This page features computer generated text of the source audio. It may contain errors or omissions, so always listen back to the original media to confirm content. You can search the text using Ctrl-F, and you can also play the audio by clicking on a desired timestamp.
Our next speaker is I was gonna say an old friend of mine, but you know, as someone I've known for many years, um born in Samoa and having lived in New Zealand for most of his life, Carl has a national profile in the Pacific island community in New Zealand and is recognised as being a pioneer in advocating for and advancing the health and well-being of Pacific peoples in New Zealand. Starting with being one of the first [00:00:30] Pacific registered comprehensive nurses in New Zealand, he has been a strong advocate for the provision of culturally appropriate health services for Pacific peoples. Sitting on a wide range of working parties and commissions, he has provided leadership in the development of such services. He was the first Pacific person to represent Pacific people on the Mental Health Commission. He created and developed the model of health in the 19 eighties, which was accepted as the model of health for Pacific mental health by [00:01:00] the Mental Health Commission. He's played a key role in setting up Pacific Island initiatives at local and national levels, such as being a founding trustee of the Pacific Island AIDS Trust founding Council member for the Pacifica Council and he's one of the first two Pacific Island justices of the peace appointed in Palmerston North in 1990 he is recognised internationally for his work. [00:01:30] He's been a keynote speaker on Pacific Island perspectives on various issues such as mental health, sexuality, HIV and AIDS. Youth and adolescence at national and international conferences, uh, in New Zealand and and across across the Asia Pacific region. And in the 2001 New Year's honours, he was awarded the member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his contribution to public health. Please join me in welcoming Carl. [00:02:00] High it in my everything is carpi, You're here At last You're really here at last high it in my eye Not a cloud in the sky To coin a phrase This is [00:02:30] the day of days You're welcome as the sunshine and you're welcome as a queen Bye. This is one time we really have a fling it in My everything is throughout the land. We're proud of you. That's why [00:03:00] and from the voices of the Pacific specifically to all our businesses from overseas from the fabulous Cook Islands from the Kingdom of Tonga And I know, I acknowledge, is Jolene, the head of the Association of Tonga. To our brothers [00:03:30] and sisters from the fabulous Fiji from the Rock of Polynesia, otherwise known as and finally, of course, from Samo, where I come from, I really like to pay tribute to from the association, but also from American Samoa. A very special welcome to this country. Now I've got to work [00:04:00] this thing out because, you know, I thought I'd be really special and work this one. But this time one boy doesn't really know how to do it. So I'll just be Well, that's, uh that's the greeting. So I thought I'd start. Uh, people by, Do you point it up there? Would you point it up here or down here? This how you point it? Oh. Oh, here you go. [00:04:30] If it was a one, I can tell you it would have gone much better. I just want to talk about the history and just to show you that this is where we come from. Of course, some people would say this is the largest continent in the world. Is, of course, the ocean Pacific. And you can see, of course, This is the whole of the Pacific, right up to the top to Hawaii. I just wanna start by saying about the pre [00:05:00] colonisation. And when I came to put this up, if you notice the photo of the woman on my left is slightly higher than, uh, the the gentleman on the right, because is the fact that some of us, particularly in Samoa but also have a my research showing that in Tonga and other Pacific countries that women played a very dominant role. But in particular in Samoa, Of course, we had some very powerful women [00:05:30] was a, uh, a very powerful warrior that was mistaken for a man and because she was the one that united the four corners of Samoa. But it said that there was a wind that blew up the corset and indeed she had breasts. And so therefore, she was actually a woman. So you can talk about your but we in the Pacific and, uh uh and also some of us in the audience [00:06:00] are direct descendants of that because she was the first ruler of Samoa. It was not a man, it was a woman. And then, of course, we had the Christians and they came. And if you notice now that I sort of lightly elevated the the man and the woman, of course, became and it's, uh you can't see it, but the terms and I thought that was a really unusual terms. The first thing, of course they did, [00:06:30] was to dress us from the top to the bottom and, you know, and it's really an inappropriate kind of dressing because Sam, for instance, the average, uh, 10% which there is about 32 degrees. But but the the the title they gave to that woman is they call it uh, means means a lamb or sheep, an animal that would be unknown in the Pacific in those periods. So I have all these animals going around on, uh, and it's really don't know what they're talking [00:07:00] about. But can I just say one of the things is the attitudes is the attitude also go back if you if you recognise this when the missionaries left, you know, from Europe, you know, and, uh, all the people was, uh, dressed as six, of course, was not the things you know. You got a lot to because you brought not only the Bible, but you brought your attitude about sexuality to us. And not only that, what they [00:07:30] did for for him was the negative attitudes. But can you imagine the first thing they did, of course, was to dress us. And of course, the other thing was the the negative things about sexuality. So I just want to talk this pre Christians. It was the we say that most people were running around in the darkness an interesting concept. Um and then since the Ministry of the Bible came, we were all running around in the days of the lights, which I thought it was rather unique because some of us still prefer [00:08:00] to be in the dark. I I've done that. What I've done. OK, I've done that. Done that, OK, and if you look at the sexuality, just some of the views they had that's there about men and women rank at a high number number of partners in this side versus the European colonisers view of what? And of course, [00:08:30] the other thing was, the European brought was the view of heroism and the fact that you know it's the only way to go. Can I just say for sis we existed well before and I know that also the or the and the of Hawaii we existed well before the missionaries came to the Pacific. Ask any whalers or sailors around because the story is around. About the early 18 hundreds, [00:09:00] one such sailor went with a very calmly lass behind the bushes and found that it was a calmly lead. So it shows that really existed in that era. I also just want to talk about the Pacific history of the New Zealand context. In 1945 post World War, there was an economic boom and the work was required hence that, uh, there was recruitment in Europe that the term that horrible term £10 [00:09:30] was also and coupled with that was to have the urbanisation of Maori, but also was the recruitment of Pacific people for the first, like forestry farms, freezing factories and fisheries, and some very prominent people in this country. Their history comes back like the very first female judge Suffolk judge, female judge in this country comes from Inver cargo, who Father was a freezing work. [00:10:00] Same time most New Zealanders when they turn on their radio for Radio New Zealand News. One of the very well known news reader is Neva Man. She also her father also belonged to the Ocean Beach freezing works. However, after the seventies, the boom went down and then I believe the second boom came on, which was the 1970. The economic [00:10:30] boom was over and Pacific people, particularly Fijian, Samon and Tonga, over stair on raids. And that's when I believe the six, if came over and basically to use such a French is if back where you come from again, just look at the time strain of polarisation of Pacific people. And there's some really key people in this and the audience. My friend Warren Lindbergh, [00:11:00] for instance, if you call Warren, it was in the eighties that you and I went up to the Pacifica conference up north and we talked about in the formation of issues like the Pacific Island AIDS Trust. I really wanted just to talk about how people view sexuality because I think the attitudes that we have inherited is actually in some cases we still have, and we need to either decolonize our thinking because indeed [00:11:30] the Pacific is colonised by the missionaries and more laterally, the Pacific was hit by that wave of the moral right in the eighties that New Zealand had during with the homosexual law reform. They didn't go back to the West, uh, America, where they came from. They stopped away in the Pacific, and some of the fundamentalism is very much private in the Pacific. But I just wanted to also talk about the the various perspectives of sexuality [00:12:00] and why it was not acceptable to us. For instance, if you look at the biophysical model, the miracle model, of course, is very prevalent, particularly in the seventies, as a psychiatric nurse. Of course, it was very, very close to me because it's only up to the 19 seventies 73 when homosexuality was, of course, taken off at the DS M four or the Diagnostic Statistical Manual. Uh uh, as a sickness, Um, but [00:12:30] a lot of that model, also the works of masters and Johnson's really focuses on the physical aspect of sexuality. The other one, of course, psychological. The Freudian and Rena, the feminist right, so challenged That model has been particularly sexist, and particularly also Eurocentric, the sociological model was the one that we tended to use, but there were still a lot of things that were missing in relation to us. So I came up with this model. [00:13:00] Oops. And this is the model that Kevin was talking about. This is the overall. It looks at the culture of family and all the determinants that really and indeed one of the other posts. I put sexuality in it because it's fundamental to us that Pacific and Maori we see sexuality is fundamentally tied to our culture and also to our families [00:13:30] and history. And I just want to run that for you. The first one, of course, without doubt and I use the mob and I use that, uh, the is the foundation. The foundation is our family. Now that's nothing new. Everybody in this room has a family, whether it's extended or whether it's nuclear or whether it's constituted one of has a family. The second post is what I call the physical, [00:14:00] and again we need to really address the fact that we do have in sexuality our physical. There are physical components to ourselves. The second one is, uh, the mental, and that's self-explanatory. The third one is spirituality, and there's a forefront of, uh, other. And there's other conscience at the root and the cultural values and beliefs. But [00:14:30] I also believe that being in in others, environment, time and context is very important because we live in the two thousands and the context of where the human rights fits in very nicely with that. And that's the model again. And the Pacific Island was an adaptation of that particular model. The concept of the South is [00:15:00] very fluid, and I thought, I'll just quote this from this and that is the concept that we're not by ourselves. Is that a we concept rather than I? And what are the futures? This is what I believe my own personal. One of the first thing I think is we need to claim and hold on to that name because we existed in this part and Pacific while before, while in Europe they talk about inverts, et cetera, and the other one is [00:15:30] about networking ourselves. It's thrilling to be here challenging our own culture and, uh, in conclusion, I want to do this. I'm gonna ask the wants to come up to you because this is a song called Look See You Move on. Got the same Mhm [00:16:00] [00:16:30] [00:17:00] to meet you. A very safe.
This page features computer generated text of the source audio. It may contain errors or omissions, so always listen back to the original media to confirm content.
Tags