Culture & Television
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One of the major challenges of societies throughout the South Pacific has been to maintain their traditional customs and traditions in the face of widespread Westernization and so-called modernization.
| Ceremonial Pig Killing | |
| Presidential Recession |
Vanuatu has been in the forefront of maintaining a strong cultural tradition. Independence celebrations bring together dancers and artists from different islands. Traditional dances include the Greeting Dance, Bird Dance, Hat Dance and Mask Dance.
| Greetings at National Arts Festival | |
| Bird Dance | |
| Hat Dance | |
| Mask Dance |
Partly to shield Vanuatu from the influences of Western consumerism and inappropriate social models, the Lini government had resisted introducing television to the country. Maxime Carlot thought differently, however, and T.V. was introduced to Vanuatu for the first time in July of 1992, in time for the Summer Olympics in Spain. Funding for the television was made available by the French government.
| Walter Lini on the Advent of Television | |
| Maxime Carlot Korman on the Advent of Television “[T.V.] is the number one method for communication and to show the image of [our country], and opening up to the world. We think that an independent country needs to open up to the world. Now that doesn’t mean we need to bring in the garbage of the rest of the world and to show it to our people. We are very conscious of this problem and we are against that. But television is important for teaching, for education.” |