Making Pacific Island Culture Mainstream

Slight twist with plans: Fiji Web Design is custom developing a product that will power "The Kokonut Rootz Project" based on Search Engine technology. The soon to be released component is called "NewsNuke."

NewsNuke is being prototyped on the website fijicoup.org but more details on the component will soon be published by FWD. Basically, the component makes all specific media centralised and indexed. It captures all information accessible via the world wide web for Pacific media and broadcasts them according to specific categories. All content will be administered through the Joomla CMS backend and it can be sorted according to relevance, time and other criterias. 

The underlying principle is all island media should be mainstream because it exemplifies and strengthens the survival of indigenous understanding in a metropolitan/western society. As long as the diaspora and the coming generations can have access to the digital imprint of our cultures on the world wide web, we will be able to preserve the heritage and understanding of our traditional customs.

Our portal will also be an avenue to recognize the people who are putting the name of the Pacific Islands on the map in their respective industries. As it is it is we're slowly but surely coming together and we have plans to handover the site to the administrators of Pacific Culture and South Pacific. Visit their pages to follow the same tenets that we believe in.

That's it for now, here is a tune from Aoteoroa by Sons of Zion - Be with You:

Cultures of the Pacific Islands

It was back in Form 5 at Yat Sen Secondary School, when we were prescribed the the most important of English projects in our whole entire secondary level education. To make the feat even more of a challenge, every group was given the responsibility of impressing the oversight of our then principal -Mrs. Bessie Ali. My group was fueled with ideas from the creative and critical minds of Jone Katonivualiku (grapevines) and Peni Motoya (fals..haha).

At first, I thought we were a lost cause because we didn't really have a clue what to do our research on. As other groups jumped at the idea of various topics like Biological developments, Technological Innovation and Renewable Energy, we had no clue where to start. May it be a saving grace, that somehow we stumbled upon the topic of Cultures of the Pacific Islands. I might be wrong, but it may have been Jone who came up with the idea and, Peni and I rolled with it.

In its very essence, our project was the outcome of inquisitive minds and pure data analysis. It was so good that it was the only project to be lifted up in the air by our principal, and exemplified as "how a research project should be compiled." We didn't just get an A, we got an A+.

To crack the egg open, the yoke of our research was on the similarities and differences between cultures in the Pacific Islands. Our means of primary data collection was through questionnaires filled by students of Pacific Island decent at our school. We also quoted secondary data from published texts on culutural traits in the South Pacific. Furthermore, we graphically represented our data after statistically analyzing the feedback we got from our questionnaires. Our conclusion - there is more similarities than differences about cultures in the Pacific Islands.

With that established, I decided to run a little with the thought. After establishing good connections with other Polynesians, Melanesians and Micronesians in the American diaspora, it is evident that our way of life is something that is struggling to be passed on from generation to generation. A professor of Sociology at the University of the South Pacific - Dr. Ropate Qalo - who so happens to be my Grand Uncle, once told me of this social concern in the coming generation. He informed me that cultural understanding is grounds to a firm identity and, HOME is where that firm foundation is built. Mannerisms, protocols and verbal communication in the mother tongue is the lost pride in a dying breed of Pacific Islanders that have either grown up or settled away from home. I didn't understand the context of his wisdom, in his attempt to convince me not to leave home. But, only now am I grasping the truth in understanding my identity as a Fijian, and the world perspective that encompasses thinking as an Indigenous person. 

My hope is to someday use the internet through social interactivity to provide an avenue for a generation gap to be bridged!

Development Progress: 

• Researching Site Content Structure
• Building Site Interface
• Brainstorming Organizational Structure
• Gathering Intel

Here is a tune that speaks to the masses:

FINAL SEAL - NON PROFIT ORGANIZATION

I have decided, with proper thought, to establish on the digital world that the Kokonut Rootz project will be registered as a Non-Profit Organization.

I had initially thought to go as a non-profit only because I don't aim to make any money out of it. Plus, as my good friend Darin Williams would put it - "in its very essence, its a philosophy."

If I could draw it all up in one weekends thought process: Kokonut Rootz represents:

• "Keeping the Culture."
• Advocating the Themes of "Love" and "Respect" that is evident in all cultural identities accross the globe.

At the sametime I reach out to all island people by using the cost effective aspects of modern day media internetwork communications/social media to teach the coming generations about integral aspects of our cultural identities like traditions, relationships, games and mannerisms primarily for island nations. All this can be educated and advocated to the leaders and the people in the diasporic communities. Ultimately, the goal will be to boost the music, arts and fashion industries to provide aspiring artists a better platform online to make their trade represent an identity

Its easy for me to walk into the University of the South Pacific and pick out masterpieces that are only open to the local consumer markets. Our arts in all forms need to be broadcasted through social media.  Islanders have individual cultural identities that can be educated through social media by using our universal(corporate) stereotype as Kokonutz or just laid back people who share the Love & Respect with each other wherever in the world we may be!

The Philosophy is as simple as understanding that we need to be helping each other appreciate each other more. Its universal in the sense that all cultures (wherever you may be from in this world) are grounded in themes of Love & Respect. Love & Respect in all walks of life.

There is a bigger picture that words in a blog could not quiet draw up but one day when all is said and done, it will all come together...

For the moment enjoy a tune from the islands:- a Fiji and Samoan musical collaboration: