COVID‐19 and Re‐Storying Economic Development in Oceania

Abstract

Let me tell you a story. But before I do that, let me tell you why stories are important. You see, stories frame our beliefs, understandings, and relationships with each other and the world around us. Our existence is layered with personal and collective stories. Our personal stories are woven with those of others, making it impossible to have a truly individual story—our lives are interwoven stories. Religions are built on stories about interactions between human beings and the divine world. Take away those stories and most religions will crumble. Stories explain and validate things. They instruct us on how to behave and relate to each other, with the environment around us, with the supernatural world, and with those who now reside in the next life. We live in an ocean of stories. There is the story of Maui pulling the islands out of the ocean. Of Te Bomatemaki floating in the void and Nareau the spider god. Of how a pet eel owned by a mother and daughter was killed and cooked in an umu (earth oven). In the middle of the night, water gushed out of the umu, drowning the village and its inhabitants. It created Laovi Lake near my village. There are thousands of stories inscribed onto landscapes, oceanscapes, and on the bodies and names of our peoples. Stories are powerful and foundational to our existence. As the Native American scholar and writer, Thomas King, says, ‘the truth about stories is, that's all we are’ (King 2003). Take away our stories and we are left with nothing. It is therefore important to tell and listen to the world's many stories. Novelist, Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie, warns of ‘the dangers of a single story’ (Adichie 2009). The world needs multiple stories and we must insist that our many stories be included in these global stories. But what we have seen in the past century, and especially in the post-WWII period, is the ‘shouting/writing over’ and erasure of our diverse stories in an attempt to tell a single and dominant story. I want to tell the story about an idea. Once upon a time, long ago, long before COVID-19, in a faraway land beyond our ocean, an idea was born. The baby idea was wrapped in layers of assumptions about the goals and trajectories of human civilization and who dictates them. The newborn idea was said to be the messiah who would take human societies to a utopian salvation of higher living standards, higher per capita income, increased productive capacity, human mastery over nature, economic growth, the elimination of poverty, and the satisfaction of basic needs. This idea was baptized ‘Economic Development’. Since its birth, economic development has reincarnated in various forms, depending on the storytellers who have told its stories over time. In its earliest guise, economic development focused on enabling and explaining humans' transformations of nature, such as the conversion of land into cities, roads, plantations, mines, and so forth. Parts of Oceania were touched by the global economic system since the 1600s, when they became stopover points for trade between Asia, the Americas, and Europe. By the 1800s, some Pacific Islands had become sites of natural resource extraction, with sandalwood and bêche-de-mer harvested by Euro-American entrepreneurs to meet demand from China (Denoon and et al. 2004; Shineberg 1968). Others became sites for the establishment of plantations and phosphate mines, and associated forms of labor (Denoon and et al. 2004). By the beginning of WWII, many Pacific Islanders had had some degree of exposure to the global cash economy. However, the economies of the islands focused largely on meeting the costs of the colonial administration and facilitating the exploitation of natural resources. This continued after WWII. Decolonization did not happen in Oceania until the 1960s, and mostly in the 1970s and 80s. Nauru, which gained independence in 1968, inherited an economy with one of the highest GDP per capita in the world because of income from phosphate mining and a relatively small population. However, most inherited economies were small and narrow-based. These are often described by donors and international financial institutions as ‘MIRAB economies' because of their dependence on Migration, Remittances, Aid, and Bureaucracy. Despite these challenges, the newly independent island states were thrown into the global economic canoe and expected to transform into mass consumption societies—or at least an Oceania version. International financial institutions constantly reminded these states of their lack of or slow growth as they ushered them along on their voyage. They recommended the type of sails to use on their development canoe but keep them firmly locked on the economic growth course (Juswanto and Ali 2016). In the early days of the journey, a significant percentage of island countries' populations lived off the subsistence sector. Nowadays, some countries, especially the Melanesian countries of Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu, and to a certain extent Fiji, still have a significant semi-subsistence population. The subsistence sector is not accounted for in the economic data, or measurements of livelihood. Over time, the subsistence sector dwindled, partly because of a growing population and limited land, but also partly because of a system that values and rewards participation in the cash economy. This is exacerbated by education systems that train people for jobs in the cash economy that many times do not materialize. By the time the COVID-19 pandemic arrived, the economies of the Pacific Islands had integrated more into the global economy than ever before. Over the past 20 years in particular, commodity exports from Pacific Island countries have increased by approximately 169% (Juswanto and Ali 2016:6). Despite this, Pacific Islands continue to face many challenges because of their relative smallness, slow economic growth, and dependence on a limited number of commodities. The COVID-19 pandemic is not just a global health crisis. It is also an economic and labor market crisis. According to the World Trade Organization, global ‘trade is expected to fall by between 13% and 32% in 2020’ (WTO 2020). This has triggered an economic recession that has resulted in the loss of millions of jobs—including 400 million lost jobs in the second quarter of 2020 alone (McKeever 2020). The pandemic caught many countries with their proverbial pants down, exposing the flaws and vulnerabilities of modern civilization, and especially the ideologies and structures that have long influenced human imaginations, aspirations, and the ways in which the world is organized. Central here is the idea of ‘economic development’ that normalizes an insatiable addiction for infinite growth that is built on the unbridled extraction and destruction of natural resources. In the quest for economic growth, we are destroying the planet. We have arrogantly asserted ourselves as the masters of the planet, rather than as belonging to and being part of it. We have been terrible citizens of earth. Although we consider ourselves the most intelligent residents of this planet, it is obvious that we do not fully understand nature's powers and when and how it can be unleashed. The COVID-19 pandemic thus exposes both the strengths and vulnerabilities of global interconnections. On one hand, it shows that the global community's collective effort to address the crisis is our best bet. On the other hand, it highlights how places at the margins of state and global influence have so far avoided the virus. As of September 2020, ten Pacific Island countries do not have confirmed case of coronavirus. These are Nauru, Tuvalu, Palau, Marshall Islands, Tonga, Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Samoa, Vanuatu, and Solomon Islands. The Island countries' defence was their relative isolation from large populations, major migration routes, and centers of global trade. These characteristics, which have often been portrayed as economic vulnerabilities, have become these countries' fortress. The Marshall Islands, Samoa, and Vanuatu were amongst the first to cease international flights and shipping. Many remain closed, except for flights to repatriate citizens stranded overseas and cargo planes and ships. This ‘island distancing’ was an attempt to stop the coronavirus from reaching their shores. In many Pacific Island countries, people were also encouraged to return to their rural home villages and practice subsistence agriculture during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the Solomon Islands, for example, the government declared a state of emergency in late March 2020 and provided funding to hire ships to take people back to their villages, triggering mass migrations from the national capital Honiara to rural areas as people attempted to ‘escape’ the virus. Villages were portrayed as ‘safe havens’ because of their relative isolation. It is ironic that after decades of globalization, we now seek refuge in places as isolated as possible from the rest of the world. But these are places where health services are at best inadequate and at worse non-existent, so if there were infections, their populations would be devastated. Furthermore, the impact of the pandemic on island economies has been devastating. Shrinking global demand and the drop in commodity prices have severely affected island countries. The tourism industry has been the hardest hit, with countries such as Fiji, Palau, Vanuatu, and Samoa particularly affected. In Fiji, for example, over 100,000 people lost their jobs that were directly or indirectly connected to the tourism industry. Public debts are increasing as governments borrow to meet costs associated with COVID-19 and maintain public services (IMF 2020). These strains have been compounded by natural disasters such as cyclone Harold, which hit Vanuatu, Tonga, Fiji, and the Solomon Islands in April 2020. Pacific Islands governments' response has largely been to restore the economy to the way it was prior to the pandemic. This is despite prevalent rhetoric surrounding the need to establish a ‘new normal’. In May 2020, Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand proposed a trans-Tasman ‘travel bubble’ that would see the two countries open their borders to each other (Higgins-Desblolles and Higham 2020). However, the bubble ‘burst’ following new cases in New Zealand after more than 3 months of no positive cases and a surge in cases in Australia in August 2020. There are, however, indications that the ‘travel bubble’ could begin in the COVID-free regions of the two countries (RNZ 2020a). This has generated other ‘bubble talks’. In June 2020, for instance, Fiji proposed a ‘Bula Bubble’ that would reopen international travel, especially from Australia and New Zealand, Fiji's two biggest sources of international visitors. Fiji's prime minister, Frank Bainimarama stated that, ‘[t]his “Bula Bubble” will allow Aussies and Kiwis to once again enjoy the best of Fiji while remaining separate from any other travelers and the general public’ (ABC News, 24 June 2020). There are, however, other conversations/talanoa/tok stories going on that explore alternative development models. These conversations are premised on the fact that the pandemic has given Pacific Islanders an opportunity to reflect and make fundamental changes not only to the way they do things but also the ideas that inform their actions. These conversations are led predominantly by non-state entities. One of them is the Institute for Mission and Research at the Pacific Theological College (PTC), which partnered with the University of the South Pacific's (USP) Center for Arts, Culture and Pacific Studies and the Pacific Conference of Churches to organize a series talanoa/tok stories titled ‘Reweaving an Ecological Pacific’. Meetings under this initiative were held via Zoom and included people from diverse walks of life and generations, who together explored creative and alternative responses to COVID-19. Another initiative was the Pacific Leaders Talanoa, a weekly semi-informal Zoom that ran from April to August 2020. This initiative brought together Pacific Islands leaders from different sectors of society and featured a number of prime ministers, presidents, ministers, senators, senior public servants, and academics from throughout the Pacific, including Hawai'i, Australia, Aotearoa/New Zealand, and Pacific Islanders living in other parts of the world. The talanoa/tok stories explore alternative ways of organizing societies in light of untenable current norms. Central to this quest is re-thinking ‘economic development’ and exploring new agendas, values, goals, processes, and trajectories that are appropriate and affordable for Pacific Islanders. The pandemic has provided an opportunity to critique extant ideas, assumptions, values, processes, structures, and issues. There is an acknowledgement that there is nothing ‘normal’ about current economic development approaches that normalize environmental and cultural destruction, legitimate the insatiable addiction to economic growth, and exacerbate climate change-induced planetary disasters. There is nothing ‘normal’ about the fact that most people are marginalized by an economic system built on corporate greed and affluence, rather than people-centered investments. There is therefore a need for new development approaches that create new normalities and realities. This is a noble aspiration. However, the multi-million-dollar questions are: (i) What does this new development approach look like? (ii) How feasible is it in an era when Pacific Islands are intricately intertwined with the global economic system? (iii) How will it help pay for the cost of social services such as education, health, and infrastructure? and, (iv) How will it provide income for people? I do not have answers to these questions. I acknowledge that taking countries off the economic growth path is like trying to wrestle with a whale. The challenge is to create an economic system that emphasizes people's long-term wellbeing over growth. Wellbeing here encompasses happiness, good health, a sense of meaning and purpose, and access to opportunities and services. In May 2019, Aotearoa/New Zealand passed its Wellbeing Budget 2019/20, which is based on gauging the long-term impact of policies on people's wellbeing, rather than on short-term measures such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The budget focuses on five wellbeing goals: bolstering mental health; reducing child poverty; supporting indigenous peoples; moving to a low-carbon-emission economy, and, flourishing in a digital age (Roy 2019). The use of GDP as a measure of wellbeing has long been challenged by scholars and development experts. As Kaitu'u Pangai Funaki states, ‘When development is based on GDP and economic growth, our expectations for future achievements could be as depressing as someone chasing their own shadow’ (Funaki 2018:10). The ideas that inform Aotearoa's wellbeing budget offer a useful learning opportunity for Pacific Island countries. In exploring and carving a new development path, Pacific Islanders should draw from and be informed by the values and practices that have enabled them to live in these islands for thousands of years. This is what David Gegeo (1998) refers to as development that is anchored in indigenous knowledge and in indigenous understandings of the ‘good life’. This is not about looking backwards. Rather, it is about creatively harnessing our people's experiences and values to build a better future. Such an economic development model should also be relational, emphasizing and valuing relationships between people (person-to-person) and between people and the environment (person-to-nature). The person-to-person relationships could be the foundation of what Funaki (2018) refers to as the ‘Gross National Generosity (GNG)’, which leads to ‘the integration of social ties’ and ‘heighten[s] the recipient's sense of value and dignity’ (Funaki 2018:12). Central to this is ‘gift giving’, which ‘embraces the obligations to give, obligations to receive and the obligations to reciprocate’ (Ibid., 10). While Funaki's work focuses on aid and development, it can help inform broader conversations about economic development. Let me illustrate this with an example from Fiji. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and its negative impacts on the Fijian economy and employment, a movement called ‘Barter For Better Fiji’ was established (Tora 2020). Social media was used to facilitate a barter system, whereby people exchanged goods and services without cash transactions. A private doctor in Nadi even dropped cash fees and decided to ‘accept whatever patients wanted to contribute using the recently created Barter for a Better Fiji Facebook page’ (RNZ 2020b). The Barter for Better Fiji has its challenges and is transactional in nature. But such practices have the potential to build social ties and enhance peoples' sense of value and dignity by centering the kinds of relationships and generosity discussed by Funaki. Development should also include person-to-nature relationships where there is a recognition of the natural environment's personhood and its role in the wellbeing of human beings. Most Pacific Island societies have totems that connect particular tribes or clans to particular animals and plants, and stories that connect them to rivers, lakes, ocean, and so forth. These relations dictate how we relate to and treat the natural environment. Yet they are marginalized or totally ignored in school curriculums and in the push for economic development. These person-to-nature relations should be mainstreamed in the education system and factored in as part of the quest for wellbeing. Importantly, an emphasis on person-to-person and person-to-nature dynamics underlines the relational nature of development.1 Education is fundamental to changing ideas and mindsets about economic development. Curriculums and pedagogies in schools and institutions of higher education need to be reviewed in order to teach alternative value systems that have sustained Pacific Islanders for thousands of years. This is not about isolating Oceania and peoples from the rest of the world. That is impossible. Rather, it is about creating new kinds of relationships. And this is not going to be easy. But it is high time to re-story economic development in Oceania. Pacific Islanders must tell their own stories in this quest for a better world and a meaningful life. Tarcisius Kabutaulaka is an Associate Professor and Director of the Center for Pacific Islands Studies at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. He is a political scientist with research interests in geopolitics, international interventions, regionalism, governance, natural resources, economic development, and political development in Oceania. Tarcisius has published on Chinese relations with the Pacific Islands, civil unrest in the Solomon Islands and the Australian-led regional intervention, Australian foreign policy in the Pacific Islands, the political economy of the forestry industry in the Solomon Islands, land and economic development in the Solomon Islands, and governance issues in the Pacific Islands. He holds a PhD from the Australian National University and undergraduate and MA degrees from the University of the South Pacific. Tarcisius joined UHM in 2009. Prior to that, he worked at the East–West Center and previously at The University of the South Pacific. He is from the Solomon Islands.