Generation Gap In Western Samoa

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32120, 16 October 1969, Page 17

Generation Gap In Western Samoa

(N.Z. Press Assn. —Copyright) APIA. Grey-haired chiefs in Lava-Lava, the traditional wrap-around skirt worn by island men, and youths in blue jeans personify a growing generation gap in the dreamy isles of Western Samoa, the first Polynesian State to become independent in this century, writes Robert Trumbull, of the New York Times News Service.

Western Samoa became Independent of New Zealand on January 1, 1962.

The Western Samoans call their islands “the heart of Polynesia”—a strategic emerging area known to the West mostly through travel literature and the romantic fiction of such writers as Robert Louis Stevenson and W. Somerset Maugham. American Samoa, consisting of a few smaller islands about 80 miles east of Apia, remains a territory of the United States. Adapted more or less to American ways after 70 years of United States rule, the 26,000 indigenous inhabitants of American Samoa have shown no significant interest in uniting politically with their less-prosperous fellow Polynesians, numbering more than 130,000, in lessdeveloped Western Samoa. The changes overtaking many of the islands of the South Pacific under the impact of technological civilisation and a spreading desire for political advancement are lapping at the coral shores of Western Samoa. “There is a feeling among youth that the old conservative generation holding the ruling power over village life should be replaced by the educated, young, progressive element,” Mr Lauofo Meti, a young Western Samoan, told «n American visitor recently.

However, according to all accounts, the coupling of traditional respect for age and rank with the easygoing way of life in Western Samoa has reduced the pressures for change. “Many Western Samoans are not sure they want to be part of the 20th century anyway. And those who do move slowly from respect or fear of the powerful elders," said a United Nations official

assigned to the area to assist development programmes. Customs figures showing that Western Samoa imported only 839 watches and 581 clocks last year were cited as a measure of the unimportance of time in these hauntingly beautiful islands where most people live in a subsistence economy. “Hard work was never a Polynesian idea,” said Mr Hans Kruse, the energetic young director of the Department of Economic Development. Tours through rural villages always clustered around one or two of the weatherbeaten. cathedral-size Christian churches seen everywhere, reveal a seemingly joyous people living virtually without cost from the rich volcanic soil and the teeming ocean. The building materials for their dwellings—made, without nails, of posts and thatch —come from the lush rain forests.

Exports of bananas, cocoa and copra, the dried coconut meat used in making soap, and revenues from a small but rapidly growing tourist industry, pay for needed consumer goods and basically support the country. Thus, “doing reasonably well by nearly every measuring stick,” as a visiting economist put it, the chiefs who rule Western Samoa are cautious in permitting innovations that might upset the storybook way of life. Plans to expand hotels and the airport, whose grass strip cannot receive jet aircraft, have been stalled year after year, although it is conceded that tourism offers the only prospect for immediate economic progress. So far, the anti-tourist lobby has prevailed in the Legislative Assembly. The members of the assembly are elected by the chiefs, of whom there are about 8500, from their own number, except for two who are elected to represent the Caucasian and mixed-blood community. Election of Chiefs The chiefs, called Matai,; are elected by their kinship groups, or “extended families" and may be depose'd. They are the trustees of communal property, may make assessments for functions such as weddings and other festive occasions, and generally run village life. At the fop of the ruling hierarchy stands the Head of State, Tanumafili Maleitoa 11, one of the four highestranking chiefs. He has been chosen as the ruler for life, but his successors will be elected every five years by the Parliament “Progressive youth has tended to break away from the extended family,” said Dr Fanaafi Larkin, the Londoneducated Director of Education. “The trend is towards the biological unit man, wife and children." Many educated young people are migrating to New Zealand to escape the Samoan social net, said Mr Eugen Paul, a leading businessman and former chief minister under the New Zealand administration. “A sure indication of the tempo of change is the increasing number of contested elections,” a young Samoan official said. “Formely, a single candidate was usually chosen by common consent. The traditional chiefs are not receiving the recognition they once had." Mr Koji Suzuki, the head of a visiting survey team from the Asian Development Bank, found “surprisingly little rebellion in youth,"

Mr Galunao Brunt, the courtly private secretary to the Head of State and a chief himself, attributed this to “the strength of Samoan customs."