Saint-Martin and Sint Maarten

Once more—for the final time—we are in a holding pattern on 11 November.


11 November is Saint Martin’s day: it’s the feast day of Martin of Tours, and is the day that the French territory of Saint-Martin and the Dutch Sint Maarten—that share the island of Saint Martin in the Caribbean—jointly share. Happy Saint Martin’s Day!

So the island is, as mentioned, divided between the French and the Dutch. The Dutch side has a larger population (50,000) than the French (35,000). Population density is pretty intense—especially when you add in the fact that about 1 million people visit the island a year.

So, Columbus actually claimed the island first. And yes, it was Columbus that named it Isla de San Martin. In 1624 the French started to cultivate tobacco in the French Quarter, while a few years later, in 1631, the Dutch started to collect salt. In the years from 1633 to 1647 the Spanish began to build a military fort, but then destroyed it and left the island. The French and Dutch zones were first settled on in 1648.

Then there was a bit of a period of jumping around—the French occupy it all. The Dutch occupy it all. Occasionally the British take a turn. And then from 1816, the French and Dutch zones resumed.

The Dutch officially adopted the spelling “Sint Maarten” in 1936, and more recently Sint Maarten signed an agreement with the Netherlands on status aparte. On the French side of the equation, in 2007 Saint-Martin became a separate overseas collectivity.

Oh—and the division of the island? Apparently there are stories about it, including a popular story that involves a race deciding the matter. As in, each community chose a representative, and they had to walk across the island from different points. (They weren’t allowed to run.) Where they met, a line was drawn across the island, connecting their starting point with their meeting point. Okay, that sounds crazy. But I love it. Apparently the French side is larger because the French guy moved faster than the Dutch. There’s also a claim that the French guy drank wine before and the Dutch guy drank beer… and the “restorative qualities” of the wine let the Frenchman walk faster. Yeah. I don’t think so either.

I found today’s poem online here. It’s by Lasana M Sekou. Enjoy!

worker island

i did not see lantau island
the buddha brilliant regime in sun
lighting the way where tourists stray
to shake sticks at their future
for a fated read of each of the same other difference
but cynthia say,
            there is a fishing village beyond the fray
            where  older heads pear out bamboo windows
                        children ride bicycles too
the sea and the scene is this
what we all see to be seen
as pierced longing and longing
eternally at each other’s side
  
and we are always with people …

—Lasana M. Sekou

US Virgin Islands

Having read a little about the US Virgin Islands today, I have to admit that my affections were engaged almost immediately—I’m shallow—upon learning that the capital is Charlotte Amalie. Pretty name! So the US Virgin Islands are a territory (an organized, unincorporated territory to be exact) of… you guessed it… Which maks George W. Bush their head of state… with a president-elect on the way in a few short days! (Yes, the election has been obsessing me.) And today the US Virgin Islands celebrate Liberty Day. Happy Liberty Day, guys!

Of course, the islands haven’t been a US territory all along. There were the original settlers—Carib and Arawaks. Then, you know, Christopher Columbus bumped into them all. He named them after Saint Ursula and her virgin followers. Which prompts me to find out about Saint Ursula. She’s a British Christian saint. Her feast day was a week and a half ago. And the legend? That she was a Romano-British princess who set sail to join her fiancé, a pagan Governor in Brittany—and she took 11,000 virginal handmaidens. Seriously? How many boatloads is that? Anyway, she decided to set out on a pilgrimage around Europe before her marriage. The first leg seemed to go well—Rome, good stuff. Then, Cologne. Which was besieged by the Huns at the time. Yes, you know it ended in tears. Saint Ursula was shot dead. And the 11,000 virgins? Legendarily every single one of them was beheaded.

So, Columbus. Then a few hundred years of musical chairs—Spain, Britain, the Netherlands, France and Denmark-Norway all held the islands at different times. And then? The Danish decided to sell the islands to the United States, a couple of times. The first two attempts were never effected. Then after the start of World War I, Denmark held a referendum in 1916, and selling won the day. The US took possession on 31 March, 1917, and a decade later the islanders became US citizens. Voila! Oh, and the residents can vote in presidential primaries, but not in actual elections.

A poem? I found “Charcoal” by Patricia M. Fagan online here.


Charcoal




I



black man bent under

tropic sun

burning lignum vitae

for charcoal

to boil morning tea.



black woman's hands 

carry coal

for Rotterdam's steam

a cent a bucket buys

little sugar

her cracked yellow feet

mark the earth

step by step 

under Danish flag.



Millions of years ago

in another tropical forest

trees, flowers, plants

absorbed sun

day after day

then sank into earth's bosom

metamorphosed to coal.



The Dannebrog lowers a past 

“We must progress” captions 

the coal carrier's dreams of

golden roads and electric light.

Blackbeard's pieces of eight

pay for Old Glory.



II



But those were old photographs 

viewed in a wrinkled olive book

The Danish Isles of the West.

Now kodak snaps the Red 

White and Blue cooly

waving over tin shacks 

sweltering in blistering sun

for bargain hunter’s

trade magazine.



While in the dark 

a spector’ scream

of freedom's flight

Queen Mary, the one-legged 

slave jumped to her death

on the jagged rocks of the sea



The stories chant, 

“Look to the water!”

reminding us of her yearly 

apparition and a bloody sea



And we weep to the drums

that beat somewhere else

to marching rats and fighting roaches

while old man tends his coal pot

and Lennox Avenue screams identity.

—Patricia M. Fagan

Niue

I’m guessing Niue is place most of us don’t think about often. A small (population is under 2000) island in free association with New Zealand, closest to Tonga, Samoa and the Cook Islands. Think about it now.

While this year Constitution Day celebrations are happening on 16 and 17 October, I’m writing this to mark the anniversary of the new constitution.

Okay. So people arrived in Niue from Samoa around 900 CE. About six hundred years later more settlers came from Tonga. So far, strictly Polynesian. During this time—until the early 1700s—there wasn’t really a national government. Chiefs and heads of families controlled things. But since there was influence from both Samoa and Tonga established, kingship was introduced into the mix. The first king of Niue was Puni-mata.

Contact with the wider world? Well, this is Oceania, and so James Cook can be credited with the first European sighting of Niue. He tried to land there—three times—but the Niueans refused him. Oh, and Cook called the island “Savage Island,” the name that stuck until relatively recently when the original name Niue became known on the world stage.

Now this is Oceania, so where discoverers… discovered… it is inevitable that sometime soon after missionaries much follow. Yes, the London Missionary Society agrees with me, and some missionaries showed up in Niue in 1846. And, yes, after a few years Christianity had spread. Way to proselytise.

And where did the British empire come in? King Fata-a-iki, who reigned from 1887 to 1896, was worried about the colonising spirit of the times, and offered sovereignty to the British in 1887, judging them more benevolent than many other colonial powers. It took till 1900, but soon the island was a British protectorate—for a year. In 1901 New Zealand annexed the island. And then 1974 saw self-government.

Something you probably didn’t know? Niue is one of the world’s largest coral islands. Also—weird fact—apparently the soil in Niue is really unusual, geochemically speaking. The soil has a “surprisingly high” level of natural radioactivity—no uranium, but some other radionucleides. Now apparently this kind of distribution happens on very deep seabeds and the theory goes that a combination of extreme weathering of the coral and a short-lived submergence in the sea 120,000 years ago caused this. That’s so interesting. Oh, and there’s been no evidence of ill-effects health-wise in the local population.

Today’s poem is actually a segment of a longer work by John Pule, who is considered to be Niue’s most important writer and artist. It comes from Nuanua: Pacific Writing in English Since 1980.


from The Shark that Ate the Sun

Earth. Time’s curfew desires only our attention
the landscape mirrors another reflection of
the other sorrow known on earth as life

the ocean is left behind as we walk to a dream
war is not known on earth but in the isolated
image human beings once ran naked in caves
carved out a history of a new birth
embellishing art to become blood and beauty
when mysteries poked at our brain, leaving holes,
and we dropped whatever we had in our hearts to
look at each other in amazement, and whoever possessed
the desire to live forever will never die, but we die, and suffer,
and the shock has long been forgotten
because the word death is only a gossip

and not when we carelessly describe to our
children how we love on earth, which ceases to
fascinate, and falls about our bodies like confetti

and standing naked to surmise a tranquil field
a city appeared to haunt the waterhole where
animals browse and drink. Years later
the remains of that lone figure are dug up
the position odd, the hands covered the eyes as if to
hide from some horrific vision, maybe a
revelation of what was seen is what we now live in
did the vision kill whatever his name and tribe is
staring out over the tranquil field?

the question glittered as centuries battled
in iron and the rain washed the blood away to
settle in small dark cities, which we tasted and
the smell caused a strange evolution to take
place in our emotions, and the change dressed
us in miraculous nights, the stars challenged
our answers

if they could glimpse into this present day
they would die in the presence of hate and emotion
that sleeps in every country

we contemplate distant illuminations,
yet the difficulty remains in
recognizing the true human
which is a dream the firstborn forgot and hopes
this earth will never feel

goodbye, said the captain. Goodbye, said the islander.
Next time test in your own country
perhaps New York or Paris

—John Pule
from Nuanua: Pacific Writing in English Since 1980

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

Tokelau

I’m guessing you don’t think about Tokelau very often—a territory of New Zealand in the South Pacific that consists of three coral atolls with a population of under 1500 people—and it looks like the population is declining. But you know it doesn’t take many people living in a small place for a few generations to develop a distinctive culture. The name Tokelau means “north wind”—previously the islands were called the Union Islands or Union Group. They became the Tokelau Islands in 1946, which was shortened to Tokelau in 1976. On 3 September this little corner of the world celebrates Tokehaga Day.

The islands were settled about 1000 years ago—most likely people arrived from Samoa, the Cook Islnads and Tuvalu.

I’m always surprised to find out these small islands in the South Pacific were (officially…) discovered earlier than Australia—while Captain Cook came to Botany Bay in 1788 (as pretty much any Australian schoolchild will tell you) Commodore John Byron made it to Atafu in 1765. And, hey, as well as getting discovered earlier, Tokelau didn’t have the waves and waves of massacres in order to be used as a penal colony. Bonus! Also, it seems like the window of being preached at by missionaries was relatively shortlived. On the downside, Peruvian slave traders came in 1863 and took nearly all of the able-bodied men to work as labourers—“nearly all” amounted to 253. Unfortunately they mostly died of dysentery and smallpox, and so hardly any returned home.

New Zealand law doesn’t really apply often—only specific enactments are made. The local enact their own laws, and with such a small population serious crime is rare, and there’re not prisons. Anyone who does act up will be publicly rebuked, fined or made to work—community service lives! These days, too, a lot of Tokelauans live in New Zealand, sending money to their families at home.

And, yes, even with less than 1500 inhabitants, there are still poets, or Pulotus—composers, or makers of songs. Today’s is by Ihaia, and it comes from Allan Thomas and Ineleo Tuia’s “Profile of a Composer: Ihaia Pulla, a Pulotu of the Tokelau Islands.” I found it online here.


Tiga te pouli

Tiga te pouli kautatago tiga te agi o te timu-a-toga
Kako au e fitoi atu ke pa atu kia te koe
Agi mai te laki momoka mai ma ua
Oi aue toku tino kua tatapa I te makalilia

However dark the night, however strong the timu-a-toga wind
I will still try to reach you.
The laki wind is coming, the rain is falling
And my body is shaking with the cold.

—Ihaia Puka