Suchergebnisse

This work is a political history of the island of Malaita in the British Solomon Islands' Protectorate from 1927, when the last violent resistance to colonial rule was crushed, to 1953 and the inauguration of the islands first representative political body, the Malaita Council. At the text's heart is a political movement known as Maasina Rule, which dominated political affairs in the southeastern Solomons for many years after World War II.

Malaita is one of the major islands in the Solomons Archipelago and has the largest population in the Solomon Islands nation. Its people have an undeserved reputation for conservatism and aggression. Making Mala argues that in essence Malaitans are no different from other Solomon Islanders, and that their dominance, both in numbers and their place in the modern nation, can be explained through their recent history. A grounding theme of the book is its argument that, far than being conservative, Malaitan religions and cultures have always been adaptable and have proved remarkably flexible in accommodating change. This has been the secret of Malaitan success. Malaitans rocked the foundations of the British protectorate during the protonationalist Maasina Rule movement in the 1940s and the early 1950s, have heavily engaged in internal migration, particularly to urban areas, and were central to the 'Tension Years' between 1998 and 2003. Making Mala reassesses Malaita's history, demolishes undeserved tropes and uses historical and cultural analyses to explain Malaitans' place in the Solomon Islands nation today.

List of Illustrations -- List of Tables -- Acknowledgements -- Abbreviations -- A Note on Spelling Malaitan Words -- Introduction: Malaitan Tropes -- Malaita in Recent Centuries -- Trade and Labour -- Malaitan Christians Overseas, 1880s-1910s -- The Melanesian Mission, 1877-1909 -- Abu`ofa and the Exodus from Queensland, 1894-1908 -- From QKM to SSEM, 1904-09 -- Qaibala: Establishing `Aoke Station, 1909-14 -- Labour, the Malayta Company and Catholicism -- Koburu: William Bell, 1915-27 -- Making Mala into Malaita, 1927-42 -- Conclusion: Tropes, Kastom and the Modern Solomon Islands -- Bibliography -- Index

Malaita traces the history and culture of a Pacific island from the 19th to 21st centuries through over 600 images drawn from the archives of the British Museum and public and private photographic collections around the world. Burt explores Malaita as it was represented to the wider world through photographs, artefacts, maps and drawings over a period of 150 years. Malaitans have been portrayed as exotic natives and migrant workers, as Christian converts and colonial subjects, and as ordinary people leading a distinctive way of life in a rapidly changing society. The colonisation of Malaita through the work of missions, government and business in the early twentieth century, the upheavals of the Second World War and the economic and political developments that followed were documented in thousands of photos. Thousands more were made by anthropologists researching detailed studies of local culture in the second half of the 20th century. As Malaitans migrated to neighbouring Guadalcanal to participate in the commercial development of Solomon Islands, a civil conflict in the early 21st century was followed by renewed efforts to build upon their ancestral culture for the peaceful development of their island.

In this autobiographical account of life in Honiara, capital of Solomon Islands, Michael Kwa'ioloa reflects on the challenges of raising a family in town, managing marriage exchanges, and sustaining ties with a distant rural homeland in Malaita island. He also participates in a long tradition of political activism by community leaders or chiefs, whose role was severely tested by the violent conflict between Malaitans and the indigenous Guadalcanal people at the turn of the century. Kwa'ioloa provides a local perspective on the causes and course of this unhappy episode in his country's history

Solomon Islands has suffered tremendously from the two-year-old crisis in Guadalcanal, the largest island in the archipelago. The war which started as a result of an attempt by some indigenous Guadalcanal to displace a rapidly growing immigrant population (mostly Malaitans) on their island has now become a national crisis. It threatens national unity and further weakens the capacity of the state to address development issues. So far, most of the discussions on the crisis have highlighted ethnicity as a major factor causing the crisis. This paper argues that the crisis was, in fact triggered by successive governments' poor policies, a flawed political system, poor leadership and other socio-economic development issues that have not been addressed. ; AusAID

The most significant political consequence of the conflict in Solomon Islands between 1998 and 2000 was the widespread shift in thinking toward a federal system of government. This paper argues that long-held political aspirations for greater independence in the resource-rich Western Province were reactivated in a milieu of ethnic tension in the West, and that Western Province politicians used the visionless Malaitan coup in Honiara as a springboard for a calculated push toward their own enhanced fiscal autonomy through advocacy of a federal system. Although the West was the only region likely to increase its wealth from the kind of federalism reforms it proposed, most other provinces, following the collapse of the central government, adopted the West's well-articulated agenda. The outstanding success of the West in trumping all other parties, effectively gaining control of the negotiation on redistribution of state power, and the lack of attention this drew, can only be admired. It was the coup nobody noticed.

The most significant political consequence of the conflict in Solomon Islands between 1998 and 2000 was the widespread shift in thinking toward a federal system of government. This paper argues that long-held political aspirations for greater independence in the resource-rich Western Province were reactivated in a milieu of ethnic tension in the West, and that Western Province politicians used the visionless Malaitan coup in Honiara as a springboard for a calculated push toward their own enhanced fiscal autonomy through advocacy of a federal system. Although the West was the only region likely to increase its wealth from the kind of federalism reforms it proposed, most other provinces, following the collapse of the central government, adopted the West's well-articulated agenda. The outstanding success of the West in trumping all other parties, effectively gaining control of the negotiation on redistribution of state power, and the lack of attention this drew, can only be admired. It was the coup nobody noticed.

ABSTRACT Islam is beginning to have a significant presence in the predominantly Christian nation of Solomon Islands. A few well‐educated Islanders were drawn to Islam's elegant monotheism and promise of unity in the 1980s and early 1990s, but numbers have grown significantly in the years following a violent civil conflict (1998–2003). Many of these new Muslim converts, especially those from the island of Malaita, seem preoccupied with the problem of sin and blame Christianity for destroying customary rules, especially those enforcing gender segregation. Echoing long‐standing Malaitan critiques of Christian freedom, they say that Christians rely too heavily on God's grace and their own ability to resist temptation. Unlike Christianity and similar to the traditional religion of the islands, Islam provides clear moral rules for living. Seeking an escape from a cycle of sin and redemption, these ex‐evangelical Christians now see in Islam the possibility of becoming sinless.

The Manipulation of Custom is the first full and comprehensive account of the crisis that has gripped the Solomon Islands since 1998. The story begins with the 1998 Isatabu uprising on Guadalcanal and the eviction of thousands of Malaitan settlers from their homesteads on that island, continues by analysing the coup of June 2000 and the failure of the Townsville Peace Agreement of October 2000, and concludes with an investigation and assessment of the Australian-led Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI). Jon Fraenkel addresses several critical questions about the crisis how and why it started, why it escalated so rapidly and continued for several years, and why successive governments were unable to disarm the militias and end the violence. The central theme of the book is a critical investigation of the usage of appeals to Melanesian kastom and compensation demands throughout the crisis, and the way in which these were exploited by governments, failed politicians and militia leaders to bankrupt the Solomon Islands state.

For many outsiders, the accelerating failure of governments in western Melanesia in the last decade has been difficult to understand. At independence, though their resources ranged from the rich diversity in Papua New Guinea to the less abundant, but still substantial in Solomon Islands, it seemed that with goodwill and some temporary assistance from developed nations in the region their future would be assured. Yet since independence, overall Melanesian living standards and personal security have declined; and more and more aid is being requested from donors. This essay seeks to answer the questions, "What went wrong in Solomon Islands? Why was the government overthrown in mid 2000? Why did civil war erupt mainly between Guadalcanal and Malaitan people?" The answers are to be found partly in recent regional and global factors that have impacted this state since independence, such as the Bougainville conflict, the fall in commodity prices in the 1980s, and the burgeoning of Neo-Classical economics in the West. More significant, however, are the deeper structures and patterns of the more distant past. This essay will first examine the nature of traditional Solomons' societies and how these operated at the local level, the significance of local identity, and other enduring Melanesian values that continue to influence politics. The nature of Christianity and colonialism will next be considered because these have also left their mark, often changing the balance of population-resource ratios, encouraging greater mobility and raising expectations that have fostered dependence on global economic linkages. Regional expressions of social, economic and political ways and means emerged both before and after the Second World War, but these indigenous protest movements largely collapsed in the face of the colonial government's opposition. This essay argues that independent governments have not fulfilled the aspirations they represented. Though Christianity in its various forms has become more naturalised, the political structures bequeathed by the British are foreign additions that have not sat well on the Melanesian foundation. Yet Solomon Islander politicians in the years since independence have done no more than tinker with them, because they have given such men a degree of personal power in the disposal of resources. The incongruities and failure of these structures to deliver good governance peaked in 2000, with conflict between the Guadalcanal and Malaitan militias. These incongruities remain still, in spite of some propping up of the semblance of government by interested outside nations and donor bodies. ; AusAID

This work offers important new perspectives on the violence and unrest that gripped Solomon Islands between late 1998 and mid-2003, a period known as the Ethnic Tension. Based on in-depth interviews and documents associated with the "Tension Trials," it is the first detailed account of the conflict that engages directly with the voices of the men who joined the rival militant groups. These contemporary voices are presented against the backdrop of the socioeconomic and cultural history of Solomon Islands. The findings provide a refreshing corrective to the pervasive framing of the Isatabu uprising and the Malaitan response as essentially criminal and apolitical activities driven by the self-interest of those who participated in them. Alternative motives for the men who participated in the Solomons conflict are elucidated, foremost of which are their own conceptions of history and of the places of their respective peoples in the historical processes of colonization, development, and nation-building. Uneven development, relative deprivation and rapid socioeconomic and cultural change are highlighted as salient structural causes of the unrest

The ethnic conflict which erupted in the small South Pacific nation of Solomon Islands in late 1998 resulted in the loss of over 100 lives, the displacement of 30,000 people, the overthrow of an elected government, and severe damage to the country's economy and polity. Actual fighting took place only in and around the capital, Honiara, and in other parts of Guadalcanal between militant groups from Guadalcanal and from the neighbouring island of Malaita. Fighting was initiated by Guadalcanalese youth who believed that immigrant Malaitans had taken their land without proper compensation, were denying them job opportunities, and had been disrespectful of their culture. But the conflict impacted on Solomon Islands as a whole such that the country is now on the verge of bankruptcy, its government is unable to deliver services and relies on cash handouts as a proxy for governing, the police force is compromised and divided, the lack of reintegration of militarised and disaffected gangs of youth continues to threaten community relations already traumatised by the conflict, and most Provinces which make up the Solomons are demanding either separate statehood or independence. ; AusAID

Solomon Islands is a chain of 922 islands in the South Pacific, spread over 1,450kms from Bougainville (Papua New Guinea) in the north to Vanuatu in the south, and covering an area of 27,450 kms. The country is home to some 520,000 people, with 74 different languages and dialects. It is divided into nine provinces, each centred on a main island. Effectively, there are nine different peoples with strong allegiance to family, village and province, but little common national identity upon which to effectively build a state.Honiara, located on the island of Guadalcanal and surrounded by the province of the same name, is the national capital, seat of government, centre of administration and commerce, and the nation's window to the world. The city has a population of 79,000, including an estimated 20,000 or so inhabiting informal settlements in the urban and peri-urban areas. Honiara has one of the highest urban growth rates in the Pacific region, estimated at 4% per year . Made up of indigenous peoples from all provinces (Malaitans being particularly numerous), expatriates and a large Chinese community, the city is a melting pot of the diverse ethnic groups that are the Solomon Islands. In practical terms, however, Honiara is a somewhat artificial social construct. There is no genuine local identity or ownership of the place; although people may reside in Honiara, and may have for all their lives, their roots remain in their home village or province.