination as Robie and others would like to believe (Duara 2004: 1). Indeed, the idea was of self-determination recently described by Marc Weiler as This content downloaded from 133.30.14.128 on Fri, 11 Oct 2013 20:07:57 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions The Limitsof Self-Determination 185 for the international a for a "legitimizing myth" system and "trap" those seeking to free themselves from oppression and exploitation the that (Weiler 2005). If anything, proposition self-defined human to own communities should be allowed determine their political a futures has been used to add moral weight to process motivated more concerns. by other, pragmatic, In a celebrated resolution in December 1960 (1514 XV), the United Nations General Assembly condemned colonialism in no terms uncertain before declaring that "All peoples have the right to virtue of self-determination; by that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development" (United Nations 1960). This is an extraordinarily bold statement if only because an untrammeled to right self-determination conflicts with key provisions in international law to the designed protect territorial integrity of existing states (Emerson 1960: 295-328). In fact those who voted for this resolution were well aware of the radical nature of what they ? proposed and took explicit steps elsewhere in the resolution and in international to a subsequent practice limit its impact. As legal right, self-determination is largely confined to specific colonial and territories as or populations designated non-self-governing trust territories by the United Nations after World War II. Those privileged entities, whose names are inscribed on a master list,have a one-off opportunity to choose a new political status, and independent statehood has always been the preferred outcome (Weiler2005:10).