Repeat pattern

Dear Editor

Re:‘The govt. is broke’

The Torrens System of individual title was introduced to survey land then cast out 99% of family without any consultation to simplify land ownership for taxation.

This is a historical pattern being repeated because it has so efficiently destroyed cultures and taken customary land many times. I laugh at the silence of historians like Damon Salesa, so clever yet so silent and impotent in the face of colonization.

No Aiga was consulted as required by our Constitution.

We see two sides to the Palagi Law. Virtues and rights are trumpeted, while behind the scenes the crushing of the Fa’aSamoa. The use of 30 pieces of silver is widespread to shut the mouths of village councils and faifeau as the young are encouraged to leave the land for better opportunities.

The land is left to be leased by the government and converted in the next phase to freehold with absolute ownership held by the government.

Where are the Palagi of Australia, NZ and Australia, who cry out against the breach of indigenous rights, yet remain silent while all Samoans are being bullied, lied to and cheated of our customary land.

It is by might that we will hold these customary lands because every Palagi legal process can be corrupted. Look at our professional classes, accountants, lawyers, Judges falling in line on their knees humbled and praying to the god called Tupe.

Ask an American what he would do if a foreign power came to steal his land, already taken by him from our Native American brothers, and he will show you an array of guns and a ferocity to shame the majority of Samoans, who live on their knees and hold their wrists out to the Palagi to shackle them with chains.

The other night I slipped into Moe Manatu:

Deep in the Night

Between Life and Death

An Aitu showed me

the descent of my people into slavery.

I glance beyond him to the tens and hundreds

of years to a Unity

never seen before.

Fondling his shears

gibbering and chuckling at

snipping the bloodlines of mighty

unborn.

Gloating of Aiga chained to machines

at night crawling to kennels

twitching abandoned in sleep

by Ancestors and unborn

animals bred for work

at the ankles of foreigners

I know relatives fearing the dying of light

trading the unborn for material goods and pleasures

I hear faifeau afraid of poverty

mumbling poems of endless Paradise

if we will but accept our chains and pay god’s taxes

Step aside you merchants and mumblers

We tattooed have not flinched from the chisel

We step up in times of War

I see your titles o so high and your gold

Yet where it counts in loyalty and love

You are retarded and huddle behind the Aitu

I know an old toa of Lepa

ended up in Ponsonby on a narrow bed

lying ill a coward crept up to choke him

a mighty uppercut floored the cheeky relative

years later the coward returned 

to leave bruises on his precious face

Aue!

Never beaten this toa

his spirit never broken.

For by our will in Life and Death

We are Samoa.

 

Maua Faleauto

Samoa Observer

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