Jean Guiart and New Caledonia: A drama of misrepresentation

Outcomes of State Territoriality and Mining Development for the Kanak in New Caledonia

“…As Tanya Murray Li argued (2000), notions such as "indigenous" are positionings that emerge from history and from patterns of engagement and struggle rather than being natural or simply invented identifications. Thus references such as "the Kanak" and also the idea of a unitary Kanak state with a solid national framework and a common interest override the diversity of chiefdoms, clans, territories, and languages that make up the actual reality (Bensa and Wittersheim 1998). Thus the indigeneity of the Kanak resonates with the formulations of Alex Golub in his 2014 examination of relations between an abstract aggregate of indigenous PNG people and a local mining corporation.…”

“…Tjibaou's nationalism was fueled by ethnological definitions and his experiences as a student in France and as a Catholic priest; he saw taking over the mines as only one route to economic independence, even though that was the path chosen by independence leaders who followed in his wake (Bensa and Wittersheim 1998). Kanak resource nationalism based on mineral wealth that influenced the development of the Koniambo massif in the 1990s also grew from Tjibaou's clearly articulated thoughts of a Kanak identity with Western attributes and an imagined future.…”

“…Tjibaou started the modern Kanak independence movement and was the first leader of the independence party Front de Libération Nationale Kanak et Socialiste (flnks). He imagined a Kanak modernity that would involve the emergence of a new Kanak who was distinctively Melanesian but simultaneously universal (Bensa and Wittersheim 1998). "A return to tradition is a myth.…”

“…It also forbade Kanak entry to the capital city of Nouméa, situated in the South Province of the main island, and allowed nearly 90 percent of the land to be transferred to colonialists and the administration, to be used for economic or military ends (Bensa and Wittersheim 1998). It was not until 1946 that France granted citizenship to Kanak as part of global decolonization plans and the Code de l'Indigénat was abolished, although, unlike in many African French colonies, this did not lead to independence.…”

“…Our identity is ahead of us," Tjibaou stated in a March 1985 interview in the French journal Les Temps Modernes (quoted in Tjibaou 1996, 155). According to Tjibaou, sovereignty meant interdependence but also the right to choose one's partners (Bensa and Wittersheim 1998). …”