Keith Woodward, former Secretary for Political Affairs in the British
National Service in the New Hebrides (1953-78), has produced in his
engaging memoir an original and important contribution to the history of
Vanuatu's transformation from a unique Condominium form of colony to an
independent state in 1980. It is not an historical text per se (in the sense that
it falls under the memoir genre rather than researched history), but it offers an
insightful firsthand account of colonial administration, bilateral French and
British relations, political change and decolonisation in Vanuatu.
Although some of the material that these memoirs cover has been included in
the main histories of Vanuatu (for example, MacClancy 1980; Miles 1998; van
Trease 1987) and the somewhat forgotten political commentary written at the
time of Vanuatu's transition to independence (for example Jackson 1972), the
benefit of this manuscript is that it consolidates a lot of formerly disparate
information, accounts and evidence into a single volume. It also addresses
some lacunae in the historiography of Vanuatu, particularly Woodward's
account of how the French position moved from being antagonistic toward
Jimmy Stevens' Nagriamel movement through to accommodation and
eventually, active support. It also dispels a number of assumptions about
French intentions in Vanuatu. For example, it is widely assumed that France
wanted to turn the New Hebrides into a French territory along the lines of New
Caledonia and French Polynesia. However, Woodward shows that French
representatives acknowledged as early as 1969 the likelihood that Vanuatu
could become independent, but that they also envisaged a gradual
decolonisation that would result in continuing strong French influence. This
resonates with some of the archival research that I have been doing in New
Caledonia and France which suggests that while French authorities did not
rule out eventual territorial status for the New Hebrides, they also conceded
the eventual possibility of independence quite early on, admittedly as a
francophone state closely aligned with France and its interests.
Another important contribution of this memoir is Woodward's detailed
description of the development of the electoral system of Vanuatu. This was
devised for elections to the Representative Assembly in 1975 and the basic
structure of the multi-seat constituencies remains in place to this day (minus
the specially reserved seats for Chiefs and the Chamber of Commerce).
This book would be of benefit to people interested in the history of political
change in Vanuatu in particular and in the Pacific generally, and most
especially in French-British relations, particularly their divergent colonial
policies.
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