Today, one of our students asked me what is my greatest fear. My response: the fear of not having a safe home. I was thinking of Samoa returning to snap election. This follows a political impasse and a hung parliament refusing to come to some form of agreement. While this is now the reality in Samoan politics, there is another reality that is lurking underneath the swells, one that is more perilous and gravely lethal than the political crisis. That is the erosion, or perhaps I would say, the ‘deliberate slaughter’ of the very values that our Mau liberation movement fought for, the value of freedom: the freedom to be Samoan, to behave like a Samoan, and to live like a Samoan. This freedom can only be fully achieved through sacrifice and properly manifested through “alofa”, “va fealoai,” “faaaloalo,” “ava fatafata.”
THE AGE OF MORAL NUMBNESS
Our ancestors knew that without these values that underpin the wisdom of self-restraint, le tofa taofiofi, we would end up like a vaatele (great voyaging canoe) without a sail, or a faletele (great house) without a central post. Social media has become a ferocious promoter of the ‘narrative of war’. War of words. War of nuances. War of unruly imaginations and assumptions. The narrative of war produces heroes and conquerors, not so much compassionate and wise leaders. The continuous swearing on social media (those that I don’t want any Samoan sister to read), the labeling, the demonization, the stereotyping, and the categorization, continue the vicious cycle of violence in Samoa. Samoan people are producing angry people. Warlike people. Judgmental people. People who no longer think twice picking up a rock, knife, gun, even the bible as a weapon to hurt or to kill. Young people with school uniforms are fighting in town. People are beating up others while the public record videos. We no longer have the wisdom to debate without being violent. What we call in Samoa, “amio pulea.” This means our net of values is torn. Our homes are no longer safe. We are in an age of moral numbness. People no longer feel the weight of words they put on screen and the impact of such words on not just the person the message is intended for, but also the public. And when we no longer feel the violence of words, then not only we are no longer free, we are no different from the colonizers who labelled us savages, barbarous, and uncivilized. These colonizers had one plan. To belittle and devalue.
Worse, the ones who are slaughtering our values on social media, are those who think they know the Samoan culture and who think are the guardians of our traditions. Many have multiple Matai titles, others call themselves Faifeau, and many are educated people. Behind the many keyboards looms not so much the fight for freedom and justice, but rather the fight for popularity, pride, and gaining more online followers. History tells us that we cannot defeat dictators through the narrative of war. Rather such narrative continues to breed dictators. It creates tyrants and autocrats. It reproduces the cycle of violence, lies, and false truths. In the Samoan culture, the one who leans towards the narrative of war is often called ‘immature’.
But there is another alternative narrative. This is the ‘narrative of restraint’. It is a narrative grounded in alofa and faaaloalo. One that invites us to feel first the consequences of words before they violate others. To experience first the weight of words before they destroy others. To endure first the cruelty of words before they kill others. A narrative summed up in Jesus words, “do to others what you would have them do to you.” These words do not sink canoes. They liberate us from the curse of warlike imagination. Today, Samoan parliamentarians called for peace in Samoa. But there is no peace unless we find the courage to have peace with our selves first. Can our education system look at this? Can pulega a alii ma faipule fix this? Can our churches heal this? The solution is not closing down social media. Rather the solution must delve deeper into our unchecked structures and violent traditions. If not treated soon, then I’m afraid that our canoe is heading towards sinking from the weight of words.
Photo – it’s funny how long it takes for us to build a house using our own tools and how fast we can destroy it today with just one violent word, using someone else’s tools, the social media.