Envoy urges ‘mutual respect’ for cultures

Press, 18 November 1981, Page 28

Envoy urges ‘mutual respect’ for cultures

PA Wellington People fired by a missionary zeal to iron out the cultural differences between Pacific Islanders and New Zealanders should beware, because many were “quite content” to live with the differences, the Western Samoan High Commissioner, Mr Feesago Fepuleai, has said. New Zealanders should avoid being culturally selfcentred, he told a seminar on the subject of “Pacific Island children in trouble.” “Like many island States—my own included—New Zealand has a high opinion of itself—God’s own country, indeed.” Mr Fepuleai said that the majority of Pacific Islanders in New Zealand led peaceful, law-abiding lives, making good citizens. “The main goal of social training in Polynesia is to integrate people into the social system—the village,” he said. “The rugged individuality so prized in the West is something we tend to frown on. “With the urban decay, crime, and loneliness, so apparent in the industrially developed societies, one wonders whether we could not teach our host people a thing or two.” The Polynesian system of communal child-rearing was

sometimes interpreted as neglect in New Zealand. It was no such thing, but was part of their way of life “almost since we as a people existed.” The Western Samoan Government would offer every assistance for those dealing with young Islanders to visit their cultural homes so that

they could better understand Polynesian life-styles. “No great painting has ever emerged in just one colour, and no lively and vital society will ever emerge if people strive for similarity in life styles," he said. “What we have to encourage is mutual respect for the differences.”