Terry Dunleavy: Samoans should be invited in

COMMENT

Samoa has been thrust into the consciousness of New Zealanders again by the presence there of Prime Minster Helen Clark at the Pacific Islands Forum, transferred to Apia at short notice from its original venue, the hurricane-ravaged Niue.

Her visit has revived talks about visa-free entry by Samoans, and the renegotiation of the treaty of friendship signed when Samoa gained independence in 1961.

What seems to have been overlooked in coverage of the forum has been the extent to which Samoa has become a model of peaceful and positive development in the South Pacific community of emergent mini-nations.

Recent years have seen political problems in Fiji, the Cook Islands, Tonga, and the Solomons. During that time, Samoa has cemented its independence by dropping the prefix "Western", a relic of the 1899 Anglo-German agreement that ended a period of rivalry among Britain, Germany, and the United States for control of the islands by dividing the archipelago into two colonies, American Samoa to be governed by the US, and Western Samoa, governed by Germany, until it was occupied by New Zealand troops on August 29, 1914.

Later this month we will celebrate the 90th anniversary of our first involvement with the islands with which so many New Zealanders now have close links, so close that the captain of the All Blacks is a Samoan Kiwi, one of the latest of his origin to have worn the silver fern in rugby, netball and other major sports.

Shortly after I left Apia in 1958 after editing a newspaper there for seven years, I told a New Zealand interviewer that the then New Zealand Government was pushing Western Samoa towards full independence for which it was not ready, and which it may not really have sought.

For a small island state, there is a world of difference between self-government, as enjoyed by the Cook Islands, and the harsh reality of full independence. I may have been hasty in my pessimism.

The early years following 1961 were not easy. There were differences of opinion between traditionalists, who wanted leadership and decision-making reserved for the chiefly class of matai, and progressives, who argued for a full adult voting franchise. It is to the credit of the Samoans that the transition to modern democracy was made smoothly and peacefully without the acrimony and violence that have marred the recent history of other island nations.

The emergence of the Human Rights Protection Party as the majority force in government, under the late Prime Minister, Tofilau Eti Alesana, and his successor and present leader, Tuilaepa Aiono Sailele Malielegaoi, has seen Samoa develop into a modern, confident, infrastructurally sound island state that fully justifies the description "the heart of Polynesia".

Hospitality is a basic cornerstone of fa'a Samoa (Samoan custom), which together with physical features that make it truly an island paradise, presents it as a naturally attractive tourist destination.

Samoans at all levels have embraced tourism. It now earns revenue once - but no longer - derived solely from exports of copra and cocoa beans to Europe and bananas to New Zealand. Now, the main primary exports are fish and taro, although there is talk of reviving banana exports.

International aid grants have helped to create infrastructure assets, there is international investment in new tourism facilities, and remittances to their home families by Samoans living in New Zealand, Australia and the US bring in some 190 million Samoan tala annually.

Whatever the sources of income, Samoa seems to be thriving. Well-sealed roads on the major islands of Upolu and Savai'i connect the villages which lie mainly along their coastlines. Every village has its school, its fales (houses) wired for electricity, and there would be very few Samoans unable to watch the news every evening, expertly broadcast by their own national television service. The Government radio service 2AP has been joined by a privately owned network of FM commercial stations.

And Samoans continue to live the motto of their country, "Fa'avae i le Atua Samoa" (Samoa Is Founded in God). Churches continue to dot the landscape, filled on Sunday with worshippers generally clad in white, and capable of giving voice to as fine natural choral singing as anywhere on earth.

But nowhere is the transition to thriving modernity more evident than in bustling Apia. The commercial and governmental section following Beach Rd around the curve of Apia Bay now boasts multi-storeyed buildings, the most imposing of which are the government office block and the Samoa Central Bank, built on land reclaimed from the inner harbour that used to reveal the rusting remnants of the German man-o-war Adler, one of seven vessels of three navies wrecked in the hurricane of 1889.

The once languid and lightly motorised pace of Apia's streets has quickened. Traffic lights abound and are needed to control flows of traffic that at peak times are as congested as Auckland's motorways.

Pedestrians seem to have a purpose about their walk, and there are no beggars or oddballs.

Two major overseas banks, the ANZ and Westpac, offer money and exchange facilities to fill the wallets of visiting shoppers. Apia boasts two international-class hotels, Aggie Grey's at Vaisigano, at one end of Beach Rd, and the Japanese-owned Kitano Tusitala at the other, and there is plenty of cheaper tourist accommodation.

Now being built by Fletchers, near the airport, is Aggie Grey's Lagoon Resort and Spa, fronting the wide Satapuala lagoon on which TEAL flying boats used to alight in their flights along the famous Coral Route. Part of the project is an international 18-hole golf course that, like the resort, will be open for business by next July.

Samoa has been on the minds of New Zealand MPs recently as they ponder a select committee report on a petition to overturn the 1982 act that denied citizenship to Samoans born between 1924 and 1948, when the islands were effectively part of New Zealand.

Present policy seems intent on the status quo, when a more equable compromise might be to grant citizenship to the relatively few Samoans who meet the criteria, but not to extend it to their children.

As for visa-free entry and immigration quotas, New Zealand is screaming out for more workers. It ought to be more accommodating towards people who are fellow Polynesians, with whom we have had a close relationship for nigh on a century, and who, on arrival in New Zealand, are able to fit into a ready-made embrace of aiga (extended family).

And who, though they are proud of their Samoan descent, are, to all intents and purposes, already fully-fledged Kiwis.

They do us proud on sporting fields; let's give them greater opportunity to do so in other activities of life.

* Terry Dunleavy, of Takapuna, was editor of the Samoa Bulletin from 1951 to 1958.