“ According to both scholars and practitioners in the field, one of the serious pitfalls of the highly problematic post-WWII Western-led, UN-driven capitalist doctrine of economic development is its total failure to take culture seriously. The overemphasis on the material conditions of life has resulted in its enforced, unnatural isolation from the psychological and social domains of life (The same applies to the parallel truly problematic post-Cold War Western-led, UN-driven and World Bank-based democratic doctrine of political governance).
The talk of making culture a certain priority is indeed a welcome fact. However, what remains to be clearly seen is for the whole of the Pacific, and Tonga is no exception, to borrow a popular phrase, "to walk the talk" by taking culture (and language) seriously.
But, there is a dire need to take note of the fact that both culture and language are as good merely as vehicles for the composition and communication of knowledge. What matters is itself the knowledge composed in culture and communicated in language as vehicles, as in the most beautiful yet complex closely associated words punake, pulotu and heliaki and many others, deeply embedded in Tongan culture and language.
It therefore goes to show that knowledge, culture and language are naturally connected but not separate entities. We my be able to speak the language, e,g,. the words punake, pulotu and heliaki composed in culture but it is really the knowledge deeply entrenched in both that truly matters. ”