Politics
Mixed Reactions In Samoa To New Zealand's Apology
While some shed tears, others had forgiven
On June 3, New Zealand Prime Minister, Helen Clark offered Samoa an abject apology for, among other things, the 1918 introduction of Spanish Influenza into then Western Samoa, then under Wellington's military administration.
The virus arrived aboard the ship Talune and while officials knew it was there, flouted the quarantine laws and over a two-week period killed around 22 percent of the population. The blunder was underlined by the fact that the United States Navy was kept completely out of American Samoa and not a soul died.
- ADVERTISEMENT -
 |
|
|
Talune, operated by the New Zealand Union Steam Ship Company out of Auckland, sailed from Apia taking its deadly cargo to Tonga and Fiji - with nearly as bad results for the local people.
But Nuku'alofa and Suva should not hold their breath waiting for an apology: "I was dealing with a New Zealand administration," she said in a hair-splitting fashion.
The major part of the apology related to events around the Mau, the self-government movement which rose out of the influenza epidemic and led to Black Saturday in 1929, when armed New Zealand police gunned down at least nine unarmed Samoan protesters and wounded 50 more. Some of them died later from their wounds.
Among the dead was high chief Tupua Tamasese Lealofi III, who was deliberately shot down by police as he walked into an intersection holding his hands high, calling for peace.
By any objective assessment New Zealand had something to say sorry for. But there was something about Clark's apology that ultimately undermined it. She vaguely acknowledged the problem: "There are events in our past which have been little known in New Zealand, although they are well known in Samoa."
In other words, New Zealand had little idea of what it was apologizing for. This raised the question of whether it was really all designed to appeal to the increasingly powerful ethnic Samoan vote in New Zealand, ahead of the general election later this year.
The apology followed an earlier national one to New Zealand Chinese who had suffered discrimination and poll taxes in the early 20th century. It coincided with Clark's apology to gays - suggesting June was a good month to be a gay Chinese-Samoan. Her various apologies, as it happened, made no mention of the severe discrimination New Zealand meted out against Chinese in Samoa, which even resulted in an Act of Parliament in 1921 prohibiting sexual intercourse between Chinese and Samoans.
For the past two decades New Zealand has been engaged in a complex and fairly sophisticated semi-legal process of reconciliation and apologizing to the indigenous Maori. Extensive public hearings have been held and as each iwi or tribe's case climaxes, the "Waitangi Tribunal" issued an extensive report recounting the injustices. In the end the public knows what the state is apologizing for and paying for.
None of these occurred in the case of Samoa. The apology was casually signposted by Foreign Minister, Phil Goff a couple of weeks earlier in an interview with a Samoan newspaper. Then it was surrounded by secrecy with Clark's flaks claiming, even just hours before it occurred, that any discussion of it would be an insult to those about to be given the apology.
Samoan Government officials were not too happy about the whole affair; this showed itself when Clark arrived aboard her ancient air-force jet at Faleolo Airport. Her counterpart Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi was not there to greet her. While it was a state visit, there was no formal welcome, no flag raising.
Next day, Clark stood up and addressed the packed Taoa Salamasina Hall on Apia's waterfront (and carried live by state-funded satellite services to Samoan gatherings in New Zealand). She said she was "troubled by some unfinished business", although much of it was a "revelation" to many New Zealanders.
"On behalf of the New Zealand Government, I wish to offer today a formal apology to the people of Samoa for the injustices arising from New Zealand's administration of Samoa in its earlier years, and to express sorrow and regret for those injustices."
Tuilaepa seemed puzzled by it all, saying the events had been "long ago forgiven". He quoted Head of State, Malietoa Tanumafili II, who called on the people "to remember that the day Samoa's national first flew on independence day all wrongs were forgiven", although what was not said was that Malietoa's father had, at the time of the events being apologized for, been on New Zealand's side and was actively anti-Mau.
The current Tupua Tamasese Efi let tears run down his face: "I was very moved," he said, "I was struggling not to cry because I don't want to be seen to be expressing hollow emotion."
The dead high chief had been his grand-uncle and he has come to be the keeper of the shrine of memories for the Mau, although he spoilt his pitch somewhat by claiming, without evidence, that the dead high chief had been gunned down with dum-dum bullets. Standard 303 bullets at a reasonable range are bad enough without having to garnish that particular tragedy.
He said he would not seek compensation: "Not by my family. I will not demean the cause for which these people lived and died by asking for a penny. The fact is that no New Zealand government has admitted this wrong before, no New Zealand government has said 'look, this is wrong, I am sorry'; that is what is significant, that is what touches the core of my being. It's a very emotional moment; it was a struggle not to cry. This gesture is historic, and I accept it in the spirit it is given."
New Zealand does owe Samoa an apology, but not this one, easily given and without any particular sense of national remorse was of questionable sincerity.
It would have been so much more significant had it come from an informed New Zealand public willingly apologizing and honouring the memory of a noble, courageous and pacifist movement, whose achievements do not deserve the obscurity they now suffer.
