The Clash of Cultures ^Featured

Fai ‘e Palōfesa Hūfanga Dr ‘Ōkusitino Māhina
Professor of Art, Culture + Critical Anthropology
Moana University + Vava‘u Academy for Critical Inquiry + Applied Research

Culture and language, like economics and politics, are inseparable in reality, as in nature, mind and society. Knowledge and skills, which are critically acquired through the intellectual and practical process of education, involving the production of knowledge and its application for the needs of people and demands of society, are historically composed or constituted in culture as a receptacle and dialectically communicated or transmitted through language as a vehicle, both as tempospatial entities taking place in time and space. Like knowledge and skills, time and space are, in reality, as in nature, mind and society, indivisible entities.

As ontological entities, time and space are epistemologically arranged in different ways across cultures (and languages). Herein, cultures constantly enter into eternal relations of exchange, giving rise to order or conflict, where they are of equal logical status, in that order is itself a form of conflict, when equal and opposite energies or tendencies intersect at a common point. These eternal relations of exchange are a form of intersection, defined by connection and separation, where the former is a mirror image of the latter and vice versa. In this respect, all cultures share a lot in common as they do differ in many ways.

The clash of cultures reflects most clearly on the conceptual and practical organisation of time and space – which are culturally ordered and historically altered in the social process – where they are highly arranged in plural, cultural, collective, holistic and circular ways in Tonga (and the Moana Pacific) – as opposed to their arrangement in predominantly singular, technoteleological, individual, atomistic and linear modes in the West. This is evidently shown by the Western doctrines of economic development and political governance, in stark contrast to the Tongan concepts and practices tauhivā (keeping sociospatial relations) and fatongia (socioeconomic functions).

A post-WWII, Western-led and UN-driven and post-Cold War, Western-derived and World Bank-based ideologies, economic development and political governance are economic and political instruments for the promotion of capitalism and democracy respectively. These Western capitalist and democratic ideologies are outside-in, externally-imposed towards self, where the so-called simple, traditional (non-Western) societies are made to give up their backward, less-developed ways of life by embracing the supposedly rational, highly advanced and civilised Western ways of doing things, marked by complexity and modernity – as in good governance or good leadership, informed by transparency, accountability, equality and justice.

On the other hand, Tongan concepts and practices tauhivā and fatongia are inside-out, internally-mediated away from self, where relations between social groupings and people (that is, sociospatial relations) are constantly negotiated in the social process through the ongoing performance of fatongia (that is, socioeconomic functions), with a view to establishing and sustaining vālelei (good sociospatial relations) in opposition to causing and generating vākovi (bad sociospatial relations). Whereas the former is a cause for melino (peace), fiefia (happiness), fekoekoe’i (unity), tu‘umālie (prosperity) and tau‘atāina (freedom), the latter is a source for fepaki (conflict), mamahi (disaffection), feke‘ike‘i (disunity), tu‘utāmaki (poverty) and pōpula (oppression).

As a matter of fact, the concepts and practices tauhivā and fatongia were the socioeconomic mainstay of the ancient Tu‘i Tonga, who embraced politics by means of the centralisation of power, when economics was left open for the engagement of the wider society throughout his entire imperial dominion. As forms of social activity or modes of production, the fatongia were organised along the ha‘a (professional classes), namely, ha‘a faiva (performance artists), ha‘a tufunga (material artists) and ha‘a nimamea‘a (fine artists), which were also the three main divisions of Tongan arts, such as faiva ta‘anga (poets), faiva faifolau (voyagers), tufunga langafale (house-builders), tufunga fo‘uvaka (boat-builders), nimamea‘a lālanga (mat-weavers) and nimamea‘a koka‘anga (bark-cloth-makers). Education was conducted along the same divisions of functions and arts.

 However, the rise of the Samoan-led Tu‘i Kanokupolu began what can be called the process of “democratisation” or “decentralisation” of the (part-Samoan) Tu‘i Tonga system, which was slowly but surely inverted, including a shift from ha‘a professional classes to ha‘a political classes, both hereditarily. The ha‘a, based formerly on “work” and (socioeconomic) “functions,” were now grounded on “persons” and (sociopolitical) “titles,” such as Ha‘a Ngata and Ha‘a Havea, respectively branched off into Ha‘a Ngata Motu‘a and Ha‘a Ngata Tupu and Ha‘a Have Lahi and Ha‘a Havea Si‘i. However, this so-called “democratisation” or “decentralisation” process peaked in the revolution by George Tāufa‘āhau Tupou I, who unified the whole of Tonga under his political rule, which was marked by the introduction of the 1839 and 1862 Codes of Laws and the 1875 Constitution, largely infused with both Western and Christian values.

According to a number of Tongan scholars, notably cultural anthropologist, poet and orator Professor Maui-Tāvā-He-Ako Dr Tēvita ‘Ō Ka‘ili, tauhivā is a performance artform, referred to as faiva tauhivā (cf. tufunga fonua and faiva tauhifonua as respective material performance artists of social engineering and keeping people and the land), which involves the symmetrical mediation (tāfakatatau) of conflicts, with the use of fatongia as an (artistic) instrument, transforming them from felekeu (chaos) to maau (order) through sustained potupotutatau (harmony) to create mālie/faka‘ofo‘ofa (beauty). In social terms, this state of beauty is expressed by means of melino, fiefia, fekoekoe’i, tu‘umālie and tau‘atāina. But, when there is failure, it merely gives rise to fepaki, mamahi, feke‘ike‘i, tu‘utāmaki and pōpula, all of which are manifestations of ta‘etatau (asymmetry) and potupotukehekehe (disharmony).

In both theory and practice, the concept of tauhivā as both a social practice and a form of performance art is, by nature, a two-way plural movement of things. It is constituted of such concepts and practices as fe‘ofa‘aki (mutual love), fetauhi‘aki (mutual care), fetokoni‘aki (mutual help), fefaka‘apa‘apa‘aki (mutual respect), fe‘uhi‘aki (mutual contact), fetoka‘i‘aki (mutual humility), fe‘ave’aki (mutual exchange) and fevahevahe‘aki (mutual share) amidst many others. The conflicts within and across these relations of exchange pertaining to tauhivā are permanently reconciled in the social process by means of mutually but collectively performing the respective fatongia of groups and people, with socially beneficial outcomes of extreme economic and political significance.

Like the plural arrangements of time and space, freedom is organised differently in different cultures. What is democracy to the West is tau‘atāina (freedom) to Tonga (and the Moana Pacific). That is, the Western term for tau‘atāina is democracy and, similarly, the Tongan word for democracy is tau‘atāina. The term tau‘atāina means an open (human) space provided as a front for competing human interests to fight it out in the social struggle, situated outside away from self, (that is, non-self-centred) – as opposed to democracy as the rule of the people, by the people and for the people, centred on and towards self, (that is, self-centred). In this context, the two opposing senses of freedom, that is, tau‘atāina and democracy, are based on space (that is, vā or sociospatial relations) and sino (self) respectively.

Given the varying senses of freedom (or, for that matter, democracy), there is requirement for a consistent shift in the axis of its arrangements from a condition of imposition to a state of mediation, where conflicts at their interface are continually mediated (rather than the one imposed on the other) through balanced but unified intercultural exchanges, in mutually investigative, transformative and communicative ways. This rings true of what my favourite philosopher John Anderson says of Heraclitus, who taught that “a thing's permanence, its stability, as well as its growth and development, had their source in the counter-poising of opposite tendencies, not in the subordination of every force within it to a single objective.”

ANFF leva ē malanga kae tau,
‘Ofa mohu moe manatu hulu,
Ka tau toki hoko atu.