From Matangi Tonga Magazine Vol. 18, no. 3, December 2003.

By Pesi Fonua.
 

Democratic reform will help to preserve the dignity of the King, and his links with his people, says Taimi ‘o Tonga publisher, Kalafi Moala

Unoffically, Kalafi Moala, the publisher and the editor of the newspaper Taimi ‘o Tonga, tops the Tonga government’s ‘Most Hated’ list.

He has been deprived of his Tongan citizenship, since he became an American citizen a few years ago, an action that the Tongan government has rarely taken against any of the thousands of Tongans who hold dual citizenships.

Kalafi moved his operation from Tonga to Auckland, New Zealand, from where he publishes the Tongan language Taimi ‘o Tonga, sent twice weekly to Tonga. Early this year he had a huge stand-off with the Tonga government, who repeatedly tried to ban his paper. But the official declarations and passing of Ordinances were later overturned by the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal as being unconstitutional and therefore invalid and unlawful. The government, infuriated by loosing these court decisions introduced bills to amend the Constitution, and new laws allowing it to control the Tongan media and, possibly, proceed with its plan to ban the Taimi from Tonga, an unprecedented move by any government in the region.

The following are excerpts from an interview with Kalafi Moala after the Tongan Supreme Court ordered government to lift the ban and allow the Taimi ‘o Tonga back into Tonga in early August.

Pesi Fonua: When you set up your publishing operation, did you foresee that one day you would become an ardent enemy of the Tongan government?

No, never, never in my wildest imagination that was going to happen. The desire was basically to run a very normal news media. I came to Tonga in 1987 to attend a business meeting that had some affiliation with the mission (Youth with a Mission) that I was a part of at the time. I saw that there was a gap, the Kele’a was a little newsletter, so I thought that we would produce a newspaper that could fill that need. At that time I did not know Tonga, I had been away for too long that I did not know what was involved in getting information. But over the years, as we developed, I became very aware that there was a choice: either we were going to go out and really get the kind of story that I thought was necessary, or hold back and be a nice community newspaper and cover opening ceremonies and the giving of aid.

So it was a deliberate decision that we had to. It was in response to the society, which was asking questions that had to be answered. The people in many ways did not know about their government and how they were governed, and it was not just the issue with government, it was also with the church.

The reaction from government and from a lot of people in Tonga is not because the Taimi ‘o Tonga has unravelled any hard news stories-other papers have presented many hard news stories. The reaction against the Taimi ‘o Tonga was because of the insulting approach that had been taken by the paper. What is your reaction to that?

I feel saddened in a way because we have our archives and you can go through our papers, and it is amazing the amount of information that we have gathered, 80 per cent to 90 per cent is hard news. Less than 20 per cent  [of the content] actually deals with controversial issues but that is what has built up our identity as it is perceived by government, and that is where we are attacked. Two main columns, the people’s opinions, and I will be the first to admit that there are times when we have not been careful as far as letting through one without being read carefully. That is one column where government feels that they have been insulted. The other is our cartoon. We have a digging, poking type of a humour which we use in our faikava and our interpersonal conversations, and no one gets offended by it, because it does not last until tomorrow, but when it is printed it is a little bit different.  

But, seriously I will never be apologetic because we have been criticised for being insulting. Because many many times we have raised issues, and instead of government answering and responding to those issues, government has reacted and said, ‘who are you to ask us that?’ So we fall back to our social structural thinking of position, who are you to tell us that, the same old reaction of fieme’a, fiematamua, ta’e mohe ofi. So they are looking at the person who is talking rather than really answering the questions and the issues that have been raised. Our natural Tongan reaction is that we look out to see who is bowling and then we attack that.

I think this thing is very strong in our culture, because there are people I went to school with but then all of a sudden they became government ministers then they began to behave in a certain way, and think in a certain way. So when they are challenged, and questioned they feel insulted. So the insult has nothing to do with substance, but it has a lot to do with his position, and who you are to question that. The other thing that really saddens me, is that some of these people have been highly educated, have lived overseas and are used to the free flow of information, debate, criticism, and yet within our Tongan context the almighty culture comes to bear again, and we slip back and operate from that positioning.

I feel that government soon or later will need to wake up to the fact that they are held accountable, and it is part of their duty and their responsibility to respond, instead of reacting personally and saying things like, you have insulted me. For example, the story of the Cabinet Minister who took his wife on a trip overseas paid for by government, and when the voucher was produced as evidence, rather than saying, Oh boy we have made a mistake.

People will accept that people make mistakes, but rather than doing that they are doing an investigation on who leaked the information.

That is one thing I want to ask you because the Matangi Tonga, for instance, asks government hard questions, and challenges them on issues, but with you and government there seems to be something different about it.

I agree, and I’ve read how you probe through some of these issues and they respond. In my view, the big difference is that your readers are an elite readership, an educated readership, and they understand these kind of issues and they read it from that perspective. Ours is very much a grass roots readership, and it goes out to the villages. If I am in authority and there are issues that go so broadly among the grass roots and it is brought up in the Faikava, I can understand that there will be a reaction.

The other thing is because the Taimi is in Tongan. For example, issues like sex, in English, there is no problem, but in Tongan, I remember we got into trouble once when we tried to explain how to use a condom, and then with sodomy in the Tongan language you are getting into trouble. In English there is no problem because you are not violating anything in our culture, but the fact that we are a Tongan language paper adds to that. I think there is a big fear of the me’avale, that one day they may rise up.

It seems that the whole issue of the Taimi has been politicised. For example, in the beginning you just wanted to put out a newspaper, but you are now embroiled in Tongan politics. What is your view of the situation now?

To be honest, I am saddened that it has been politicised, because it is almost like within a family you are either this or that. In the church it is the same, are you a Demo or a non-Demo? At work it is the same, it should not happen that way. I think it is going to work itself out, because even though we have not been so overt about it but I have very strong criticism of the current pro-democracy movement, how they conduct themselves and the things they do. But it is not a good situation, and it is not our creation, we just happen to be caught up in it.

I will give you an example, I happened to read a letter about Prince Tu’ipelehake speaking out. The comment was that he had been taken, it was almost like saying that he had got the Demo fever. Honestly, I don’t know how to work that one out, but it’s definitely not a healthy thing, not in our society. I think it is part of our growing up and coming to reality with the 21st century, and certain reality of the media, so there are so many realities, which are coming into our lives and we are just learning to cope with them. Let’s not destroy each other while we are trying to build up our society. We should be able to sit down and have dialogue and grow out of the present situation.

When we were banned, the Chief Justice made his ruling, and the paper was still stuck at the airport, then he made a second ruling, and still nothing happened but meanwhile our lawyer and Crown Law were exchanging letters, just trying to resolve this whole thing. I met with our lawyer and, this has never been made public, one of the things we did, we came up with a proposal for them to lift the ban, and also lift the other ban on us from obtaining information from government. We offered that after they lifted those two bans then we were more than willing to sit down for a dialogue and to hear their concerns. If we were really insulting, as we had been accused, we wanted to hear that.

The reaction from Crown Law was extremely positive and optimistic, then it went to Cabinet, and again Crown Law said it was positive, but then they passed it on to a media sub-committee, which is chaired by Clive Edwards, and the thing went dead. Then we found ourselves in a situation that we had to sue them, we did not want to do that, we basically gave them an ultimatum. We had to do that because the whole thing was costing us a lot of money, time and we were emotionally involved. So we felt that we were very honest in offering to work our way out, and that no one had to change their stances.

The reaction was again, who are you to negotiate? We therefore had to put into action what we could do was to go back to court, and immediately the ban was lifted, and we are in a situation now [of constitutional change].

So how do you feel now finding yourself in a situation where you are a wearing a political hat, you are no longer just a journalist and a newspaper publisher?

I feel very uncomfortable, but I have been forced to do that, and have hardened my stand because of what we have been through. If I have to make a choice I will choose my journalistic role, but I have been put in a position where I had to make a statement. During the ban, people were ringing up asking, why do you think government is doing this? What do you think of the King? These were political questions which myself a journalist had to answer, I have been viewed as a pro-democracy advocator who wants to change things. That view, of course, is not mistaken, because I have called for some reforms. I am not of the opinion of throwing out everything we have and putting in a western style democracy, but there is a need for change.

Would you return to Tonga and enter politics?

Absolutely not, seeking political office is the last thing on my list. I absolutely do not have any experience of that. I am a reformer, in a sense of the information industry that we are in, and in the same way that you have a faifekau who should not shun politics, but should not seek office, but they need to speak on issues. Everybody that deals with the public needs to make a stand, and I feel journalists need to speak out on issues that are so obvious to them.

We can blame you partially for the introduction by government of the media bills, which will affect us all. What is your view on these bills?

I agree, but I think the media bills are an over reaction by government. Somebody in Tonga said that we are only a little ant, but government is trying to kill us with a sledge hammer, but smashing that little ant you will damage the table and everything around it, and I feel certain that if there was no Taimi ‘o Tonga there would not have been any media bills. I feel that we are the victim in this situation, and the person who is doing the accusing should also take responsibility. It is like someone beating his wife, the wife may have done something wrong, but the husband is the one who is doing the punching, in this context government should also take responsibility. It is an over reaction, and it shows the [lack of] maturity and the level of leadership in our country. I look at it as a leadership crisis. I don’t know who is leading Tonga, and these media bills will make us suffer.

We are supposed to be setting the standard in the region, but now we will be following the others. These bills will not hurt the Taimi, we will probably be banned again and I have accepted the fact that there is the possibility that we will not be operating in Tonga. We will concentrate with our operation overseas, but it is going to affect you, and the other media. I don’t think it is a media issue,  I have been saying that there is a leadership crisis in the country because of the process of decision making that has taken place.

I think people should move forward with their lives, applying all the principles that they have already got now. If you look at all the civil movements that have taken place in various parts of the world, Martin Luther King, Apartheid, Ghandi, the legislation came later, after they had decided how they should live their lives. That is one of my criticisms of the Pro-democracy Movement, because they were so eager to change the Constitution instead of encouraging people to live their lives with those democratic principles which they already have now and then maybe later change the Constitution to suit their needs.

The democracy movement has locked itself up in a legislative battle, and in fact the whole country is locked up in a legislative battle, and is neglecting the people. The people have already developed a lot of democratic principles in their lives and we should continue to do so.

I am a socialist reformer, not a communist, but a reformer.

What is the general feeling of the Tongan people in New Zealand about this going-on?

I am very surprised with the popularity of the paper, and we have a very big market overseas, stronger than in Tonga. Someone has assessed that the publicity that we have got over this is worth more than a million dollars.

Another problem is that the Tongan communities in both New Zealand and Australia are becoming very Tongan, more so than in Tonga, we have built a hedge around us as a community. The guy that works in a factory, where all his co-workers are Tongans, then he goes home and eats Tongan food, and while his wife is cooking they are listening to the Tongan radio, there is a Tongan program on TV, then he goes out to a faikava, where they are all Tongans. After the Faikava they may want to go to Tongan night clubs, all Tongans, and then in the morning the papers came out and they are Tongan papers. On Sunday he goes to a Tongan church. So we are all insulated as a Tongan community. I have found kids who are coming out of Tonga, who know more about what is going on in the world than kids in New Zealand and Australia.

We need to do something about it, it is not good for us and it is not good for the larger community who are missing out on the exposure to our Tongan values and our Tongan culture.

What do you think will be the impact of this kind of behaviour in maintaining the contact between Tongans overseas and Tonga?

What I have noticed in New Zealand, and in Australia is the feeling of legitimacy in that community, they feel that they have to stand together. We have been saying that remittances will be down, and it has not been down but I think it will be different with the next generation.

We went to the Pacific Business Trust Award night, and it was an enlightening experience. We are not only good sports people and entertainers, we are also good business people. They are becoming very aware of the fact that they are New Zealand Tongans.

There was a Tongan man there, the runner-up to the businessman of the year, he started off with painting, then he got into interior decoration and now he is a multi-millionaire property developer.

We are not just good sports people, entertainer, and fill Mt Eden prison, we can make a contribution.

With regards to trying to strengthen the flow of remittances, and the notion of strengthening the link between Tonga and the Tongan communities overseas, there has been talk of Tongan overseas electing a representative into the Tongan parliament. Do you think that will be attractive to Tongan overseas?

I think that should be done, if there is one thing that will make the Tongan communities outside of Tonga want to participate in Tonga. The feeling and the interest is still there.

The other thing too is that they should send in teams that will come in to the community, a business team from the commercial sector. They are not seeking investment from Tongans, but there are a number of successful Tongan business people overseas. Most of those who come in to the Tongan community overseas come to beg for money, but what is lacking is the commercial link.

What is the general feeling among Tongans in New Zealand about the Tongan government?

I think the attitude throughout New Zealand and Australia, and I include Australia because we also have an office in Sydney, and I do a lot of travelling over there, those two actually give government no credibility. Before when we talked about pule’anga [government] it was something emotional and personal. The talk now is that pule’anga is an abuser, is an oppressor, is completely dead, and don’t blame the Taimi for that. But there is still a very strong cord there, in terms of the royal family and the aristocracy. There are criticisms, I heard today something that I would not have heard 10 years ago, criticising the Royal Family, criticising the King. People still have a very strong link with the culture, and they see the King as part of their cultural identity, but government is viewed under a different light.

I feel that the King must make a move for reform because that is how he will preserve his own dignity and link with his people, because you know the King is the government, and the shift in the attitude of the people to government will eventually also affect the King.

The people still look upon the King as the hero, or Ko e hau ‘o Tonga, they think of it in a cultural and a social context. Who comes to open our church? Wow! the King is coming.

But the ban of the paper, the people blame it on the King, simply because in the New Zealand media they focused it, and nailed the king, he is the one who banned the paper, that was the issue. The King chairs the Privy Council, and the Privy Council issued those ordinances, banning the Taimi. In a way the people don’t want to hear that, but as they follow the process they are surprised to find out that it was the King who passed the ordinances and it was also the King who will pass the media laws, the people are beginning to shift their blame from Clive Edwards and the Ministers, more and more toward the King. During the past few years parliament bore the butt of the criticism, then suddenly it moved onto the Ministers, now it is the Royal family, whether it is political or social, but it started with [Princess] Pilolevu and her love letters and all that. The evolution of reporting in Tonga started with Parliament, Privy Council and now the Royal Family. But I say let’s save the Monarchy. I personally believe the Monarchy is crucial to our own culture, social structure and existence as a people.

Save the King because the others will try to bring him down with them, he needs to be saved, and I am not talking about him as a person but what he represents, who he represents and his office. People overseas still have that link but it is running very thin.