Time to try a new Pacific solution

Fewer police and soldiers and more cultural self-awareness, education and sense of history: This, according to Professor David Lowe, inaugural Director of the Alfred Deakin Institute, emerged as the way ahead for successful nation building in the Pacific at a two-day conference in Geelong in February.

The symposium – entitled Building Partnerships in the Changing Pacific - was the first one to be hosted by the new Institute and brought together scholars and practitioners from Australia and nations of the Melanesian region, including Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Fiji.

“We had a number of excellent speakers, including ‘Alopi Latukefu, who works with Duncan Kerr, the Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Island Affairs, and Dr Max Quanchi from the Queensland University of Technology,” said Professor Lowe.

“Richard Marles, one of the local MPs from here in Geelong who wrapped up the conference, also spoke very well about his experiences in Papua New Guinea.

“And Ralph Regenvanu, a recently elected Member of Parliament from Vanuatu, made an impressive contribution.

“So all up it was a very successful forum from which this theme emerged that good governance comes from a robust sense of identity as much as it does from security.

“In the Pacific nations, history is something that is regarded as closely aligned to people’s sense of identity. There should be possible complementarity between oral traditions and the written history of Pacific islands following the arrival of the Europeans, but sadly there is often not enough focus given to Islanders’ own stories when history is taught in the region. This is even the case with the post-independence history of Pacific nations.

“In some Pacific nations, History with a capital ‘H’ can appear a European-imposed thing but that is not necessarily the case. Islanders have their oral and other histories and traditions that extend back before the arrival of the Europeans, and these can help give them a sense of identity and from that an idea of where they are heading.

“So we need to invest in helping a new generation of elites in Pacific countries to foster, at popular levels, encounters with the past and an appreciation of the meanings of such encounters for the present.”

Professor Lowe agrees that Australia’s strong recent focus on Asia in recent times has meant that interest in Pacific issues has fallen away.

“I think the time has come for a new energy in the way Australia engages with the Pacific, as well as this whole new approach,” he said.

“We have to steer clear of being seen as paternalistic, something that can always be a challenge, and re-engage in the most constructive way possible, and this is through a partnership approach with like-minded institutions across the Pacific region. One of the best ways we can do this is through a concentration on cultural research capacity building and education.”

Professor Lowe believes the Alfred Deakin Institute, which is currently being set up at Deakin University’s Waterfront Campus in Geelong, has a key role to play in helping shape research agendas in the Pacific and Australia’s engagement in the region

“We aim to have our own collection of Pacific Island publications and items of historical importance, such as records of interviews with Pacific leaders and we anticipate that these will be able to be accessed electronically,” he said.

“That means people won’t have to physically come from Fiji or Vanuatu to make the most of seeing the collection.”

Even in its incipient stages, the Alfred Deakin Institute – named in honour of Australia’s second Prime Minister – is emerging as a major player in the University’s growing research profile.

“It will be very much a research institute,” Professor Lowe said. “In time we hope to have a wide range of people working here in the areas, and there are many, that bear testament, in a highly contemporary way, to the legacy of Alfred Deakin.

“As well as being a professional politician, he was a journalist, an author, a lawyer and he was also very much a nation builder.

“We already have his papers collected here, and that is a magnificent collection that re-confirms what a formidable legacy he left for Australia, and for Deakin University.

“The Institute has a marvellous mandate to carry on the kind of work he would have delighted in – multi-discipline approaches to big research questions going to the heart of Australia’s future and informing public policy - and that is something I am really looking forward to being involved in.”

Hear an interview between Radio Australia’s Campbell Cooney and Dr Max Quanchi and Professor David Lowe by clicking on this link:
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/pacbeat/stories/200902/s2490907.htm

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