Many Australians, who might holiday there to taste French culture in the Pacific, are unaware of the continuing struggle for sovereignty of the Kanak people (Indigenous New Caldeonians) since the catastrophe of their colonisation by France in 1853. This struggle has often been told through music.
Our research looks at the role of music in political struggles in Melanesia, particularly in West Papua and New Caledonia. Across Melanesia, music is not only evidence of ancient and living cultures, it is also a celebration of Indigenous resistance, agency and resilience.
Songs of resistance
Just now in the street I saw my children
Advancing, shouting “Freedom!”
The high school was empty, where are the youth?
In the streets the city was in protest
Written in 1985, these opening lines, from pioneer Kanak protest singer Jean-Pierre Swan’s song Liberté, refer to les évènements, “the Events”. These were a bloody civil war in New Caledonia in the 1980s that culminated in the massacre of 19 Kanaks by French commandos in 1988, and the assassination in 1989 of the great Melanesian pacifist independence campaigner, Jean-Marie Tjibaou.
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