In Melanesia, Hamish McDonald travels through the islands of Oceania, interviewing locals, elders and academics, and engaging in historical analysis to paint a vivid portrait of Australia’s neighbours. Travelling through Fiji, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea, the book explores cultural practices, politics and oral histories of the diverse Melanesian people, tying the fragmented present of Melanesia with the region’s complex history.
McDonald explains that over the last century, these islands have been subjected to power struggles in the form of colonisation, invasion and neo-colonialism, prominently at the hands of European powers, Japan and China. Australia is not exempt from this unsavoury history, though – McDonald implicates Australia in many issues facing Melanesia. Much of Melanesia was colonised by James Cook, whose first contact spread diseases that decimated Indigenous populations of Melanesia, inflicting similar harm to that caused to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. After colonisation of Melanesian states, Australia historically and continually has exploited the labour of Melanesian people, including in the infamous ‘blackbirding’ practice.
Despite this ongoing abuse and exploitation, McDonald repeatedly highlights that Melanesian people are not helpless. Resistance to colonialism and fights for independence have empowered Melanesians. Traditional beliefs and customs known as kastom still flourish, and strength is drawn from ancestors. There is still hope.
McDonald compellingly crafts this account of Melanesia, balancing the personal with the political, the historical with the contemporary, the traditional with the modern. At the forefront is always the unique identities and unique histories of Melanesians, united by a shared cultural pride and common fight for independence. As readers we can lavish in McDonald’s beautiful details and prose, and as Australians, we have much we can learn – about our Oceanic neighbours, about our own role in their colonisation, about their relationship to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. But we can also learn much from their efforts towards independence and decolonisation. Through this book, we can share their hope.
