‘Pandemonium’ is but a memory. Vanuatu has slipped into a somnolence South Pacific island nations often cite as an important component of their charm. The democratic, 83-island archipelago seldom makes the headlines these days – and when it does it’s because of something positive (such as rating highly on an international happiness index) or quirky (such as the country’s strange cargo cults).

Vanuatu – called the New Hebrides until independence in 1980 – was a colonial oddity. It was jointly ruled by Britain and France. The two European nations called this strange arrangement a ‘condominium’ - a term that was inevitably substituted by the word ‘pandemonium’, because being governed by two powers was nothing short of chaotic. Tales are told of confusing differences in health and education systems and, even now, both English and French are official languages, along with the local Bislama – but English is ascendant and has become the language of government.

The most common colonial stories concern traffic police. Each police force, it is said, dispatched a uniformed cop to an intersection in Port Vila, the capital. Each officer did his own thing. In order to be on their way, motorists had to obey one policeman’s instructions and defy the other’s. The result: pandemonium.

In recent years, Vanuatu has become a major holiday destination, mainly for Australians, who comprise 65 percent of visitors. New Zealand is another important market. Tourism, whether directly or indirectly, contributes well over 50 percent of GDP. Some visitors arrive on Air Vanuatu jet services; others come on an increasing number of cruise liners. Of the 10,729 visitors to the archipelago last July, 82 percent of them were holidaymakers.

A walk along Lini Highway, Port Vila’s main drag, is reminiscent of strolling along waterfronts in the Caribbean. Sunburned tourists seem more in evidence than local residents against a backdrop of mid-rise hotels, restaurants, banks, souvenir shops, duty-free emporia and boutiques selling brightly coloured beachwear, often with South Pacific motifs.

Aside from being a fine holiday resort (complete with casino), Vanuatu – having no income tax but a range of other taxes and levies – is also a tax haven, though it prefers to describe itself as an offshore banking centre. However, growth of this sector has slowed since Australia, a key source of aid, began insisting on less secrecy, greater transparency and tougher rules. The country also has an expanding flag-of-convenience shipping registry, run out of New York.

Most tourists confine themselves to Port Vila and other parts of the island of Efate, because this is where most of the resorts are located. But some go to Tanna, towards the southern end of the island chain – a place that is best known for its active Yasur volcano, cargo cults (based on the belief that the worshipped entity will one day return, bringing cargos of great wealth to the faithful), wild horses and a particularly strong form of kava – a soporific but non-alcoholic brew popular in the South Pacific. Other visitors like to spend their time in Espiritu Santo, where there is a popular diving industry and several upscale boutique resorts, perhaps taking a trip to Pentecost, where the young men leap from treetop platforms in annual initiation rites wearing non-elastic vines to break their fall. Only an intrepid few venture to other islands, some of which have small guest houses.

Economic growth averaged 6.5 percent a year between 2003 and 2008, before falling back to an annual 3 percent average in the wake of the global financial crisis. Small-scale subsistence agriculture anchors the economy, involving about 80 percent of Vanuatu’s 235,000 people. Exports include high-quality beef, coffee, copra and kava – all in fairly small quantities. Agriculture makes up almost three-quarters of the country’s exports.

Vanuatu’s first prime minister, the late Father Walter Lini, was an Anglican priest and independence activist. He remains revered as ‘Father of the Nation’. A contemporary of many African independence leaders, Lini helped to raise his country’s profile internationally, steering a non-aligned course during the Cold War. However, Vanuatu’s cordial links with communist Cuba strained relations with Australia.

Lini built a powerful political organisation, the Vanua’aku Party. It still exists but is no longer pivotal. Today, despite a dozen or so small parties, it appears that the steam has gone out of politics in Vanuatu. Prime Minister Sato Kilman of the People’s Progress Party currently heads the government with Iolu Abil holding the largely ceremonial post of president.

The country seems to revel in its obscurity. It wasn’t always this way. One of Lini’s first challenges was thwarting secessionists in Espiritu Santo immediately after independence. After a few skirmishes, the plot collapsed. Since then Vanuatu has been at peace – a fact that has greatly helped its growing tourism industry.

Promotion was also given a boost when, in 2006, Vanuatu topped the Happy Planet Index and was deemed the world’s happiest place in rankings determined by the New Economics Foundation, a think-tank. The list isn’t based on wealth (Vanuatu comes 207th out of 233 countries in GDP terms) but on factors such as contentment, consumption of non-renewable resources and respect for the environment.

Although Vanuatu’s population is yet to reach a quarter of a million, it is one of the most linguistically diverse countries in the world. It has avoided the serious violent conflict or serial coups suffered by some of its neighbours, but still faces many of the problems and vulnerabilities of post-colonial states, and the potential for conflict is real. Yet Vanuatu also has profound sources of resilience, rooted, to a significant extent, in the vitality of its community life.

Vanuatu’s modified Westminster system of government, and the institutions and practices that flow from it, in many ways sits on top of longstanding clan and community based ways of life, widely known as kastom (or custom). State governance is often weakly grounded in the values and practices of Vanuatuan society; government provides few services beyond the towns.

By contrast, customary ways of life, embedded in networks of extended family and land, remain a fundamental reality across the country, providing security and welfare for the majority of the population, as well as underpinning culture, meaning and a place in the world.

Kastom and state governance can complement each other, but customary values and expectations can also conflict with the requirements of state governance, leading to confusion and the weakening of both. In Vanuatu, there is now a growing acknowledgement of kastom‘s significance to social order and well-being. While in some respects traditional practices are intrinsically conservative, they also have strong dynamic and adaptive elements.

Towns are melting pots of different kastoms and increasingly of none, and questions of how to deal with the inevitable conflicts are ongoing. Chiefs have established mechanisms whereby different clans are supported and overseen by chiefs from their locality living in the town, so that social frictions can be better managed. Preventing tensions over land between the local customary groups and incoming island migrants (so evident in the Solomon Islands) is an explicit goal of this work.

In the capital, Port Vila, on the grounds that the kastom authorities’ role is to work for community well-being, a young community leader has organised simple employment schemes for unemployed youths. There are also ongoing efforts to provide young people with places where they can learn and identify with island traditions.

As in many societies, violence against women is a significant problem, and men often cite kastom as an excuse. While contemporary village authorities are almost all male (in contrast to historical experience in parts of the country), the Vanuatu Women’s Centre, with support from the National Council of Chiefs, has initiated a series of public debates on the standing of women in society.

At the government level, there have been efforts to support better interaction between kastom and state governance. The government’s law and justice sector framework conceptualises Vanuatu as a two-keeled boat, sailing on both government and kastom. There are also efforts to work through intense friction around land between the kastom economy (in which land is largely held communally) and the market economy (where land is a fundamental commodity). While these efforts can be highly controversial and are likely to need adaptation, they represent serious attempts to shape governance, and the state, in ways that are grounded in Vanuatuan values and culture.

Important bridging bodies between kastom and the state include the National Council of Chiefs and the Vanuatu Cultural Centre, and many community organisations play important local roles as well.

Kastom is much debated. It is not always clear what it actually entails, because of fragmentation and loss of tradition, but also because kastom has become a language for contesting changing values and directions. Questions of land holding, of who should lead, by what right should they lead and to whom and how should they be answerable, as well as gender relations, are part of these debates.

People in the islands rarely see themselves as involved in ‘governance’, the ‘state’ or ‘accountability’, yet these are often the substance of the debates. Ancestral practices were localised, but kastom has become a way of talking about national identity and self-determination while still referring back to local traditions.

Such questions about kastom have considerable practical urgency as Vanuatuans seek to ride international and globalising forces – even if they cannot control them.

Best known is the John Frum cult, which worships the USA. It has its roots in World War II when, according to one explanation of the name, a departing black American soldier (one of a contingent based on Tanna) announced he was “John from America” and would return. However, “John from” was misunderstood to be “John Frum”. In a village of thatched huts, the US flag is still raised each day and uniformed followers march with imitation rifles carved from wood in a parade-ground drill. Supporters in the USA keep the village supplied with flags and uniforms. One hut has been turned into a shrine to John Frum.

Nearby, in another village, an unnamed cargo cult worships the Duke of Edinburgh as a deity. Songs glorify Prince Philip, whose picture hangs in a hut serving as a shrine. Young virgins are kept as potential brides for the prince who, so far, has failed to turn up. The cult began in the 1980s when village chief Jack Naiva was told about Queen Elizabeth II. Raised in a patriarchal society, Chief Jack reasoned that if the monarch were important, her husband had to be even more so – a god, in fact. And so, a cult was born – surviving Chief Jack, who died in 2009.

Breakthroughs in tissue engineering and nanotechnology, combined with a better understanding of the human genome and the interaction of personal genetic factors, are opening up a world of healthcare possibilities that would excite even the most inventive science fiction writer. 

Initially pioneered to assist military casualties, bionic technology is starting to bring hope to injured civilians. In May this year, surgeons successfully transplanted a prosthetic hand capable of responding to signals from the brain. It is only a matter of time before technologies are capable of replicating sense perception and controlling fine motor-coordination, providing significant benefits for ageing populations afflicted by Parkinson’s disease and sight and hearing impairments. 

This brave new world of robotic limbs and silicon sentience is not without its ethical challenges. Professor Robert Winston provides a voice of reason in the passionate and polemical debates over the use of embryonic stem cells in medical research and the compatibility of religion and science. He warns against an unquestioning faith in science, saying:  “science is not the truth. It’s a version of the truth.” And he points out that among all this innovation, infection remains man’s most formidable enemy. 

Neil J. Kressel examines the epidemiology or a more sociological contagion. He delves into the psyche of the religious extremist, exploring the complex psycho-social factors that impel an individual to commit violent acts in the name of God. While it is impossible to isolate the motivations behind the tendency towards extremism at any given time or place, Kressel concludes that the clash between Western liberal values and the more conservative principles of deeply religious societies is at the root of the current explosion of fanatical beliefs and actions. 

Testimonies from Maajid Nawaz, a former recruiter for the radical Islamist party Hizb ut-Tahrir, and reformed white supremacist Timothy Zaal provide very personal insights into the process of radicalisation and remind us although extreme beliefs can destroy lives, they can also be a source of comfort and strength for the dispossessed and marginalised. 

This is an uncomfortable truth that needs to be grasped in particular by Europe. In recent national elections right-wing political parties have found a following in the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Austria, Switzerland and Italy. And while the electoral gains of the British National Party have been modest, research indicates that one fifth of people in the UK would consider voting for the party in the future. Much of their success, suggests Elisabeth Carter, is due to a calculated move away from out-and-out racism and concepts of superiority to a more socially acceptable emphasis on alleged ‘cultural incompatibility’.  

There will always be those who are drawn to the extremes – to the left or the right, whether for religious or secular causes – and who are willing and able to cause destruction and take human life. There are also those, like the young men and women whose peaceful protests sparked the Arab spring, who are prepared to stand up for what they believe in, and even die in the process. But the line separating the two isn’t always clear: where precisely it should be drawn depends greatly on where you stand. 

One thing is clear, however: although breakthroughs in biomedical engineering may soon mean that broken bodies and failing faculties are consigned to the past, there is as yet no real solution for the fracturing of communities, strained by the complex and shifting pressures of demography, culture and economics.

A stunning collection of images from the Commonwealth Photographic Competition was exhibited at the Commonwealth Festival in Perth in October 2011. With the support of the Western Australian government, the top two prizewinners in the senior category (18-30), Amit Madheshiya and Rehnuma Tasnim Sheefa, were flown to Australia for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM). They spent the week attending debates and lectures, visiting local schools and shadowing a photojournalist covering the CHOGM protests. 

At the end of the trip, Amit produced a photo essay exploring what he believes is the universal lure of the water’s edge: 

Living in Mumbai – which houses over 21 million people – there is a constant craving for a moment or two of being alone with oneself… With its constant flux of people – be it on the streets, trains, elevators, toilets and at home – one always belongs to the great inescapable mass. 

The city compensates for space on her beaches, where the constriction of an urban jungle is relieved by the cathartic immensity of the sea. Where the waterfront becomes the site of a return to the primeval vision;

a gateway to the spectacle of the endless vastness, as one leaves behind the paucity, squalor and sweat of a megacity. 

This experience laid the foundation of my exploration of Perth. On my lone strolls in the city, I revelled at the sight of the spring sun sprawled leisurely over Swan River and the majestic quietness of Kings Park. But what I was interested in photographing most was the engagement of people in Perth with its seafronts. I spent my evenings at Cottesloe beach looking at young boys and girls playing ball, families enjoying the delicious fish and chips, children fishing on the rocks and others diving in the azure water. 

Is there a universal experience that the immensity of the sea inspires in us, across boundaries and cultures? Through my work on the beaches, I am exploring this nebulous experience that binds us across oceans.

In January, two panels of judges will begin their task of reading, shortlisting and finally selecting the winners for the new-look Commonwealth Writers Prize and Short Story Competition. To bring these two prestigious literary awards into the 21st century, the Commonwealth Foundation has modernised and repositioned them under the banner: Commonwealth Writers – A World of New Fiction. 

The Commonwealth Writers’ Prize celebrated its 25th birthday in 2011. It was initially given to the best book written by an author of Commonwealth origin and was intended to highlight the cultural talent and diversity within the Commonwealth. The Best First Book Prize was added in 1989. This year the prize will be awarded only for best first novel – there will no longer be a Best Book category. Today, in a crowded field of literary awards the revitalised Commonwealth Book Prize is forging a new and singular identity. 

Chair of the judges, the award-winning writer, editor and critic, Margaret Busby, says, “It is vital to encourage and celebrate the talent of newly emerging novelists whose words have the potential to inspire and enrich the entire literary world. Searching out and promoting the best first books of fiction internationally is a serious task, a great honour and a wonderful challenge.” Adding, “The significance of a prize such as this becomes greater with each year.” The Book Prize is open to writers who have had their first novel published between 1 January and 31 December 2011. The overall winner will receive £10,000 with four regional runners up receiving £2,500 each. 

The Commonwealth Short Story Prize has remained largely unchanged since it was first awarded in 1996. Run in partnership with the Commonwealth Broadcasting Corporation, it sought to find the best short stories (600 words maximum) for radio – 26 winning entries were recorded and broadcast across the Commonwealth. This year the prize will be given to the best piece of unpublished short fiction (2,000- 5,000 words). Four regional winners will be awarded £1,000 with the overall winner receiving £5,000. Bernadine Evaristo, an award-winning poet, novelist and editor, will be chairing the judging panel. “This wonderful prize will turn the spotlight on the increasingly popular short story form and aims to support and encourage short story writers worldwide,” she says. 

In making these changes to its awards, the Commonwealth Foundation believes that it has preserved the strongest elements of the prizes, while at the same time putting them on the contemporary map of international new fiction. 

Commonwealth Writers aims to unearth writers with an original voice and stories to tell. It hopes to promote and connect new writing talent across the 54 member states, facilitating on-the ground creative writing activities led by the regional winners within their communities. Over the next few months, the Commonwealth Foundation will work in partnership with international writers’ organisations and civil society to help new writers develop their craft. The prizes and outreach activities will act as catalysts to target and identify talented writers from different regions who will go on to inspire and inform their local communities. 

In addition, the programme will also explore what being ‘published’ means in the 21st century. It is particularly interested in how writers can use technology to find a readership in different parts of the world and in the way writers can effectively utilise online publishing networks. Meanwhile, www.commonwealthwriters.org will be an online hub to inspire, inform and motivate distinctive new voices.

The concern surrounding Sri Lanka’s hosting of the next Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in 2013, plainly demonstrates the mounting international scrutiny of the atrocities perpetrated during the final months of the country’s civil war. Though hostilities officially ended in May 2009, after more than a quarter of a century of fighting, the country is still recovering – economically, politically and psychologically – from the trauma of the conflict. 

Political and economic complications in Sri Lanka continue to affect the island nation’s prospects for peace. And while questions of human rights violations should be answered swiftly and satisfactorily by the Sri Lankan administration, broadening the Commonwealth’s concerns beyond the government’s conduct during the war could lead to the dialogue and engagement needed to prevent a relapse of conflict. 

The Royal Commonwealth Society and peace-building NGO International Alert, are contributing to Sri Lanka’s wider reconstruction effort with the continuation of a project that began in 2009. In January last year, eight young British Sri Lankans and two British MPs travelled to Sri Lanka to learn about the progress of post-conflict reconciliation and development in a programme called ‘Diaspora Dialogues’. 

Then, in December, the project continued as ‘Breaking Boundaries’ with a visit to London by emerging Sri Lankan leaders, including MPs from across political parties and representatives from civil society groups. In a busy week of workshops and discussions they met with British parliamentarians, Sri Lankan diaspora groups, Commonwealth organisations and the recently appointed Sri Lankan High Commissioner, Chris Nonis. 

Sri Lanka’s recovery depends as much on the participation of the diaspora and an empowered civil society as it does on local and international policy-making. Therefore, projects such as ‘Breaking Boundaries’, which brings actors from across sectors and communities together in the spirit of reconciliation, are crucial to the development process. Promoting the positive engagement of each of these groups will ultimately support the long-lasting peace of the country. 

Sri Lanka remains a polarising subject among the Commonwealth family. Regardless, Colombo will host the next CHOGM, and in the months leading up to that international summit, ‘Breaking Boundaries’ offers an important opportunity to the geographical, political and emotional barriers hampering the recovery of a country once divided by war.

The value of a good, tight network is immeasurable, as strong networks attract new people, different voices and fresh ideas. But a network is only as good as its incentive for membership. Kudos, learning and contacts are necessary to bring together a solid group of people, and to create a network that will flourish with the right amount of nurturing, management and guidance. Cohesiveness breeds strength, and the stronger the voice, the greater the impact of the network. 

The Commonwealth has many networks, none of them in a particularly good state of health. Dwindling numbers, breakaway factions and groups within groups all weaken any cohesive message they try to deliver. The Commonwealth Foundation has decided to take the bull by the horns – or rather the networks by its members – and is looking for ways to shape and shake things up. Early discussions with the Royal Commonwealth Society have raised a number of exciting possibilities of what the Commonwealth could achieve with the right kind of franchise. 

One of these possibilities is to bring the majority of Commonwealth networks online in order to gain access to thousands of people around the world. This would open up genuine engagement and dialogue and provide the Commonwealth with a means by which to measure its impact. As the Commonwealth considers the recommendations for reform made by the Eminent Persons Group (EPG), its focus must be on making it more accountable to its members. What better way to do that than to have a thousands-strong network of people only a click away? 

And the Commonwealth can make this happen by utilising its Friends network, the newest organisation and the one with the most distance from the political Commonwealth. The Friends already works in partnership with many associations in six national chapters around the Commonwealth and, among other things, helps raise funds for small charities. 

At the other end of the scale, the Royal Commonwealth Society stands as the most established network in the Commonwealth. A franchise of over 10,000 members across the globe, it has recognised that it is in need of revitalisation. 

Thus the conclusion that the two should partner was only logical – providing the opportunity for citizens to mobilise and realise the value of the Commonwealth and creating a space for people to interact with each other. Combine all this with a new Friends website, with a focus on social networking, and the potential to draw large numbers of citizens, and we could be on to a good thing.

For further information visit: www.commonwealthfriends.org

In 2000, as politicians desperately sought solutions to raging wantok (tribal) tensions, Solomon Islands provincial premiers asserted their desire to adopt a federal government system. The following year, the minister responsible for the provinces, Nollen Leni said it was time to correct the system of a single national government and parliament that had been introduced by past colonial masters and that had so far proved unsuitable for national interests and state building. 

The current ruling coalition has reaffirmed its commitment to developing “a sensible policy on federalism which will take into account the conflicting demands by our people”. A nationwide consultation has been promised for early 2012, before the final draft of the proposed federal constitution is presented and discussed in cabinet later in the year. 

Among themes that the constitution will need to address are key issues such as the incorporation of indigenous values into modern institutions, the movement and settlement of people, decentralisation, unity and reconciliation, and the rules governing political behaviour. 

There is an impression that ‘traditional’ leaders (bigmen and chiefs) ought to be more engaged in national legislative processes. In this way, conflict between indigenous values and modern laws or institutions would be assuaged. Ideally, national unity is facilitated when people perceive government structures and institutions as their own. 

There is broad agreement that a major instigator of the 1998-2003 wantok tensions was related to the free movement and resettlement of islanders on other people’s land. Consultation reports have agreed that the right to move freely must be defended but that the freedom to settle anywhere, especially on customary land, should include basic controls that respect indigenous traditions. 

The importance of political and economic decentralisation is widely accepted. The draft federal constitution seeks to expand the tax base and sources of revenue for the proposed states. Political and fiscal decentralisation would ensure that no wantok group becomes disadvantaged by the reformed constitution. 

Two notable reconciliation initiatives include the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and the Prison Fellowship International’s Sycamore Tree Project. Their efforts have resulted in meetings, truth telling and public apologies from ex-leaders of former militia groups. The TRC supports state-building efforts, especially those that promote national unity and reconciliation, determine the root causes of the conflict and give victims and perpetrators of the tensions the means and the dignity to voice their concerns, share experiences and provide an opportunity for reconciliation. The TRC also promotes accountability for human rights abuses. 

Clearly, citizens are frustrated by the political culture and behaviour of their national leaders – the country has had six prime ministers over the past decade. Given that grievances cannot confidently be channelled through MPs, civilians have, on occasion, vented their frustrations over leadership deficiencies on private property and businesses, thus destroying other essential state-building efforts. 

Successive governments since independence in 1978 have tended to address the symptoms of conflict rather than the root causes. Understanding the challenge of state building in the Solomon Islands requires an appreciation of the inherent ethnic and inter-wantok complexities that exist. A federal constitution that recognises and appreciates wantok differences would help to nurture stability and strengthen the modern state apparatus. If differences are acknowledged and respected, efforts towards state building and peaceful co-existence could be better propagated. The ongoing reconciliation efforts could also help lay the foundations for a reformed and more stable Solomon Islands state.