From: nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson)
Subject: Re: Polynesian music
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 14:39:35 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Chelmsford, MA

In article <aquilanm.726193009@helium> aquilanm@helium.gas.uug.arizona.edu (Mark T Aquilano ) writes:
>I didn't expect to find someone else looking for a CD of this Polynesian 
>choral music, expecially on rec.travel. 

  I really didn't know where else to post it.  I posted it to rec.music.misc
  but I didn't get any responses at all.   

  A pseudo-political observation:   One problem that Pacific island cultures
  face is this lack of presence and visibility in the world.  Across the 
  Pacific there are thousands of tiny communities, islands, cultures, and 
  even nations that most people have never heard of.   Colonialism and 
  modern economics have combined to destroy local cultures and customs
  and make them dependent on (and thus politically servile to -) foreign
  powers and transnational corporations.

  Also, there are terrible wars, insurgencies, hideous human rights abuses,
  or ethnic discrimination going on in many of these places (e.g., the 
  dispute between the Solomons and PNG on Bougainville, revolution and
  Fijian/Indian ethnic clashes on Fiji, and a wholesale holocaust on a 
  scale possibly exceeding that of Yugoslavia by Indonesia on East Timor)
  of which most of us are blissfully unaware. 

  But on a more subtle level the native cultures on many of these islands
  have been wiped out even when the people remain.  Stone-age cultures
  on PNG, or great seagoing explorers of Polynesia -- all have been turned
  into smiling, kiss-ass bellhops and tour guides for us tourists.  In
  French Polynesia the kids are educated to be good little French citizens
  and Christians with no concept of their own history or customs.  They 
  listen to rap music -- I had to go to Cambridge, Massachusetts to find
  some Polynesian music.  
 
  In some cases, such as French Polynesia this has been done quite
  deliberately and systematically.   A hundred years ago French Polynesia
  supplied all its own food despite having a much higher population (in
  1844 Bora Bora had 40,000 inhabitants, today it has 4400); today 60%
  of its food is imported.  Almost everything else the local people need
  to live is also imported.  The single largest revenue source, and
  source of jobs, is French government spending.  The French have 
  exercised a policy of making Polynesie Francaise as economically
  dependent on France as they possibly can.  This has been done to
  head off the growing independence movement and thus to secure an
  important anchor in France's colonial empire, as well as to make
  Polynesia more cooperative about environmental depredations such
  as France's nuclear tests in the southeastern part of the islands. 
  Also, while there are no real-estate or income taxes there is a
  HUGE import tax (which is why everything is so expensive) -- by
  creating an import-based economy and then taxing the imports the
  French can pay for their project.  

  North Americans are astoundingly ignorant about the Pacific.  I
  brought back a gift for a co-worker here and he said, "Tahiti. Where
  is that?  In the Caribbean?"  In response to my question about where
  to post questions about Polynesian music, one emailer suggested
  soc.culture.filipino!
                                                         
    
---peter



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