Just so everyone doesn’t start to believe the bullshit thrust on us by the media that solidarity doesn’t work and that the rich can only get richer while the rest of us should be content to be hopelessly complacent we should look at Tonga.
No TONGA! A toga is what the romans used to get about in. Tonga is a small island state in the South Pacific where feudalism still determines people’s roles.
One of the reasons feudalism hung on so long there is that Tonga was the original Imperialist State of Polynesia.
Until whitefellas turned up and ate the women and fucked the pigs Tonga ruled a huge swath of Polynesia the largest nation of which was Samoa. The Tongan population was much less than Samoa’s but for some reason Tongan’s median height has always been several inches taller than other Pacific peoples. Even those of similar Polynesian races. Doubtless there is a sound reason. Either they ruled because they were bigger or they got bigger because they ruled and had more protein in their diet.
Jonah Lomu the All Black rugby wing is a Tongan and anyone who has seen him can attest to his vast size. In the 95 world cup in South Africa, Lomu scored a try or 57 with several Englishmen hanging off each limb. He just dragged himself, the ball, and assorted Poms across the tryline. He was about 18 at the time.
When Tonga got it’s independence from Britain in 1970 it’s feudal system was pretty much intact. The Royalty owned everything but that wasn’t any great cause for concern since there was next to no cash needed in the society and the people still lived traditional village life. They were generally proud that the Princes and Princesses were jet setters showing the rest of the world they could keep up. Xtianity had been transplanted onto a very conservative morality and since Tongans generally didn’t have much use for material goods they lived as they had done for generations.
The people have always set great stead by education and by the mid to late 1960’s families were moving to NZ to enable their kids to get an education. In this they were pretty much copying their royalty who would send the major nobility to English public schools and the less important to New Zealand schools. Of course once Tongans became exposed to a cash economy they became as hooked as everyone else does. I used to pay my way through Uni in the early ’70’s by working in a seafood factory in the vacation. Most of my co-workers were Tongan policemen who would come to NZ for 3 months and then go back to work as policemen in Tonga for 9. The Tongan job didn’t pay much in the way of cash. It was a responsibility and a way for non-nobility to attain status in the community.
Of course many Tongans settled in NZ and Australia over the next 30 years and there are now more Tongans living outside Tonga than in there. Although there was the usual friction that occurs between migrants and the less advantaged in a society Tongans have become highly respected members of the New Zealand community. This is chiefly because of their dedication to family and honest values.
Of course the consumerist society trickled back into Tonga as people acquired radios, TV’s and that saviour from a diet of tinned beef; refrigeration. They needed money to pay for energy. Both electrical and petrol as well as things like new boats for fishing (the main source of protein). As the people became more wordly, the nobility became more repressive as they sought to protect their status from ‘democracy’. I wonder where we’ve seen that before?
For the most part people went along with the status quo as most families had experience of family members ‘going bad’ in western culture and Tonga was always regarded as being a haven from evil. Even families who have lived away for two generations generally consider their Tongan village to be ‘home’ and go there as often as possible.
However by 2002 censorship had become so bad in Tonga that the newspaper was closed and the editor briefly imprisoned. Although the people in Tonga didn’t know what was going on expatriate Tongans did and they knew that the paper hadn’t been encouraging ‘evil’.
They had found out about the Tongan nobility getting ripped off by US, Chinese and European organised crime. Mainly selling citizenship and passports. Nobody initially cared about this because citizenship had only been granted on condition that the ‘new’ Tongans never lived in Tonga. However there was a bad rip over stamps where no Tongan made any money and great shame was bought upon the nation when Tonga became the laughing stock of the philately world.
Then the Princess Regent sold Tonga’s geo-stationary satellite slots for a huge amount of money none of which made it’s way to the people. Tongans got upset when there was no TV for them.
These were the stories that the Tongan media was prevented from telling the people about. They took to printing the paper in NZ and shipping it to Tonga but customs would sieze the newspapers illegally and by the time the case went through the courts and the papers were returned they were too old to be topical. The combination of gossip and stories making their way back from New Zealand meant that everyone heard about it all anyway.
Infighting also hit the ruling class and when the Tongan government was remonstrated with by the international media for censorship, the nobility made the huge error of using a mainchancer Tongan who had worked in NZ as a lawyer for many years, as their scapegoat. He wasn’t from nobility and obviously they had great reluctance to sacrifice one of their own so this bloke was rebuked and dismissed. Big mistake since he turned immediately from gamekeeper to poacher.
This year the shit has hit the fan in Tonga. Mainly because the rise in oil prices has meant that wages which haven’t risen since the late 80’s, no longer covered the cost of energy in a household. The public sector is the largest employer eg police, nurses teachers etc. Those jobs have become too full time in the 21st Century to allow the employee time off to fish or go overseas and earn cash.
The senior mmbers of the public service were also hurting and the royal family has become so out of touch they pulled a ‘let them eat cake’ number. That is all the senior public servants (ie nobility and such) were awarded 1000% pay rises and the rest of the workers told that if they were good maybe they would get a raise one day too.
The whole public service went on strike. At first the rulers ignored it and went about their business but the people have stood firm. More strikers have come out and although no one has been hurt a number of buildings belonging to royalty have been destroyed. A couple of weeks ago things had become so stirred up the story was making the NZ media. The old King had fled to NZ but he became a target for protest there.
The NZ government has not been the friend to Tonga it should have been during this. The biggest problem appears to be some minor functionary in the BushCo adminstration who got upset when some allegedly ‘dodgy’ followers of Islam got some of the passports one of the Princes flogged off a few years ago. Even if the NZ government were supportive of change which they may not be if only because they prefer the devil they know, the US administration keeps harping on about the need for stability to make sure the ‘War on Terra’ stays on track.
In the end the NZ government who are meant to be leftys sent a mob of old labour relations hacks over to sort out the strike. They copped short shrift.
At this time the aforementioned ‘scapegoat’ pulled a stunt which may end with him shooting himself in the foot and everyone else getting what they want. All of the official strikers refused to meet anyone until they got their pay rise and were back at work. The same demand they always have had. The ‘scapegoat’ met the kiwi hacks and in some sort of lame power play said, “It’s not about the money. We want democracy”. I guess he saw himself as the first elected leader.
Too long in NZ! THe nobility would much rather have less money and keep their status and the ordinary Tongan workers just want enough to live on without all of this drama and having to watch their favorite Princess cry and plead. Her pleas weren’t given into but it was very uncomfortable for the strikers who are probably as conservative in their own way as the nobility.
As soon as the story of the strikers wanting ‘revolution’ leaked out, the Privy Council which is made up of the Senior Royals and a couple of big time public servants, agreed to give the strikers their 60 to 80% pay rise if the strikers went back to work. The strikers seem to have agreed
They may have seen enough ‘democracy’ in action in NZ and Australia to know that while it’s a fine idea, the thing about democracy is you get politicians. These are generally not so fine.
In the long run they’ll probably have to change their system but you can’t blame them for trying to let the rulers rule as long as they do what the people want.
Of course they’ll find out they can’t have a month long strike over every issue, but maybe they’ll decide that not getting everything is worth it if you get what you need.
Anyway the workers of Tonga have demonstrated that if people stick together in solidarity and don’t let main chancers pevert the struggle, the people can still prevail. Even in the 21st century.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Sep 1 2005 11:27 utc | 2