Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Thousands live to the sounds of peace and love



They came and rocked the capital in the name of peace and unity. From the hinterland to coastal villages and neighbouring towns, thousands flocked to the Laucala stadium last night to jive to the message of South African reggae star Lucky Dube. His hit song Different Colours, One People empowered the fans – crossing all ages and walks of life – and gave them an essence of unity.
Lucky preached love and reconciliation in his songs and his 13-member troupe whipped the crowd into a frenzy with their hypnotic one-drop reggae beat. “The problems here in Fiji are nothing compared to what we faced in South Africa. And if we can find peace and unity there, I don’t see any reason why you can’t find it here.
“I don’t understand politics but I encourage people in my messages,” said Lucky, named so by his mother after pleading with God to give her a child. He urged his fans to stay away from drugs, saying reggae was not to be associated with ganja.
“I don’t smoke but I use reggae to get my message across. That is my view of reggae,” he said, adding that the dead reggae king, Bob Marley, and Wailers’ Peter Tosh had their reasons for encouraging the use of cannabis in their lyrics.Lucky, before the sellout concert, said one of his greatest fears was to see any of his five children follow him into show business.
“My children play around with the piano at home but I don’t encourage them because I don't want them to get involved in show business. In South Africa, it is bad with most young musicians dying because of drugs. “It is sad but it is true. When they die, musicians have to fork out to pay for their funeral because they may be superstars but they don't have any money. They sold their houses and even wives and husbands for drugs and it is very bad.”
The highlight of his career was when he became the first South African artist to get recording contracts with Motown, which also recorded Michael Jackson. After last night’s concert, the band flew out to Tonga for a concert on Wednesday night before they return to Fiji on Thursday evening. Their final concert is in Lautoka on Friday .


Meanwhile, thieves raided the Fiji Broadcasting Commission office in search of tickets to the show and made off with an money from ticket sales on Sunday night.
Three men entered the office at Carnavon Street at about 7.30pm and on the pretence of buying tickets forcefully grabbed an envelope that contained $640 from the receptionist. The men were unarmed and they ran away as soon as they grabbed the envelope.

Wednesday, May 25, 2005

SI Final Year Geography Students Field Trip 2005

The Solomon Islands Students studying at the University of the South Pacific,Laucala Campus final year geography students have made an amzing journey to Fiji's wild side, in Naidiri, Sigatoka. The field trip was coordinated by Randy Thaman of the geography department was made to study the biodiversity of the island. Douglas Aitorea a final year Solomon Island student, said that the trip was like an adventure, where they get to understand the beauty of the natural environment and the conservation of the ethnobiodiversity and the importance to ecotourism. The trip was one of the kind that involve the students interacting with the villagers and getting to know the Fijian culture.


Douglas during the Sevu Sevu ceremony, Sigatoka.


Cultural Diversity at the University of the South Pacific


Fiona and a Class mate with the 'Melrose World Cup'

Saturday, May 21, 2005

Did You Know?


Captain McCarthy running for Senate while in Bougainville, Solomon Islands, April 1944
Courtesy of Marquette University Archives



McCarthy ran for the U.S. Senate as a Wisconsin Republican in 1944, while in the Marines. He portrayed himself as an airplane rear gunner, calling himself "Tail Gunner Joe." When Captain McCarthy returned to Wisconsin in July, he talked to voters about postwar jobs and the creation of an international peace organization.

The Wisconsin Republican party organization gave little support to the relatively unknown McCarthy during the primary. Many overlooked the Captain because he had run as a Democrat in the 1936 Shawano County election for district attorney. McCarthy lost the Republican primary to incumbent Senator Alexander Wiley. Wisconsin voters later re-elected Wiley to the Senate in the general election.

Solomon Islands Currencies in Circulation

These are some of the Solomon Islands legal notes that have been circulating in the country for some years.


1979 Specimen Set


1977 Two Dollars


1986 Two Dollars


2001 Two Dollars


1977 Five Dollars


1986 Five Dollars


1997 Five Dollars


1996 Ten Dollars


1996 Twenty dollars


1996 Fifty Dollars

Know Your Country's Flag


Solomon Islands flag

The flag of Solomon Islands adopted 18th November 1977. The flag is divided diagonally by a stripe of yellow representing the sunshine of the islands. The two triangles formed by the diagonal stripe are blue and green, signifying water and the land. The five stars were initially incorporated to represent the country's five districts.

Country Name: Solomon Islands
Capital City of Solomon Islands : Honiara
Population of Solomon Islands : 523,617
Terrirory: 28,450 sq km

Number Plates in the Solomons



These are some of the number plates used in the Solomon Islands. The only difference in the plates is in Russel Islands. Russell Island is privately owned by the Lever Plantations which produce and market copra. The plantation issues its own license plates which are white on green with or without prefix letters.

Biukili

Biukili

Solomon Islands Old Stamps



Measures 5 1/4" x 4 1/8"

The first stamps issued by Solomon Islands are popularly referred to as the 1907 'Large Canoes'. They were based on a drawing by Mr. Charles Woodford, Resident Commissioner, and were an instant success. Unfortunately their colourings did not comply with prevailing regulations of the Universal Postal Union and, so, in 1908, the 'Small Canoes' issue, reproduced above replaced them.

The paper used embodied one of the earliest examples of the now famous Crown Agents Watermark, the Multiple Crown, C.A. sideways. The stamps were printed by Thomas De La Rue. 1984 is highly significant for Solomon Islands as the nation has attained full membership of the Universal Postal Union with effect from 1st January.

Solomon Islands Rare Stamp Auction

These are for real. This Solomon Islands 1907 stamp is being auctioned in the US by Robert A Siegal, Inc,America's Premier Stamp Auctioneer for the value of US$ 2,500.


SOLOMON ISLANDS, 1907, 6p Chocolate, Vertical Pair, Imperforate Between (6a, SG 6a). Original gum, small h.r. on top stamp, bottom stamp Mint N.H., centered to right as are all known examples, Very Fine and very rare, bottom stamp signed in pencil and with 1994 Holcombe certificate, SG £3,500

Patches and Badges of Solomon Islands

These are some patches and badges collected by John R. Hannah a retired Seattle Police Officer and is selling fake copies of this patches.


Beer labels of Solomons

These are some of the Beer labels from the Solomon Breweries Ltd. In case you forgot the taste of EKU, it is currently in European Market. Cheers for Beers.

Tikopia Songs : Poetic and Musical Art of a Polynesian People of the Solomon Islands (Cambridge Studies in Oral and Literate Culture)

Some latest publications on the cultures in the Solomon Islands




Author: Raymond Firth Mervyn McLean
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Date published: 1991-02-22
Format: Hardcover Edition:
List price (USD): $100.00
No. of pages: 325

Synopsis:

Sir Raymond Firth is the most distinguished living British anthropologist, and one internationally acclaimed. His latest work forms part of one of the fullest and most professional ethnographic accounts by any anthropologist of anon-industrial people, an account which extends over many years. This book is about the songs of a Western Pacific people, the Tikopia, who until recently lived entirely on a small remote island of the Solomons. Their songs vary fromlively dance chants to mournful funeral laments. All are novel to western ears. The book provides about 100 examples, in text and translation. It also discusses the relation of the songs to the social life of the people, and it includesan analysis of the structure of their music, by Mervyn McLean, a noted musicologist. A cassette published at the same time reproduces about 30 of the songs which appear in the book.

Book Review:

100 examples of the songs of the Tikopia, a relatively isolated Western Pacific people, reveal their relationship to Polynesian social life as well as their musical structure.

About Author:

"Raymond Firth sets out to provide a detailed empirical study of the social context of Tikopia song, and this he does.... [a] sensitive treatment of Tikopia song and culture." The Canadian Review of Sociology andAnthropology "This is an excellent book if one appreciates reality and empiricism, written by the best author of ethnology of Polynesia, presenting us with rare, perhaps unique, Polynesian material....Firth has written another classic."Ethnohistory "What is truly remarkable is the vivid portrayal here of Tikopia song, performance, and aesthetics in photograph, song text, translation, and description. This is fortunate for all students of the Pacific, and for the Tikopiathemselves." American Anthropologist "The commentary itself is very interesting...sensitive treatment of Tikopia song and culture..." Ellen E. Facey, The Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropologyents. All are novel to western ears.

Solomon Islands - Silver $10 Proof Crown

This is something I came across while surfing the globe:

The Solomon Islands were a British Protectorate from 1893 to 1976, when the Islands became self-governing, then in 1978 fully independent. Ethnic violence and other problems undermined and destabilised its society until the Prime Minister requested Australian assistance in 2003 to restore peace under a multi-national force
As a member of the British Commonwealth, Solomon Islands issued the ten dollar coin shown to celebrate the Queen's golden wedding anniversary.


Obverse of 1997 Solomon Islands Silver Proof 10 Dollar

Reverse of 1997 Solomon Islands Silver Proof 10 Dollars

You can access the site here: http://www.24carat.co.uk/solomonislandscoins.html

Spirited Earth

Selected images from the Solomon Islands

These images reminds me of the diversity of cultures in the Solomon Islands. We can be light years away with if we work together to build our Happy Isles. Such beauty and color lays not in the differences we have but in the differences in cultures in union under the the Flag of Solomon Islands.


Nela Dancer. Santa Cruz Island


Fishing for the Bonito. Santa Ana Island


Mako Mako. Santa Ana Island


Entrance Post to Men’s House. Santa Ana Island


Women Holding Sacred Coconut. Malaita Is.


Suahongi. Bellona Is.


Hai Tangi—Song of Lament. Bellona Is.

(Photos: Adapted from http://www.victoriaginn.co.nz/collections/spirited/11solomon/solomon05.htm}

The last Spanish voyage into the South Pacific in 1780 and 1781

"Mourelle was one of the last great men to navigate the Pacific in the second half of the eighteenth century. He made the last Spanish voyage into the South Pacific in 1780 and 1781 with the frigate La Princesa. They sailed from Manila and Canton through Melanesia and discovered the Vavau group of the Tonga Islands, and also visited the Haapai group of those same islands... Mourelle's second voyage with the Sonora in 1775 explored the coasts of Alta California, the Northwest, and Alaska as far as 62° N. latitude. The great port of San Francisco was first surveyed on this expedition. In 1793 Mourelle returned to Spain and was heavily involved in the naval wars, first with France and then with Great Britain," Daines, Barrington's Miscellanies, 1781.
The stamp issued in 1981 commemorating Maurelle's visit in 1781 shows his route through the Solomon Islands on the map drawn by Jacques Nicholas Bellin in 1742.



The location of the Solomon Islands was uncertain for many years because though many explorers sighted the islands, they did not all identify them with the Solomon Islands. In 1781 Phillippe Buache, a French geographer, presented a paper to the Academie des Sciences, showing that the Solomon Islands discovered by the Spaniards should be sought about 12° 30' South latitude, between Santa Cruz and New Guinea, and that those islands discovered by Carteret in 1767, Bougainville in 1768, and by Surville in 1769 were the same. (See the text on the souvenir sheet for further description of the history of the Solomon's, and the purpose of the map. The chart is identified as by Jean Nicholas Buache published in 1891, shows the locations of the islands by Delisle, Danville, Bellin, Pingre, Dudley, Witfliet, and Herrera.



(Available Online: http://sio.midco.net/dansmapstamps/solomons.htm)

Flash Back Before the Crisis

The Kingdom of Hawaii Flag and Kingdom T- shirt being presented to Prime Minister Ulufaalu Bartholomew of the Solomon Islands, Honiara, Guadalcanal April 30, 1998.




Sunday, May 15, 2005

Gizo: Back in Time

The town that has it all, Gizo Town, in the heart of Western Province of the Solomon Islands. It brings you to the cowboys movies where you would expect John Wayne to emerge, yet it is Gizo town, flourishing slowly in the warmth of the Lagoon. The atmosphere is friendly, everybody knows everybody, there is a Police station, a post office, a market, banks, chinese shops, hotels and the only passenger waiting lounge of some sort in Solomons. As the saying says "Small is beautiful."

Gearing Up For Exams

USP Laucala Campus students are now gearing up for theirs exams in two weeks time. The students are looking forward for the holidays and the boring days ahead also as a time for catching up on sleeps and movies. Guys Good Luck on your exams, and all the best for this Semester..

Cheers

Guri

Honiara: Bus stop town


By VOHGNU RARAHA
Honiara

HAVING visited our country recently I have noticed a lot have been said about ‘breakaway’ and less time given to the ABC TV show ‘home and away’.
Which is good isn’t it? From a former Solomon Islander’s viewpoint I don’t know whether it is good or not that people are now putting more effort into the idea of others and us. Iufala and mifala! lo kastom blo mifala hem osem, lo langwis blo iufala hem hao?
This is the shared representation that people do have on each other that established the ongoing psychological schema of the ‘different’ or ‘difference’.
Defeating the very purpose for unity as achieved by the fathers upon independence. Indeed it is truer today than before that the idea of sovereignties is challenged to a new degree.
It is good that people have seen that the few remains of hope for a quick recovery be devastated because it is skin deep and may not be a proper formula for the not to far future developments of this nation.
We have to be violent to achieve what we want. We have to be aggressive in whatever we think is better and for the good of the future of this nation.
There is a relationship problem in this nation. That people have tended to see each other with mistrust and suspicion. That the nation may not go well according to how one might think it should go.
There must be room where people aggressively express themselves in a manner where other people must listen to them. People from different regions in this nation are safer closer to home than anywhere else.
This led to the on going ‘attitude problem’ that is describe by the SWIM director when he mentions that on the very day the ‘clean (Honiara) campaign’ one still see people throwing rubbish.
There is no sense of belonging. Honiara is a bus stop township that people came off to dine, wine, excrete and leave. This defines best why Honiara is such a town that needs municipal emancipation, both in its very sense and that of its structural factor.
Simply, the people of Honiara need to address the problems of the city as a nation and the structures of the township both civil and material need to be reformed.
Municipal emancipation must take place in the minds of the communities that populated the township.
That even though the inside of your house is clean, neat and tidy, the air that surrounds you and your house is environmentally disastrous, because of the fact that all your neighbours choose to make the rubbish dump outside of your homes.
This led to the municipal authority that deals with the rubbish. Why non-(systematic) collection?
The Guadalcanal people should start evaluating its formula to ask for compensation for the rubbish dump, and Honiara resident should start thinking of a new burial site or the alternative to change burial practice.
The culture of violence learnt from several years of social uncertainty may be of importance to the idea of aggression and energy that we may convert into building a more vibrant but harmonious socioeconomic model in the nation capital.
The trigger is that people respond to the sound of breaking glass and not of mutual advice.
The thing is that we are dealing with a generation that saw both the ‘humour’ of the hapi isles and the ‘wrath’ of the hapi people. The people that need to transform the youth of the nation have now socialised into different socio-political, economical and culturally people.
So their responses to good clear-cut advises by organisations and institutions are most of the time short lived. The real situation is that things happen just for the “shake” of things that happen and not for the “sake” of it.
So it’s like when all the do-nots come in, the immediate response is donuts. So don’t worry too much about the attitudes of people in Honiara and the fact that Solomon Islanders respond slackly to good things and jumps when mischief is there.
No need to take care, because virtually there is nothing to care for in this township. Our leaders held on to the same old Chinatown ever since.
We are talking about improving ourselves and so forth but nothing comes in the face of what you leaders call ‘investors’. Leaders still do not understand why a missed goal in the soccer pitch resulted in more stone shots booted at the shop windows in Chinatown.
We still do not want to share a thought that may seem like, “I think these things happen because the place (Chinatown) looks old and dusty and contributes to the face of the ‘dusty bus stop township’ mentality”.
That stoner-players rocketed their “rooney” shots of stones at the shops windows just to make sure that the next time they come around it looks new.
The missing factor that makes people sway to good music needs to be found and blended well with the people. Why can’t we see that the public service is a slack giant organisation with out of date procedures and in-efficient professionalism?
The very people we want to teach must also be identified. The missing factor is definitely not something to do with women’s groups either, because they talk about equal rights but they ask for more rights!
More so, they have grouped themselves thus maybe isolating them from assimilation. What equality are we speaking of in this world today?
Solomon Islands is a sick nation and needs to be diagnosed properly; both mentally and physically. The medication must come alongside other things language and culture and not of anything else.
The best advice sounds like, do not subscribe to the plan of humanism, namely, the shared human nature, respect for law, constitution and the ideals of democracy.
If you do not understand what democracy is all about, what is stated in the constitution and what the law inscribes or still identifying oneself with special rights. Then in essence, the problems faced by the one stop bus stop nation capital of Honiara will have to be prolonged.
In reality people who do not understand that these factors tend to make less damage than those that do understand and carry the capacity to find medicine for the disease of inequality.
Unfair tax regulations, tax exemptions results in losses, misused funds, diverted funds, money politics and majority democracy, logging friendly and many other factors.
We hope a lot more energy is placed on identifying trouble spots and readily prepare some herbal healing at hand

Political independence: Kokonat option!

By VOHNGU RARAHA
Iron Bottom Sound

TRAVELLING from the ‘bus stop township’ past the PM’s volcanic home island we stopped to refill gasoline.
It was midday and the ‘ghahira rua dika’ (stone/rock-two-dreadful) stood out proud on top of the homes of the dead World War II activities both human and non-human.
There is no kwaso this time because news had it that somebody died from it a few days ago. Suddenly the fear came back; we must refocus in our journey.
As a matter of urgency the expedition through this place is haunted, not by the dead but by the living.
In case we are moving into foreign territory without realising, because we did not know when we became a “dependent” nation.
On top of this the other ‘wantok’ heard that there are plans to take parts of our dependency into independency.
Before the recent social unrest and before political independence in 1978 and before foreigners came our ancestors did not ask for political independence.
For the very reason that they know that they were politically independent people by birth.
On our own we are independent since times immemorial. Inter-dependent countries of the world that are Independent countries were demarcated out with imaginary lines.
Consequently to be truly independent is when your mind tells you that your country is independent.
Another attempt to clarify this, raises questions of are we going to stick to the old jargons of independence “from” or becoming independent “of something”?
As a matter of fact Demo Adaisi’s article tends to state that the idea for ‘secessions’ came after the ‘war’ between Guadalcanal and Malaita, I don’t think so.
The idea to ‘breakaway’ from the rest of the Solomons by the ‘western breakaway movement’ did exist prior to the ‘Solomon war’.
So to put things straight Western Province at some point in time was thinking of not joining the rest of the Solomons.
I don’t have any problems with that, because at that time it was crucial and critical for the leaders to make some stand on whatever reasons they have.
Whether or not to support Solomon Islands independence is a tune that most leaders at that time may not sing along with.
For the very reason that we will confront today, that is independence from whom? If on the outset we are thinking of gaining our independence from another (Solomon Islands) then I think the boat we are in is not on the Iron Bottom Sound with Savo close by.
Rather it is somewhere in the middle of the bush with only the meaning of the great “ghahira rua dika” close by. That is the dreadfulness of navigating at a wrong direction.
Maybe the sovereignty mentality was there or maybe it was merely an abstract suspect, the entity such as “Solomon Islands” did not tingle.
When we gained our hope for building a country together in 1978. Of course be independent, Malaitans are independent people, so as the people from Western Province and any other compartments in the country that we have divided ourselves into.
Save for later because now so much have been said to be ‘independently cured’ after “independence politically”.
People are still talking about independence. But let me kindly ask aren’t you independent yet or are we slow to decolonise?
Human rights and the fallacy of ‘freedom’! Just to add on that to be independent.
When people ask for independence politically they (may) wish to assert their own religious and cultural identities; religion is out of the formula in the Solomon’s our case, because Christianity is ‘the’ religion.
Our cultures posed a little bit of problem, because we have too many cultures. It was not supposed to be a problematic had we respected each other as our religion had taught us to. But we sidetracked.
We forgot the essential elements that our religion had taught us. Therefore the late leader Solomon Mamaloni reminds us in the phrase he coined, ‘a nation conceived but never been born’, and the curse ‘a nation amongst nation’; to describe this country he stated the agonising thought of the people independent villages, tribes, clans, family and at last individualism.
So what we should do is to respect the culture and tradition of each other. If anything that the National Government of Solomon Islands (and provincial governments cannot do) did not do then it is that it did not legislate in this important area.
There is nothing done to legislate custom and traditions or even its operations across borders or cultural mental maps.
Now why did Dr John Roughan points to the politically elected government when he said, “in fact, many of the troubles that plagued the country – lack of law and order, crumbling economy, weakening of social bonds, serious disrespect for institutions – was laid at the feet of political leadership at all levels”.
It is because of the fact that they were given the voter mandate politically through the electoral process to legislate and govern. With this mandate politicians faced the challenged to handle the issue of cultural differences.
They did not even want to move on from there. What they did obviously was resort to the old defense of “neutralism”.
Now this is it! It is the system, it is the imposed system, and it is this alien system. What is wrong with it? Definitely Solomon Islanders cannot run this bloody system.
In a nutshell, it is alien and therefore introduced. But what happens to education, what happened to the educated elite. This is the problem! We cannot move on because we have not reached a common understanding on the values in which we should uphold.
Why is that so? Well it is because getting to a compromise is not what is ‘native’, most especially with what is alien. I guess the system must blend to suite the purpose of governing its citizens.
This era is a critical era, in which the people of the Solomon Islands must be well versed with the ‘map’ that draws our political future.
The struggle for independence that some of us support (at this time) and I believe we all should support is for our brothers and sisters in West Papua, Kanaky and depending on your own judgment more autonomy for Bougainville.
But for the further disintegration of this country I think our leaders should be more truthful to us.
Truthful in a sense that the Government of the day should clearly state whether or not it will tolerate ideas of provinces breaking up into different countries.
Maybe not ‘disintegrating’ but dis-engaging culturally and politically. For the former reason what could the Government say, they have done little to appreciate the difference.
But for the latter one it is a highly contested part. Give time and express your willingness to be independent countries because it is not a difficult task to state that gaining your independence from something or someone is from the start a psychological and mental slavery issue, that is bent on keeping up on the wrong navigational materials.
It would be a different story if it were to be seen as an affirmation of political destiny.
I would like to see people liberated from oppression for that is a moral and ethical cause.
For the journey it has just begun and the initial SOS signals are lit.
Can we shoot-up the naval emergency rockets in the jungle?

Welkam

Welkam wantoks,

this is a first of a series of posts on the blog..

I'll keep you up to date as we go..

Adios

Guri