Today’s post will cover the current events of Fiji and New Caledonia
New Caledonia
New Caledonia, a country located in the Melanesia region is small, owned by France, but is also very active. As of recently there has been a lot of news that is surrounding the country. This news is not focused on the tourism of New Caledonia but tends to focus more on its politics. Headlines like “New Caledonia: Does the French public actually want to ‘set it free’?” and “New Caledonia: boycotts and blockade” quickly caught my eye.
An article from 08/31/2018 by the Asian Pacific Report states that New Cambodia might be leaving the French. This is no rumor either as a vote for impendence has been set for November 4th. The article states that “while the parties have prioritized holding this vote in a peaceful setting, the process, as assessed by one commentator in Le Monde, is not without pain.”. Now, despite the anxiety that is taking place in New Caledonia the article stresses that this anxiety isn’t mirrored in France. France has other issues that it is currently focused on like the “activities of Trump, climate change, the migration story, etc…” so “as long as it is quiet “down there”, there is not much concern.” The author of the article even started to question Frances concern so took to the streets only to affirm everything they had been seeing.
When taking this concern to the streets the reporter discovered that yes France does not have much concern or question in regard to this vote. When it comes to voters, that are not participating in the territory’s referendum, knowledge of New Caledonia “was rather weak, although there was plenty of soft support for keeping it French.” Showing that people also don’t really have an idea on what is going on or on what the island does for France. So, would they be better off breaking away from this super power? Will more attention be brought to this event? I guess we will know November 4th.
Fiji
Fiji, another country located in the Melanesia region is known for being a tourist location, but the island itself has many concerns in regard to climate change. An article presented by the Independent covers just this concern. “Fij’s existence threatened by ‘frightening new era’ of deadly climate change” hangs heavily above the article and is quickly followed by “thousands remain in evacuation centres following the latest cyclone to batter the tropical islands”. This article was released April 3rd of this year after the islands avoided a direct hit by Cyclone Josie. Which only made this “fight for survival” all to real and present. In 2016 this anxiety really came to surface when Cyclone Winston “left 44 people dead and 40,000 homes significantly damaged or destroyed after making landfall in Fiji.”
In the article Mr. Bainimarama (the countries prime minister) said “climate change was causing extreme weather events to become more severe and occur more often.” “As a nation we are starting to build our resilience in response of the frightening new era that is upon us. It is a fight for our very survival.”
This is where I want to come in with my opinion. For starters the Independent did a great job showing and presenting the anxiety that’s laying over Fiji. It highlighted and stressed key points that those living on the island are seeing/stressing every day. Now, it’s up to us to listen to these anxieties. This issue is very hard for us to relate to due to the fact that it’s not something that we have to worry about, but islands like Fiji that constant change in climate is threatening to the islands very survival.
Globalization and Technologies in Oceania 