Warrior Mentality, Ancestor Qualities

Words by Lofa Totua

Where do we come from?

On maps of our common home, the Pacific is minimised to a series of dots on a great blue canvas. Some of us live in the islands and others are a part of our diasporic communities. We are a collective of skilled, passionate navigators from an ocean with hundreds of languages, rich cultures, and traditions. 

Anthropologist Judith Huntsman wrote about the necessity of cultural specificity and points out that no collective is ever homogenous across space and time; “both writers and readers should be alert to the dangers of unwitting generalisation or unacknowledged specificity, which invite separate societies… [Tonga, Cook Islands, Kiribati etc] but also at the micro-level within them: as from one island or village to another.”  In short, we are all different but linked by the same cause. The Pacific Climate Warriors are recognised internationally for peaceful protesting. Our message is simple: we are not drowning, we are fighting!

Existence is Resistance

The Indigenous strength that comes with the Warrior mentality has meant that Pacific folk are the most resilient when it comes to dealing with the impacts of climate change, a present reality for the Pacific and an impending future countries like the U.S and Britain, are dreading.  

The word ‘activism’ often creates connotations of individuals screaming into microphones, making unrealistic demands and disrupting society. For a Pacific Climate Warrior, this word has been reclaimed with new meaning and thus healing through decolonisation. It is so much more than what we see; instead it is about being a good ancestor, leaving behind a healthier environment, and history books worth repeating. It is about less talk, more action. It is about holding space for your whānau, creating opportunities to listen. Ultimately, it’s about being true to who you are, where you come from and honouring the villages that shaped you. Existing in today’s environment is activism itself. 

Learning and Teaching

In my short journey of being a Pacific Climate Warrior, I have learnt the importance of being teachable. There are many who have fought and organized before me and alongside me—mentors to learn from and acknowledge as the ones who paved the way for us to fight and organise today. Giants we stand on, in this long journey to achieving climate justice. Our islands may be small, but the actions and successes of our people are huge—and not just in climate spaces. To know our people is to know the fanua, the land on which our ancestors are buried.

A Native Daughter by Hawaiian storyteller Haunani-Kay Trask taught me that people cannot exist without the land and the land cannot exist without people. Trask pointed out the ignorance of the historians who had written the history of Hawai’i (forcefully stolen land from Kānaka Maoli, colonised as a U.S state). The two sound variations employed to show possession: “a” being material objects or acquired status and “o” being inherent status—“Ko’u aina” meaning land, “ko’u Makua” meaning my parents; highlight the significance of land to the natives. She points out that Chiefs were not selfish and primitive landowners as described by historians. Instead, there was a sacred and honoured relationship between land and people, a shared truth by Samoans reflected in our gagana (language), where the word for land is the same word for placenta: fanua. Both protect. Both nurture. 

Being a Pacific Climate Warrior has also taught me that age is not a requirement to lead a revolution. If you have passion and a willingness to serve, then climate activism is for you. At age 11, Samoan activist and environmental advocate Brianna Fruean became one of the founding members of 350.Samoa, and leader of environmental group, Future Rush.  At the age of 16, she became the youngest ever recipient of a Commonwealth Youth Award.  South Auckland youth leader, Aigagalefili Fepulea’i-Tupa’i, is an empowering storyteller. She is the founder of 4TK, an indigenous South Auckland high school environmental group who had a strong presence at the second climate strike, in May last year. Pacific youth, often oceans away from our fanua, pull up to these strikes for our islands.

How to be a Good Ancestor

The development of wasteful, consumerist culture has resulted in an acceptance of the ongoing injustice and environmental racism. Equity becomes the opportunity cost in a system that values profit over people. We know that Black Lives Matter is more than just a moment, it’s a movement. Uplifting BIPOC communities across the globe must go hand in hand with caring for our planet. Every day human beings experience the effects of environmental damage, but it is the poor who are forced to shoulder most of the burden. You don’t need me to pull out stats to prove to you which communities are poor. Limited financial resources and access to social services—the necessities!—result in an uncertain future, if there is any chance for a future at all. 

Combating and understanding climate change is no easy feat. It cannot be carried out by a select few or understood only by scientists. It is a human rights issue that concerns the collective wellbeing of all who inhabit our planet. The solutions to environmental justice have always been the reciprocal, regenerative, everlasting, and equitable Indigenous ways of knowing and being. Groups like the Pacific Climate Warriors and Indigneous communities must be the ones to lead and be listened to. 

Understanding our world is not easy. Pacific academic Albert Wendt says: “the vā is the space between, the between-ness, not empty space, not space that separates but space that relates… the meanings change as the relationship/context changes.” 

To be a Pacific Climate Warrior and to be a good ancestor is to cherish the vā between us and our earth.