Pacific connections

Te Moana Nui a Kiwa - the great ocean of the Pacific serves not to separate us, but to connect us, as it did our ancestors as they navigated their way around our vast, expansive ocean.

These shared connections are found deeply embedded within Pacific languages, customs, food sources and cultural works views.

"In all Melanesian traditions, land is regarded as a non-alienable resource that cannot be parted with. The relationship which we have with our land is special and unique, and cannot be replaced by foreign value systems. The Melanesian definition of land is collective and inclusive. We are custodians of the land since time immemorial.

Land is our mother and the source of life for our people. Land secures life, fosters and strengthens relationships that sustain our society. It embodies the connections to our past, present and future and therefore sustains everything we aspire to."

http://vanuatudaily.wordpress.com/2014/07/06/vanuatu-daily-news-digest-thought-provoking-statement-on-melanesian-land/

This statement could easily be used to articulate a Maori or other indigenous world view of relationship to land and place.

Dr Pala Molisa, a ni-Vanuatu lecturer at Victoria University discusses this connection further here, and why Māori and other Pasifika people need to reconnect “the threads of whakapapa that colonisation has broken” — and unite to tackle the big social and ecological challenges of our time.

https://e-tangata.co.nz/news/pala-molisa-maori-and-pasifika-rebuild-links

This presents an interesting dichotomy for us in teaching and learning. Whilst we are encouraged to value and celebrate each of the diverse and unique Pacific cultures individually, there is also a need to recognise and understand that Pacific peoples, including Maori, are united, collectively as one nation.

I would further suggest the need for New Zealanders not of Maori or Pacific ancestry to consider how our geographic location in the world contributes to our identity. Whilst it's important to hold on to our genealogical and historical ties to Europe, surely as we head into the future, a shift from the view that we are an offshoot of England towards seeing ourselves as a Pacific peoples, that is, having more in common with our brothers and sisters in Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu for example than trying to associate ourselves with people in England, Scotland and Ireland. After all, it's our place in the world that makes us who we are.

Then, when we start acknowledging ourselves as being one Pacific nation, we can begin to acknowledge sameness, not difference. We can break down existing barriers, build reciprocal, respectful relationships between ourselves, and work together to as Dr Molisa says "unite to tackle the big social and ecological challenges of our time".

Solutions for which could very well be found within the Pacific indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing, if we stop looking outwardly and start looking into our own beautiful, vast backyard known as the Pacific Ocean - Te Moana Nui A Kiwa.