Wantok (part two)...

As I was saying several moons ago…

In one sense the wantok system is admirably egalitarian. In village communities it is a social security net, with villagers providing care and food for those in need, ensuring no-one goes hungry. These days in Honiara it provides those of the rural population who come seeking work (85% of the population here live in rural areas) with a roof and food while they find their feet and if they’re lucky a job. It’s also extremely common for parents in the provinces to send their children to stay with wantok (often distant relations they’ve never met) in Honiara, where they will be able to attend secondary school. This was the case for quite a few of my colleagues at the Bank and another typical example is little Luku, a wantok of Luke Forau (my friend who left for Australia). When he was about 5 his parents sent him here to Honiara from distant Tikopia, and for the past 4 years he has been looked after by Luke, in that time not once returning home or seeing his parents, and now addressing Luke as ‘dadi’.

Wantok rules also play a Robin Hood-type role, robbing from the rich and giving to the poor, as in today’s monetary economy simply asking for money handouts from those of your wantok with jobs is an everyday practice. This can’t really be seen as voluntary social assistance either, for it is essentially obligatory if you have any spare cash whatsoever; it is virtually impossible for anyone except the highest highest earners to save money in the Solomons, as it all gets sucked away feeding extra mouths and sorting out wantok with cash. I find something almost amusing about the automatic nature of the process. When certain of Fiona’s friends ask her for money there is no shame whatsoever, even though they earn a similar income but just happen to have spent all theirs already on booze – it is an innocent request for something that you want, like a kid saying ‘Mummy, can I have an ice-cream’, except with little chance of refusal. On her part, when it’s her cousins and closest friends asking she doesn’t seem to mind in the least, but even when she feels someone is taking liberties and is reluctant it is still clearly very difficult to say no.

It is the obligatory aspect of wantok behaviour that really defines it, and which becomes problematic when applied outside the traditional setting. In the village environment there are natural limits to demands on a particular individual or family; if someone asks for food then you have little to lose in providing it, unless you are running short in which case it is straightforward and acceptable to refuse on the grounds that you need to feed your immediate family. In Honiara, however, if someone asks for a bag of rice or a few bucks it is altogether more difficult (and totally unacceptable) to say, for example, “sorry, but I was hoping to save that money in order to buy a new outboard engine/start a business/go on holiday”.

The failure of curbs in today’s environment is most evident in the common problem of wantok overstaying their welcome in Honiara. My colleagues, and the management of the Central Bank in particular who are seen as particularly successful, invariably have at least one or two wantok stopping with them, and often many more. For the young men from the provinces in particular, the appeal of coming to Honiara is all too evident.. They get to stay in a decent house, sponge a bit of cash, go for walkabaot in town and the inevitable betal nut chew, and get spaka at the weekend in the clubs (perhaps hooking up with a sophisticated Honiara lady). Thus their stays can be extended for several months, and is very difficult to ask them to leave. One colleague, however, has found what he sees as a foolproof and unconfrontational way of getting the young men to scarper… when they arrive set them a nice list of gardening and other household tasks to do each day, and you can be sure they won’t hang around very long.

There’s something funny in the canniness of this solution, using as it does the same idea of wantok (since they can’t refuse the tasks given them) to get back at the young men who are exploiting the system by overstaying their welcome. But openly defying wantok codes of behaviour has serious consequences. I’ve heard mention of a few people who outright refuse to engage in the game, who reject the visits of wantok and decline to give money to wantok less fortunate than them. The price for this behaviour, though, is a heavy one; word will soon get out that you are a ‘selfisman’ and the respect and warm welcome in your home village that you would otherwise receive as a successful earner and a ‘bigman’ would be exchanged for relative coldness.

For me it’s especially interesting seeing how the notion of wantok sits with the idea of economic development and a modern democratic economy. For example, it is common knowledge that one of the main reasons ALL retail shops in town are owned by waku (Chinese) is because if an entrepreneurial Solomon Islander opens a store they’ll be inundated with requests for freebies. More problematic still is that when perfectly acceptable wantok rules are applied in the political arena and in public institutions such as the police force, you end up with deep-rooted corruption and nepotism. Looking to the future though, trying to stamp out wantok is an undesirable solution from a cultural perspective and probably futile anyway. Instead a balance must somehow be found in Solomon society, enabling the incredible social ties and belonging that wantok engenders to be maintained, whilst also ensuring a democratic system of governance and business activities can thrive. Unlikely to be witnessed in the relatively short time I’ll be here I suppose, but perhaps one day…


(The photos are from a weekend trip not long ago to a piece of land down the coast that the Central Bank owns. Not owning a car the only option was for us to hire a Central Bank vehicle... which happens to be a big blue truck)