Need To Know

Fe’iloakitau Tevi (Photo: Giff Jonson)

What does the "Island Of Hope" concept involve?

The Island of Hope concept stems from a program that is being implemented by the WCC and it's the search for alternatives to economic globalization and to the current economic paradigm being promoted by financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organization.

We Pacific churches came up with an alternative based on five elements that we have in our lives and very much ingrained in our societies-the traditional economy, spirituality, the issue of relationships and partnerships, the environment we live in and stewardship of God's creation, and finally, the holistic approach to life we have in our traditional societies.

We then analyzed these elements to find out if they still exist in our societies or are they just theoretical concepts. In much discussion with the church leaders we found out that these five concepts are very much part of present life and so these common threads were weaved together into the concept of the "Island of Hope."

How will you move this concept and the choices it entails from a discussion to implementation?

The concept is an existing way of life; it is not something that we are pulling out of a text book. When we come to relating this concept to the churches, the congregation, the villages, it is to say here we are with a way of life that we have lived in for the last 200 or 300 years where we have had sustainable economies and we have had a respect for the environment. How can we recapture that way of life, so we are not living in competition with our neighbors, that we are living in a sustainable manner. How can we recapture those types of values? That is where the discussion begins.

I am not a utopian or an idealist to say that the best way of life is to all go back and live in villages, that isn't the central argument of the "Island of Hope." It is a point of departure in a discussion and for us to say, "this is where we draw from, our tradition, our spirituality," but the end of result of it, OGK--Only God Knows.

It's a timely discussion in the context of this new phase of regionalism that's coming out of the Pacific Islands Forum and the Pacific Plan. How is the Pacific Office of the WCC contributing to those processes?

Our analysis of the Pacific Plan was that it is devoid of any type of spirituality. It gave a very, very dry picture of what the Pacific Islands are and what it is to be a Pacific Islander. We felt that the whole discussion of spirituality and the holistic approach was missing.

We hope to continue to have these discussions with people at the Forum Secretariat to try and influence the way the Pacific Plan is being implemented so that at the end of the day you are not missing out on the spirituality of the Pacific people which comprises a big chunk of their way of life.

Do you think this "absence of spirituality" reflects how national governments have moved away from those underlying philosophies as well, or is it just the result of the process?

I think both sides are to be blamed. I think churches also have to be blamed for not living up to their role as guardians of justice and social ethics in societies. We hope to continue to have these discussions with people at the Forum Secretariat to try and influence the way the Pacific Plan is being implemented.

We've always been--unfortunately for some and fortunately for others--part of the establishment and in doing so we have silenced ourselves. We have not given ourselves the freedom to comment on social justice issues. We have to start up again this whole partnership again with leaders to have our presence felt and to share and promote the stance of the church on these justice issues.

If you read the history of the Pacific integrational process, you will find the churches very much involved in the beginning. We were very much present in molding a sense of identify of the Pacific people and of the leaders of the Pacific.

If you look at all the pioneers of the Pacific region they have all come from church schools, they've been raised in the church and they have a very strong relationship to the church. That for some reason we have failed to follow-up. We've sat back on our laurels and said "oh yes, the leaders of our nations are all deep seated Christians," and we've done nothing more.

And the problem is when they do pass on, we're left here in a vacuum and we have to start up again this whole partnership again with leaders to have our presence felt and to share and promote the stance of the church on these justice issues.

Another issue you took to the Brazil meeting is the impact of climate change in the Pacific Islands region. What message did you convey there?

Our message to the world is to say, look this is what is really happening in our region, we have environmental refugees, we have loss of land, we have salination of our water tables, we have change in the diet, and we have all of this happening because of the rising seas. This is what is going to happen to others if we don't take action now.