New Caledonia

At my high school there was a choice between learning French and learning German. I spent a long time trying to make up my mind. In some way I’d spent all of primary school dreaming of learning French, then one day, I suppose, waltzing around fields of lavender, munching on baguettes and brie. Then, I chose German. (Anyone who knows me will realise this kind of last minute “let’s jump in the other boat!” reaction is not entirely unusual for me.) A lot of my classmates thought I was crazy. The reason? Well, I suppose some of them just wanted to speak French, but it was more that every second year the school organised a study trip to New Caledonia. As in: let’s go to the beach! Oh, and we’ll speak French. There are no German-speaking Pacific islands for Australian schoolchildren to go visit. (I fully enjoyed my experience learning German. Though I do want to go to New Caledonia.)

Which brings me to New Caledonia—yes, it’s a collectivity of France, not it’s own country. But it does get its own day—on 24 September this collectivity celebrates New Caledonia day. Oh, and while there is one main island, as there usually is in these countries and territories of the South Pacific, New Caledonia consists of several islands. With a place on the UN’s Committee on Decolonisation (I have to admit I didn’t realise this committee existed) list of Non-Self-Governing Territories, New Caledonia is due to hold a referendum on statehood sometime after 2014.

Settlers—the Austronesian Lapita people—arrived around three and a half thousand years ago, joined over two thousand years later by Polynesians. The French were a distant dream until Captain Cook came along, sighting the main island (Grande Terre, a feat of imaginative naming) in 1774. He’s the one that gave the territory the name New Caledonia—Caledonia comes from a Latin name for the area that is now Scotland. For some reason James Cook thought the island looked Scottish—well, like the northern islands of Scotland. Don’t ask me.

The French took over in 1853, when the French decided to give Britain a run for its money, trying to rival British holdings Australia and New Zealand. Not to be outdone by the likes of Magwitch (ooh! a Dickensian reference!) France decided that the south Pacific would also do nicely for its convicts, and over nearly sixty years sent 22,000 convicted felons to penal colonies in New Caledonia. So, not only did Europeans give the locals smallpox, measles, dysentery, syphilis, leprosy and the flu, they also brought in criminals. That’s very caring. What’s more, for a long time the indigenous Kanak people were subject to the Code de l’Indigénat, which I’m told is like apartheid, but, you know, in French.

An independence movement started in New Caledonia in 1985—the national liberation group (Front de Libération Nationale Kanak Socialiste) started agitating for an independent state of “Kanaky.” In 1988 the territory saw a hostage taking in Ouvéa, followed by the Matignon and Nouméa Accords of 1988 and 1998 respectively. While the referendum on independence is still some years away, in the mean time the authority of New Caledonia in its own governance has slowly increased.

I found today’s poem, by Nicolas Kurtovich, online here. There are some more of his poems available on the same page.

Poem for the Fourth of May

In the middle of the night men came
To bring the news that two men were dead
Before dawn we will have left the house

Mourned and met friends
Through the forest and very ancient pathways
There are so many things to say names to not forget

And then the sun that had vanished for a moment will return
Different shining more strongly as if enlarged
By the life of those who have fallen

—Nicolas Kurtovitch
translated from the French by Yzabelle Martineau