Hannah Cann tells us why she loves political correctness.
Do you have swine flu? No. Do you know anybody who does have swine flu? Probably not. So what's all the fuss about?
Can't afford ethical clothing but can afford a night out at Ziggy's? Jennifer Heyes discusses where students' priorities should really lie.
Three of The Yorker's blogs team have had a hard think about what general rules they live their lives by and written them down in the form of their own Personal Philosophies.
The very thought of "Tahiti" brings to mind immense stretches of white sand with the beautiful quasi-naked women to go with them. You can just picture yourself staying at a five star hotel sipping rum and writing your Pulitzer-prize novel while an original Gaugin awaits you in your hotel room—room? Royal Suite, more like. Well, you get the idea.
To most of us, however, Tahiti is scarcely more that such a dream. It can be your “happy place”—money you’re pretending to save for a trip and whenever the boss, spouse, kids, weather, <insert generic annoyance here> really begin to try your nerves, you switch your mind to Tahiti-mode and your imagination launches into overdrive. I long was such a person. The T-word was scarcely even a dream, as much as it was a place in my imaginations where all fantasies landed, it was my literary haven, torn halfway between Baudelaire’s “luxe calme et volupté” and the kitsch post cards of sunsets and palm trees.
And then the improbable happened. We moved there.
All that you have heard, all you have seen, that image deeply impressed upon common consciousness, all that is true.—perhaps to be taken with a grain of salt, but a very, very small one. Indeed, the island lends itself to the instant-postcard moments with exquisite ease, the views are each more beautiful than the other, and by five thirty when the sun begins to set against the small of the mountains of Moorea, like a volcano erupt with yellow lava, you forget the sweltering sickly heat of the day, the crazy car traffic (with seemingly more 4x4 than people with a license), and then you realise how lucky it is that this wondrous sight is brought upon a platter for you to contemplate.
And yet my first glimpse of the island, by night, after a 25-hour journey, filled with impatience at the thought of finding a corner to crawl into and fall asleep, suggested that French Polynesia was not exactly a developed “territory”. In fact, the drive from Faa’a international airport (a glorified warehouse) to our temporary lodgings painted a vastly darker picture than the one depicted by the Sheraton’s brochure—shanty towns. Poverty. Dirt.
It became apparent that, once again, reality lay in one of those awkward half-truths. And this is where Politics step in. Politics are the soap opera of French Polynesia. No joke. The “Territoire” follows its highs and lows in the two local papers “La Dépêche” and “Les Nouvelles” (something like Nouse and Vision) It’s better than YUSU’s pseudo-scandals or the Grace-gate, for here Votes of Confidence Have Real Repercussions.
Or do they?
On August 30th 2007, I met Gaston Tong Sang, then President of French Polynesia. The next day’s vote of no confidence brought his 8-months presidency to an end.
Gaston Tong Sang and Marie
On August 30th 2007, I attended a cocktail party at which I met Gaston Tong Sang, then President of French Polynesia. The next day’s vote of no confidence brought his 8-months presidency to an end. The elections held this February should have seen his re-election as his party obtained the majority. However, he was defeated by the blatantly opportunistic UPLD-Tahoera alliance. I should probably mention that these two parties are otherwise sworn enemies.
On April 10th, another vote of no confidence brought Tong Sang back to power with a fragile majority of 29/57 votes in the assembly, ending Gaston Flosse’s 51-day government.
Tahiti hosts the “Billabong Pro” but the sport that really rouses the masses in French Polynesia is politics. Politicians such as Gaston Flosse have been around since 1972, and boy, do people want him Out Of There. However, despite the general dissatisfaction and scepticism of the population with its representatives, the Presidency is nothing but a twisted game of musical chairs. Gaston Flosse, Oscar Temaru and Gaston Tong Sang have each had two, if not three brief spells at the Presidency in the last four years.
That’s a new President every six months.
The picture of contradictions is made complete by the re-election this spring of Emile Vernaudon although he was still incarcerated for embezzlement. But he’s been mayor of Mahina since 1977, so why vote him “off the island”?
In its odd blend of stability and instability, good-will and corruption, Polynesian politics are both a source of perpetual amusement and perpetual sadness. Perhaps this is the kind of thing Churchill meant: “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.” But then again, we’re talking about a few archipelagos scattered about the South Pacific; and while I have fallen in love with the landscape and the people, few of the politicians would get my vote of confidence.
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