French Polynesia Lorenz Gonschor (bio) One of the main issues facing French Polynesia during the review period was the continuing struggle for the recognition of and compensation for the nefarious effects of French nuclear testing. At the same time, harmful colonial policies have been ongoing, exemplified by arbitrary acts by the French judiciary to silence pro-independence politicians and media outlets. In terms of local politics, municipal elections took place and showed some cracks within President Edouard Fritch’s apparently stable super-majority, which might become more apparent in the next larger-scale elections. All of this, however, was overshadowed by the effects of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (covid-19) pandemic, which severely impacted the country’s economy. Let us start with some ramifications of history. The years 2019 and 2020 marked the 250th anniversary of Captain James Cook’s first voyage in the Pacific. More so than the 200th anniversary half a century ago, this anniversary was controversial throughout Oceania, as Cook has been one of the quintessential figures of Eurocentric history writing and the ensuing marginalization of Pacific Islanders from their own history. Unsurprisingly, Indigenous representatives and intellectuals heavily criticized not only the commemorations held by the New Zealand government in Aotearoa in October but also the celebration honoring the arrival of Cook in Matavai Bay in Mahina, which had been held with support from President Edouard Fritch’s pro-colonial government earlier in 2019 (ti, 11 April 2019). A more positive aspect of the commemorations, at least in Tahiti, was that Tupaia, the priest, political advisor, and navigator who shared some of his knowledge with Cook and voyaged aboard his ship to Aotearoa, was a much more centralized figure this time. It was also timely that in early 2019, two German scholars published a well-noted essay deciphering the map of the Pacific region that Tupaia had drafted while aboard Cook’s ship (Eckstein and Schwarz and 2019b). Indeed, building national historical narratives around Indigenous figures and thereby revising colonialist historiography is an important part of the decolonization process. In that sense, both Anja [End Page 192] Schwarz and Lars Eckstein’s scholarly article and a comic book by Māori artists about Tupaia were published in French translations in Tahiti (Eckstein and Schwarz 2019a; Meredith and Tait 2020), while the Tahitian Voyaging Society’s vessel, Faafaite, sailed to Aotearoa to celebrate Tupaia’s legacy (rnz, 19 Sept 2019). It was more recent colonial history, however, that most intensely agitated public sentiments during much of the review period. The earlier decision by the French and French Polynesia governments to set up a documentation and memory center for the French nuclear tests (which took place on the atolls of Moruroa and Fagataufa between 1966 and 1996) and to put together a team of researchers to write a history of nuclear testing and its consequences (tntv, 21 Oct 2018) started to be implemented during the review period. A former naval barracks on the harbor front of downtown Papeete was designated to house the center, and the property was ceded free of charge by Paris to the country government (ti, 7 May 2020). Meanwhile, it should be recalled that the victims of the nuclear tests are represented by three different rival associations. The oldest of them is Moruroa e Tatou, close to the Protestant Church, which was originally presided over by trade unionist and activist Roland Oldham. Oldham passed away in March 2019, at age sixty-nine, due to cancer. He was the last of the three historical leaders in the defense of nuclear test victims; the other two, John Doom and Bruno Barillot, had died in the preceding year (ti, 16 March 2019). In October, Moruroa e Tatou selected longtime trade unionist and politician Hiro Tefaarere as its new president (Polynésie Première, 17 Oct 2017). Next, there is Association 193 (named after the total number of nuclear test explosions), affiliated with the Catholic Church, which is led by Father Auguste Uebe-Carlson (who succeeded Jerry Gooding in December 2019, see tntv, 6 Dec 2019). Finally, there is Tamarii Moruroa, led by Yannick Lowgreen, which advocates compensation for irradiation victims but is not critical of the nuclear tests...
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Apr 15, 2021
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