FROM THE DEEP: PASIFIKI VOICES FOR A NEW STORY
new concept or socio-ecological ontology that is peculiarly intrinsic to the COVID-19 pandemic only. Admittedly, it is critically important that the Oceania New Normal we seek to construct addresses specifically the peculiarities of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Pacific. Yet, while the term New Normal may be a new addition to our post-trauma vocabulary in the Pacific, spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic, it does not connote anything new, but rather a socioecological ontology which is as old or commonplace as the fact that Pacific island countries and people are no strangers to catastrophes, as mentioned. That is, every New Normal replaces or is the successor of the previous New Normal or Old Normal, a socio-ontological shift somewhat akin to the Kuhnian epistemic paradigm shift, brought on by a catastrophe. In any case, what do I mean by Pacific island countries and peoples being no strangers to catastrophes? From as far back as our collective regional and country-specific histories can serve us, Pacific island societies have been rocked to their bare foundations by one form of catastrophe or another, both natural and human-made. As examples of human-made catastrophes, the majority of Pacific island societies, with perhaps Tonga as the exception, were victims of colonisation and various in-country events of inter-group bloody violence, such as happened in Fiji in the early 1980s and Solomon Islands in the late 1990s. The same can be said also of natural catastrophes such as cyclones, earthquakes and flooding. Today globalisation can unequivocally be added to the list as a humanmade catastrophe because of the disastrous impacts it is having on Pacific island societies in the name of development, through cultural denigration, religious schism, pitting groups against each other, and large-scale mining and logging by multinational business conglomerates. Yet, from their decades, indeed centuries of experience with catastrophes, generations of Pacific Island people have built a level of resilience and ingenuity and a huge body of knowledge which have enabled them to wade through and pull out of any catastrophe with remarkable expertise. For example, British and French colonisation in the Pacific was among some of the most brutal forms of colonisation ever exercised on any human groups in the world in the 1800s. Yet Pacific island countries which managed to regain their political independence and humanity did so relatively peacefully. Admittedly, there were incidents of bloodshed which punctuated these events. In any case, the same level of resilience, ingenuity and agility which generations of Pacific Islanders had peacefully exercised in regaining their political independence and humanity could also be seen in how they usually triumphantly
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