Our Sea of Islands

Abstract

This chapter offers a view of Oceania that is new and optimistic. It aims to disturb a number of men and women who have dedicated their lives to Oceania and for whom the greatest respect and affection, and always will. Oceania denotes a sea of islands with their inhabitants. In Oceania, derogatory and belittling views of indigenous cultures are traceable to the years of interactions with Europeans. Nineteenth-century imperialism erected boundaries that led to the contraction of Oceania, transforming a once boundless world into the Pacific Island states and territories. The world of Oceania is neither tiny nor deficient in resources. It was so only as a condition of the colonial confinement that lasted less than a century in a history of millennia. Human nature demands space for free movement, and the larger the space the better it is for people.