All Blacks to Samoa the least we can do
Dialogue New Zealand needs to prove its mutual respect and make a Pacific test happen, writes
Hold fast to your cultural treasures, “Taofi mau i au measina” was this year’s Samoan Language Week theme and it’s good advice. Because the measina or treasure we need to hold fast to is about a sport embedded in the DNA of families who live in places called Apia, Thames, Nuku’alofa, Bluff, Suva, and Greytown. The treasure we need to hold fast to is people and mutual respect for one another.
Outside of Samoa, more Samoans live here than anywhere else so in a way, New Zealand is Samoa’s second home. Some refer to Samoa as a friend but the island nation and its sons and daughters are more like family, or fanau.
But our relationship has had its share of darkness. This year marks 100 years since New Zealand seized Samoa from Germany. Ninety-six years since our Government allowed an influenzainfected ship to dock in Apia: 8500 died and Samoa lost 22 per cent of her people. Eighty-five years since “Black Saturday”, when New Zealand officers opened machine gun fire on unarmed Samoan civilians marching for independence; nine were killed including Paramount Chief Tupua Tamasese Lealofioaana III. From these painful beginnings, our modern relationship with Samoa was born.
Thankfully, and more recently, in 2002 Prime Minister Helen Clark apologised for the early, appalling years of New Zealand rule.
For Samoan Language Week, I attended an unforgettable church service at PIPC Porirua. Unforgettable because, as well as entertaining sermons and beautiful singing, we also heard our national anthem sung in Samoan for the very first time. Next morning, out at St Patrick’s College Silverstream, students re-enacted a photo of the college’s first Samoan boarders. One of those boys from 1955 is a nephew of the chief gunned down on Black Saturday, and now he’s Samoa’s Head of State, His Highness Tui Atua Tupua Tamasese. Pacific Island Affairs Minister Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga was also at church that Sunday. Born in Samoa and raised in Mangere, he’s a Cambridge graduate and former hooker for the NZ Barbarians Club. Peseta was humbled at how Samoan people are influenced and inspired by identity while ever keen to share it with the rest of New Zealand.
However we can’t be proud the All Blacks have never played a game in Samoa or Tonga. Pacific New Zealanders’ contribution to New Zealand and global rugby is extraordinary. Their potent legacy can be found in clubrooms and on playing fields across our country, in the scores of coaches, administrators and players. Respect for each other and for this legacy demands change.
As part of Helen Clark’s apology she said we are bound by geography, history, culture, family and mutual respect. But mutual respect is at the heart of today’s problem: Samoa has no seat at the decision-making table and no vote on the IRB Council, while Sanzar nations and