Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 8, Number 12, 1 December 1991 — Beyond hula, hotels and handicrafts [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Beyond hula, hotels and handicrafts

by Clayton Hee Chairman, Board of Trustees

For everyone, events shape their perspective on the world we live in. 1 was fortunate and privileged to hear a young Tongan woman give a speech at the Third Global Conference on Tourism held at the Sheraton Waikiki.

• Dr. Konai Helu-Thaman is a pro vice chancellor of the University of the South Pacific. Its main facility is in Fiji. Her remarks riveted me, recalling how the visitor industry has had an impact on this land in whieh we live. Excerpts of her speech are worthy of publication. I believe we all benefit by recalling this Polynesian woman's perspective of the changing face of development in Hawai'i. by Dr. Konai Helu-Thaman University of the South Pacific "Beyond hula, hotels and handicrafts: A Pacific Islander's Perspective of Tourism DeveIopment" today your words are empfy sucking dry the brown dust left by earth and sky patches politely parched with no water flowing from the mountain top scars burn on my soft skin you've cut a pieee of me away leauing my bandaged heart to endure the pain of your fying me to yourself

The business of tourism and conservation of cultural heritage, seem strangely contradictory. This is because tourism was and is a major contributor to cultural invasion, whieh began in the 19th century. Such an invasion has left its marks on most island environments. A new "trans-national culture" is spread with varying intensity among our islands by advertising and the mass media. Although diverse, our island cultures share in the eommon experience of change and transformation. Strands of non-indigenous cultures, woven into our own cultural fabrics, makes collective ways of life, worthy of protecting and passing on to future generations. Most of our indigenous cultures were ecologically conservative and generally compatible with the laws of ecology; gentle use of scarce resources served large populations for hundreds of years. Today, knowledge and awareness of the environment are rapidly being eroded by modern development brought to our shores. The result is not only cultural alienation of many of our young people, but the slow hemorrhaging of traditional, environment-related knowledge. Many of our people are beginning to suffer from severe ecological blindness and an over dependence on moneyed economies. The situation is leading to a reduced ability to deal with social and cultural disasters. First is the problem of landlessness. Land is central to indigenous identities and livelihood. Land gave our ancestors a sense of security and identification. Today vast areas of native land in our island countries have been "alienated," put on the open market, turned into freehold or fee-simple land, and used for many purposes including militarism

and tourism development. Such land alienahon has a direct bearing on the.survival of Pacific island cultures. Today, stripped of mueh of their land and environment, cultural survival for many, is often tenuously based on those touristically-saleable aspects of their culture, such as song, dance, and handicrafts, and not on the more productive, environment-based aspects. The other major issue is the kinds of development being sold and/or recommended to us by foreign advisers and consultants although many of these models have not proven successful in the countries of origin. Tourism is seen as an important source of foreign exchange. It is a major industry in Fiji, New Caledonia and French Polynesia, Vanuatu, Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas. But tourism has many costs with its impact on coastal ecosystems, affecting land rights, land use, and fisheries development. Attempts to develop alternative forms of tourism (i.e. nahonal parks) illustrate the dilemma between the eeonomie benefits derived from increasing tourism revenue and the need to protect cultural artifacts and ecosystems that give national parks their value. More importantly, tourism was and continues to be foreign to most our people. A eolonial legacy, its organization is directly related to pre-existing capital originally developed to serve foreign, eolonial (as opposed to indigenous) interests. For example, the eolonial administration in Fiji, encouraged and developed tourism by acts of Parliament. These enabled*construction of hotels and duty free facilities. Such development assisted mainly non-indigenous people to invest in tourism, grafting them to an export economy already established in other industries, such as sugar, copra, and gold. Today, tourism in Fiji continues to be characterized by the domination of foreign enterprises. Overseas companies carry out the crucial functions of tourism: wholesaling, transport and supply of essential inputs, and ownership and development of major hotel chains. The most revealing thing about Fiji tourism is the laek of indigenous Fijian involvement even though ethnic Fijians provide mueh of the labor in the hotel and other sectors. They are, however, active in the area of handicraft -vending but even there other groups (e.g. Tongans, Indians) are also active.

This laek of an indigenous presence īn tounsm means that overseas and non-indigenous loeal interests are increasingly allowed to influence political decision-making. Further there is the possibility of abuse of investment privileges, leading to government losing important tax money from larger foreign-owned hotel companies. This is especially serious given the fact that governments have had to pay costs for administrative and infrastructure requirements demanded by the industry. Tourism in Fiji mirrors the kind of tourism typical of neo-eolonial economics. In Tonga, the tourism picture is different. Although on a mueh smaller scale than Fiji, tourism in Tonga has not yet developed the major linkages with metropolitan markets and companies. Tonga had no external authorities to exploit air traffic rights and no large loeal nonindigenous communities to lobby for tourism development. In fact, tourism development there was seen as an attempt to "sanctify the monarchy and help the national economy." Now most islands depend on metropolitan countries and Japan to fill airlines and hotel rooms. However, it has been estimated that 55 cents of every tourist dollar goes back to developed countries. Loeal inhabitants receive as little as 10 cents of loeal revenue generated (World Bank

Report). Tourism in the Pacific islands needs to be understood in this context of the neo-eolonial relationships between island nations and metropolitan countries, such as France, Australia, New Zealand, U.S.A. and Japan. Within such a relationship, our islands have eome to be seen as providing needed leisure space and entertainment for the inhabitants of mainly capitalist economies. There is perhaps an irony here because many of us see tourists' behaviour and lifestyle as models for own advancement and progress towards modernity. So how then ean we Pacific islanders deal with this continual over-dependence on former eolonial masters and the pressure on our respective environment-based heritage that is a consequence of that dependence? First, we must analyze what we are accepting. Many models of development, whether in tourism or education or health, are inappropriate to our contexts because they make incorrect assumptions about indigenous peoples and their cultures. A more conscious and systematic synthesis is particularly necessary today as many of our young people are no longer in a position to leam traditional skills and attitudes. Some now consider their traditions to be a waste of time and money and are deaf to the voice of their elders. There is another major problem about adopting the western view of development. Experts talk about the environment as if it was separate from tourism or the economy as if it was separate from culture. It is time that discussions about tourism development be examined from the point of view of those being "developed." Today, experts will talk about Ecotourism, tourism development whieh is environmentfriendly — the buzzword of the 90s. People, their beliefs and values, seem to be missing from these discussions. This is most unfortunate because mueh of our cultural knowledge and heritage is in people. When we talk about cultural heritage we are talking about people, not artifacts. Unfortunately also, the notion of "sustainable development" seems to have a lot more to do with maintaining eeonomie growth and conserving natural resources primarily for the enjoyment and development of metropolitan/developed societies. Similarly, concerns about "lost cultures" is basically a eoneem for those aspects of our cultures whieh, in both the long and short term, are seen to be beneficial or of interest to deveioped societies. This is the problem with a universal "development" culture based on money rather than people. Ecotourism incentives that protect the ecosystems of Pacific islanders will no doubt be exploited by some group. In 1990 there were more than 300 U.S companies selling wildlife and nature tours. The process of commodification of island indigenous cultures and their natural resources will increasingly become the trend of the future, as we grow to like and eventually need the products of our own exploitation. So where do we go from here? For many of us, we need first of all to recognize our own enslavement to the dominant cultures of eolonial masters. We must learn to understand what happened and is happening to us as a consequence of mainly westem cultural imperialism, a process in whieh many of us actively play a part. We need most of all to free ourselves from the straight jacket of viewing the world only from a particular perspective. Not until the commercial imperative and the profit motive are deemphasized will most of our people have a hope of realizing the benefits of ecotourism and other eeornnrpnts