Keywords

1 Introduction

“Common destiny”, a widely used term in Kanaky-New Caledonia to signal a shared sense of belonging and inclusion, is part of a desire for social peace. The Matignon-Oudinot Accords in 1988 – putting an end to a situation of civil war (1984–1988), and then, the Nouméa Accord in 1998 have led to the sharing of political sovereignty with France, in a decolonisation process leading towards full sovereignty. Other chapters explain (see Chaps. 17, 18, 20, by Gagné, Fisher and Robertson in this book) that the question of access to full sovereignty (or political independence) was unsuccessfully put to the test in three referendums between 2018 and 2021. The Nouméa Accord also promoted a greater recognition of Kanak identity. With Indigenous Kanak customary status recognised by civil law, new institutions have been created. Over the past 20 years, these have included an Academy of Kanak Languages, the Agency for the Development of Kanak Culture (ADCK), the Tjibaou Cultural Centre, a Customary Senate, and the inclusion of Kanak languages and culture in schools (see Chaps. 13 and 14 by Leblic and Wadrawane in this book). Nevertheless, studies reveal that social-economic and ethnic inequalities persist (related in particular to participation in higher education, employment levels and housing availability) (Gorohouna 2011).

In spite of its solid historical foundations, the concept of common destiny shared by the different ethnic groups is opaque, as I explore in this chapter. Is there really a New Caledonian politics conducive to the construction of a “common world” or “common future”, with plurality, diversity and respecting personhood (Arendt 1958)? According to Achille Mbembe and in contrast to Carl Schmitt (Schmitt 1992, cited in Mbembe 2018), politics discriminates between friends and enemies and often through magnifying topical issues like terrorism threats, the settlement of migrants or the dangers of communitarianism found in Melanesian societies.

European ethno-nationalism,Footnote 1 for example, becomes xenophobic when the “other” threatens social peace through aspiring to a European standard of living, with its supporters assuming this will be detrimental to European’s own comfort. The “common destiny” is really a nostalgic vision of politics, a creator of the “common” as Hannah Arendt (1958) argued, and also promoted by the political class of Kanaky-New Caledonia.

2 The Referendum Series

A series of three referendums on the access to full sovereignty has taken place in Kanaky-New Caledonia (Kowasch et al. 2022; see also Chaps. 17, 18, 20 in this book). Loyalists were always in favour of remaining with France. They have focused their arguments on the fact that it is important to retain the chance to be French (travelling to Europe without a visa, etc.). But they have not developed a strong political project in over 25 years of the Nouméa Accord. From their point of view, independence would be a break in the pseudo-filial connection with metropolitan France. This is shown in the loyalist electoral campaigns promoting pathos, essentially fear, arguing that independence will result in a “banana republic”. Loyalist speeches reveal a certain discrimination through the objectification of Kanak communitarianism, also stigmatizing the sovereignty project of Kanak independence leaders. An example was an electoral video clip published before the last referendum in 2021 by the collective of “No” voices, which has since been withdrawn because it was discriminatory. The choice of “No to independence” reaffirms a pre-established social order, a kind of colonial footprint.

However, France has been promoting a social-ethnic politics of rebalancing in Kanaky-New Caledonia since the Matignon-Oudinot Accords in 1988, by subsidising for example training programmes aimed at establishing a Kanak middle class. These include the Cadre avenir (Future economic and political leaders) programme. The programme allows the former colonial power (France) to institute, through meritocracy, its manifest goodwill, with the aim of “colouring” the administrations to some extent, and to train executives who believe they have improved their social or economic status. I question if this is an effort to wash away certain social and racial ills, caused by the colonial hierarchy and the widespread prejudices that Kanak people suffered. We cannot overlook the real violence endured by Kanak people during the colonial period in Kanaky-New Caledonia nor the plight of their Aboriginal neighbours in Australia.

The pro-independence leaders, on the other hand, defend a multilateral project, meaning that everything is a question of managing interdependencies. They try to reassure their detractors, not all of whom are against independence, but there is a concern that the pro-independence leaders are not ready (yet) to assume office. For these detractors, the financial health and the success of the Koniambo project (a live issue in 2024, see Chaps. 8 and 9 by Kowasch and Merlin, and Demmer in this book) are indicators of the reliability of the independence project and its leaders. The Kanak independence project adopts Marxist ideas, similar to the early leaders of independence in former African colonies. They have adopted a policy of appropriating the means of (nationalized) production in order to realise added value. This is an emancipatory project, to release Kanak peoples from the French state. However, it is worth remembering that a net trade deficit, ongoing social inequalities and financial debts thwarted the emancipatory ambitions of many African countries by the 1980s and 1990s. Moreover, the initial Kanak independence project that wanted a return to an agrarian society has shifted considerably once control of mining revenues became involved. Mining revenues can fuel Dumazedier’s leisure society (2018), with productivity and wage labour obtained thanks to technologies that allow societies to release more time for leisure, thereby centring custom and cultural events in a very different way.

The expression of Kanak or French social and political projects varies according to the different parties proposing these frameworks but against a background of ethnocentrism. This tends to make the debate a “dialogue of the deaf”. Moreover, both Kanak and French ethnocentric sentiments are subject, particularly because of the engagement in corporate mining and global markets, to an overarching political economy guided by neoliberalism.

Despite alliances between pro- and anti-independence parties, the political landscape is characterized by a dualistic partisanship of the local political class. For the loyalists (some of the conservative parties come close to extreme right-wing viewpoints), the dualistic partisanship starts with preconceived notions of an insoluble civilisational differential, based on the claim that Kanak are ontologically opposed to a “white” society and its ideals. There is a hint of determinism here, denying intermarriages and political alliances and also refusing a possible associated State (Kanaky-New Caledonia) as a compromise or third way between political independence and a future as an integral entity of the French Republic. The pro-independence leaders, on the other hand, denounce a racialisation of the figure of the other, as a source of social exclusion (at least of certain social strata). In the current state of affairs, living together in Kanaky-New Caledonia is hampered by an electoral ambition that reinforces political and social tensions. Identity construction is thus parasitised by binary electoral issues. The series of three referendums became political matches (as did other territorial elections). The question remains, how can people be united when the referendums feel like a defamation of the other, with celebration of “victory” and “defeat”? In this difficult context, the construction of a New Caledonian identity and “living together” is solidly linked to politics and political institutions and appears to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

3 French Political Parenthood

At the third and last referendum on political independence in December 2021, the abstention of the pro-independence proponents followed the refusal of France to postpone the referendum date (see Chap. 18 by Fisher in this book). The independence cause was confined in the meanders of French bureaucracy, so that the pro-independence parties felt forced to opt for an empty chair policy. The independence leader’s request for postponement was justified by an outbreak of COVID-19 infections which impacted the whole island and led to a rapid increase in mortality (Kowasch et al. 2022; Leblic 2021). Mourning the dead, like any other cultural ceremony in Melanesian society, needs time for custom to take on its full, collective meaning. The cards of the independence question were dealt by a twist of fate, a conjunction of events, and the pro-independence movement did not seem to be up to the challenge. For example, the ruckus in December 2020 related to the selling of the Vale nickel smelter, in the south of Grande Terre impacted the serenity of the independence campaign (see Chaps. 8 and 9 in this book). Dissent between two independence parties PALIKA (Parti de Libération Kanak) and UC (Union Calédonienne) over the election of the first ever pro-independence candidate as President of the New Caledonian government in Spring 2021 was only resolved after several months of negotiation. Of course, the hand that feeds is the hand that leads, and the French government reshuffled and controlled the cards of the New Caledonian political game. It was difficult for the pro-independence parties to assert their claims in this context. The latter are still political outsiders in their own territory. They did achieve a solid result in the second referendum. But gaining the presidency of the 17th government of Kanaky-New Caledonia, now led since July 2021 by the PALIKA member Louis Mapou, seems to be a meagre consolation prize for the pro-independence movement, which is not a homogeneous block.

The position of the French president, Emmanuel Macron, towards (ethnic) pluralism is outdated, as his visit to the archipelago in 2023 revealed. Nevertheless, he began fine-tuning his communication towards minorities through a full-scale charm offensive during his first term in office. At the last France-Africa summit in Montpellier on 8 October 2021, he made paternalistic announcements, covering the entire continent. In the francophone Pacific, it was difficult to imagine the French government indulging the request of the pro-independence movement to delay the third and last referendum, given that France has an interest in keeping this South Pacific archipelago and its resources under its yoke. One reason for this is the maritime zone, with large minerals resources on the seabed, which ensure a strategic position for France. The presence of France in a region where the US and China have strategic (military and economic) interests, is another argument for France to keep Kanaky-New Caledonia, the largest of the French overseas territories in the Pacific region.

It is debatable whether the term “independence” means so much in a context where the Pacific is enmeshed in global networks and relations. Neoliberalism is also a colonial project. Some pro-independence leaders have suggested that “association” (or independence-association) could characterise future governance arrangements with France, partly placating some of their loyalist detractors. Other sceptics see independence association as similar to the unequal relations between France and African nations, characterised by a neo-colonial pyramidal system of domination, which has endured well past so-called “liberation”. The history of relationships between France and its former colonies gives a glimpse of an institutionalised form of neo-colonialism: a façade of administrative decolonisation but with a stranglehold on some resources. In addition, rebel operations in Mali and Burkina Faso and a military coup in Niger have not been solved by French military intervention, and a French currency bloc remains in place: there is widespread dissatisfaction with elements of the ongoing neo-colonial relationship.

4 The Management of French Pluralism Leaves Something to Be Desired

The French political class knows the potential threats from referendums. There was the resignation of General De Gaulle on 28 April 1969 following his earlier referendum on the creation of regions and the renovation of the Senate in France, and on 29 May 2005, the vote against the establishment of a European Constitution. Although the majority of French voters were against, the Treaty of Rome was signed a year later and the result of the referendum was not respected. In 2018, the Gilets Jaunes movement proposed a citizens’ initiative referendum, with a pro-citizen constitutional change, but their ideas were dismissed. Emmanuel Macron tried to organise a referendum on the climate issue but this foundered in the French Senate in 2021 (France24 2021).

In 2021, the Macron government therefore broke its “neutrality” promises established in earlier decades (Kowasch et al. 2022). The government commissioned a study to shed light on the effects and consequences of possible independence for Kanaky-New Caledonia (Ministère des Outre-Mer 2021). The 104-page study, published in July 2021, was hardly objective or, at the least, unbalanced. It focused “on the financing granted by France over the last 30 years and offered only historical reminders (now rather dated) to illustrate the effects of independence in its most visible aspects, for example on nationality” (Kowasch et al. 2022, p. 14). The results and consequences of the study were discussed by French and international researchers, especially after the third referendum in December 2021 (e.g. David and Tirard 2022; Fisher, 2021; Trépied 2021; see also see Chap. 18 in this book). Trépied (2021), for example, explained that the study highlighted the expense of the “yes”. David and Tirard (2022) noted that it underlined the reduction of French financial support for New Caledonia in case of independence. The French government is thus rehabilitating an image of good Samaritan, by flying to the rescue of the New Caledonian archipelago.

Apart from the administrative conveniences (passport, diplomas, etc.) linked to the fact that New Caledonians remain French, the vision that the territory cannot evolve without France remains. This perception was supported by the disagreements over the selling of the Vale smelter and mine. A peaceful and harmonious future seemed to be far away at that time. And in 2024, New Caledonian society is still struggling to create its own identity. The French government intends to give birth to this identity by forceps.

At the same time, the shadow of the Chinese ogre floats over the territory and China seems to be keen to bite into the archipelago. Staying French is all very well, but what exactly does “being French” really mean? At the last French presidential elections in particular, the electoral campaigns were struggling with the question of national identity, impacted by a shift to the right of the political landscape and later of the new Macron government. The electoral campaigns sometimes showed a contest of hatred towards minorities. And under the guise of assimilation, national identity actually allows ethno-nationalists to promote cultural hegemony. There are valid reasons to be sceptical about the development of a Caledonian identity under French tutelage. France often uses electoral clientelism towards its national sub-groups (including Africans, Arabs, and also Kanaks), although recognising communitarianism (seeing a community of people in a given place). Minorities, in the collective imagination, participate in the glory of the nation in proscribed ways, for example, through performances in international sports. However, identities and cultures, rightly or wrongly, mix and evolve in line with reality which means that national identity is never immutable.

5 A Model of Society Yet to Be Built

Kanaky-New Caledonia has begun a process of decolonisation, apparently stuck in a kind of institutional marasmus. The Matignon-Oundinot and Nouméa Accords appear to have locked the country into developing some political competencies through transfers from France (e.g. primary school education, labour laws, etc.). In addition, appropriating the means of production with local infrastructure, heavy industries and a productive labour force as the base of a Caledonian society has been the project of Marxist intellectuals and leaders.

The binary referendum choices from 2018 to 2021 reflect the political landscape described above. Bipartisanism, as a norm, permeates the society, determining power relationships. Loyalist vs. independentist political identities thus appear as fixed social representations. In binary social arrangements, one group is always subject to the will of the other. Questioning this binary identity would also call into question the very identity of the individual, who constructs her- or himself inside this intrinsic political scheme. Therefore, referendums lock individuals into political identities linked to the question of the future political status but do not deal with the construction of a common identity. A crystallised political identity takes precedence and holds back a unitary common destiny.

Domination by democratic means has occurred as the result of the referendum cycle. The political institutions allow the elected representatives to claim defence of the people, while at the same time enjoying the privileges linked to their official functions. Indeed, voters feel unrepresented. Political and economic leaders do not like to give up their privileges or have their positions challenged. Moreover, almost all of them support an economic growth model that ultimately contributes to global environmental change, biodiversity loss and global warming (Kopnina 2020; Rockström 2015; Washington 2015). Omnipresent mining activities of course make Kanaky-New Caledonia a major emitter of greenhouse gases. However, the trickle-down theory of economic growth appears to be a dogma. Therefore, I argue that decolonisation is also about deconstructing a form of capitalism that establishes an individualistic rationalism, challenging a certain dollar-chasing mentality.

To build a common identity and to establish greater intercultural connections, we should first of all deconstruct notions such as “colonisation” and “equality”. We should be aware that the various forms of discrimination (in hiring, in access to rental housing, in health care, etc.) are often suffered by the same individuals. Others would say that we need to have the courage to question our current economic model. One way to emerge from the abyss of capitalism and increasing social inequalities can be a reappropriation of the commons.

6 A Reappropriation of the Commons

The pro-independence umbrella party Front de Libération Nationale Kanak et Socialiste (FLNKS) has the vocation of being a revolutionary party and to create a bulwark against economic imperialism.

The pro-independence leaders have copied an economic growth model to promote local economic development and political emancipation (see Chap. 9 in this book). There is no alternative offered to ensure a (slow and not brutal) transition and/or a co-existence of Kanak traditional activities (such as subsistence farming and fishing) and mining on an industrial scale. However, the range of possibilities for promoting and valorising traditional activities and sustainability measures is vast. There are, for example, plant nurseries, sandalwood cooperatives and small-scale coffee farms. Moreover, the agricultural know-how of communities and clans can be promoted as well as organising traditional Kanak pharmacopoeia through women’s cooperatives. Paul Fokam’s Mutuelles de Croissance Communautaires (MC2) was established in Cameroon in the 1990s, offering microcredit specifically for African villagers. They can submit a traditional cultural relic as a guarantee in order to get a small loan for buying land or agricultural tools. The emphasis here is on the symbolic aspect of cultural items as leverage to invest reasonable sums of money, from the perspective of an economy of the common good (Felber 2018). On Pentecost island in Vanuatu, there is an initiative called the Tangbunia Bank. The bank is run by the Indigenous Turaga movement and uses traditional currencies, such as handwoven mats, shells or pig tusks. It was set up in accordance with the national government’s support for customary community economies. There are opportunities in Kanaky-New Caledonia to establish similar initiatives to support local customary activities.

The pro-independence project focuses on managing interdependence, without empowering its militant base. Therefore, pro-independence representatives mainly focus on strengthening public institutions and income streams to promote a Kanak nation in potential development. Some young pro-independence activists feel disconnected from the institutions governing them, and struggle to find any real meaning in the fight for independence. The agrarian character of traditional Kanak communities is not promoted, although it could play a major role in food sovereignty. Family farming still supports good nutrition in Pacific island communities, but the impact of imported food – and malnutrition – is growing fast and is present in Kanaky-New Caledonia too. Although the independence movement is not a homogeneous bloc, subsistence activities, food self-sufficiency and environmental issues more generally are not its central foci.

The role of the Customary Senate, created with the Nouméa Accord in 1998, is a guardian of the land and Kanak culture. However, the Senate seems to be caught up with gaining a greater institutional role, including legislative powers. Moreover, the representativeness of Senate members is sometimes contested, often based on conflicts over customary legitimacy.

Collective memory is essential to remember the real history of colonisation and its ongoing repercussions: The territory cannot get bogged down in amnesia. Indigenous Kanak culture is not a brake on social-economic development and well-being. Faced with global environmental crises and the climate emergency, we cannot remain impassive. We need to move beyond endless consumption, promoted by globalisation, leading to environmental damage and overproductivity. The New Caledonian identity debate is hampered by its economic growth model, which promotes modernity and rationalism to the detriment of social and cultural issues.

7 Conclusion

Given the climate crisis, the fate of Kanaky-New Caledonia should not be decided at the ballot box, because the three referendums have highlighted the bipolar character of the political landscape and increased the gap between the different (ethnic) communities. It is based on the idea that the stability of democracy will emerge from homogeneity. However, democracies thrive on difference, pluralism and diversity. Citizens mobilise through demonstrations and awareness-raising actions to express their points of view, to resist and to take social responsibility. Activism and demonstrations are a form of bottom-up movement essential to engage in political debate and discussion. For citizens, these social actions consist of reappropriating public debates in a democratic dynamic, with reformist overtones.

The lack of viable alternatives to the “uncommon destiny” that is evolving in Kanaky-New Caledonia is the source of its ills. In this sense, citizen initiatives found in other island economies should multiply via a social economy of solidarity in Kanaky-New Caledonia and not only to reduce the climate crisis (local chains of production, recycling centres, food banks, etc.). Kanaky-New Caledonia’s questioning of its identity is stymied by its pro-industrial model of society. A “common destiny” imposes on subaltern peoples a voluntary servitude towards the capitalist system. To qualify “destiny” as “common” is paradoxical, because capitalism still profits from competition between individuals.

At the same time, certain citizen aspirations are reflected in the appearance of new political parties, such as Construire Autrement or Souveraineté Calédonienne. They present themselves as ruptures or complements to the traditional parties. They illustrate a reappropriation by civil society of political and social-economic issues in order to engage and participate in political dialogue. In this respect, Kanaky-New Caledonia needs to free up its voice, to find a way out of the political and cultural divide through talk, and by accepting difference. And as Marx (1888 [1845]) underlined, it is no longer a question of understanding the world, but of transforming it.