Greed and Grievance: Ex-Militants' Perspectives on the Conflict in Solomon Islands, 1998-2003

Chapter 6 Continuities and Symmetries

157 Chapter 6 Continuities and Symmetries the voices of the ex-militants examined over the previous two chapters encourage us to see them as narrators of ethnohistory. They are active participants in the creation and perpetuation of the micronationalist narratives that have waxed and waned in intensity since before World War II. During the Tension, both “sides” evoked images of the past in order to create both unity and difference: to construct a sense of collective identity, as in “Guale” or “Malaitan,” and also its oppositional “Other.” The symbols of unity that were evoked by the men who were involved in the militant groups are essentially the same as those employed during Maasina Rule and by the Moro Movement. Both sides mobilized kastom, particularly kastom law, and issues of socioeconomic justice as their rallying cries. Both sides also drew upon the long-standing tradition of resistance to “alien” government authority as a source of unity. In some ways it is “the government,” rather than a different island or regional grouping, that has played the role of “Other” in the oppositional construction of identity. Indeed, the constant “blaming” of the government by both sides in the conflict militated against a more direct moral antagonism along ethnic lines. However, the conflict did nevertheless see a polarization of ethnic identities in what became “a civil war...mainly between Malaita and Guadalcanal people” (Bennett 2002, 1). Moreover, each side also employed historic racist discourse in its portrayal of the other: “violent” and “aggressive” in the case of Malaitans, “lazy” and “unproductive” in the case of Guales. There are other striking symmetries and historical continuities in 158 ◊ Chapter 6 the events and discourses of the Tension. Both sides resorted to direct retribution when the government failed to address their demands for compensation. They both engaged in practices reminiscent of traditional Melanesian warfare such as indiscriminate revenge killings, hit-andrun attacks, and the burning down of houses and entire villages. Both militant groups also became increasingly engaged in criminal activities as the conflict wore on. Moreover, they both fractured into subregional groupings and factions after the TPA and, in the case of the Guale militants , well before then. As in the past, the appeal to a wider circle of identity was highly contextual, lasting only as long as the particular circumstances of its invocation. What emerges most clearly from the ex-militants’ narratives is that the politics of identity, framed around kastom, socioeconomic inequality , and resistance to government authority, and firmly embedded in the “past,” was an important factor motivating them to engage in collective violence. Moreover, the ex-militants must be seen as producers, as well as consumers, of identity discourses. The men who joined the militant groups were not simply foot soldiers in the “stage armies” of manipulative “conflict engineers.” To the contrary, they are the latest in successive generations of men who have appealed to the same myths, symbols, and ideologies in the historical construction of identities such as “Guadalcanal ” and “Malaita.” Moreover, there are striking similarities in the grievances that they have sought, as collectivities, to have redressed: the imposition of alien legal and political hegemony, regional disparities in the penetration of capitalism and the distribution of the benefits of development , and the inappropriateness of government conceptions and models of “rural development.” This chapter explores these themes by drawing out salient similarities and differences in the stories of Malaitan and Guale ex-militants and the ways in which they articulate with the past. I also seek to locate their grievances and identity narratives in the ethnographic present. In particular, I examine outstanding grievances against the government, and to a lesser extent against RAMSI, and the ways in which these are being expressed by people on both Guadalcanal and Malaita. It’s the Government, Stupid Both Guale and Malaitan ex-militants lay the blame for the Tension squarely at the feet of the government. Guales hold the government responsible for not controlling the migration of people from other prov- Continuities and Symmetries ◊ 159 inces to Honiara and north Guadalcanal, as well as for a range of other grievances, most notably the perceived inequity of revenue-sharing arrangements . Similarly, Malaitans believe that the deliberate neglect of Malaita by colonial and postcolonial governments has meant that they have always been forced to go elsewhere to find work, and since World War II, most of the employment and business opportunities have been in Honiara...