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Vanuatu is one of the first of many nations that will be discussed that lies in the South Pacific Ocean which is famous for its tourist hot spots like Bora Bora in Tahiti and Fiji. Islands that were created by still active volcanic calderas, the South Pacific has some of the most famous and beautiful beaches in the world. Located in the Ring of Fire, Vanuatu’s closest neighbor is the French territory of New Caledonia to the southwest, the Solomon Islands chain to the northwest, and Fiji directly to the east with the massive continent of Australia laying southwest and New Zealand being located directly south.
The history of Vanuatu can be quickly summarized. This part of the South Pacific is where the United States began its island hopping strategy during World War II towards Okinawa and their eventual defeat of the Empire of Japan. 10,000 Vanuatu men served in the labor force during World War II helping the Allies with logistics during the Battle for Guadacanal in the Solomon Islands just to the northwest. The South Pacific is divided into three island regions. The first is Polynesia spanning a triangle from Hawaii in the north to New Zealand in the south to Easter Island to the east. The second region is Micronesia laying west of Hawaii and located the furthest north with all the primary islands in this section being very small and self-contained. The American territory of Guam which we re-captured during World War II is inside this region. The final region is Melanesia where Vanuatu is located. These are the islands located northeast of Australia. The first recorded human activity on Vanuatu was by the Austronesians of the Lapita Culture tracing back as much as 3000 years. The first contact with foreigners occurred in 1606 when the Portuguese navigator Pedro Fernandes de Querios discovered the island chain. The Spanish eventually created a settlement of their own in 1768. The islands were a source of indentured servitude for these European Empires. Eventually, the British and French took them over. Captain Cook, calling the islands New Hebrides, visited as well as French missionaries who came to convert the population to Christianity. The British and French entered into a condominium agreement exercising dual control over the islands in 1887. Due to the poverty and ongoing colonial conditions, a man named Jimmy Stevens began a rebellion against British rule. Conquering the island of Espiritu Santo and declaring it the new nation of Vemerana, Papua New Guinea attacked Vanuatu in what would eventually be called The Coconut War. A month later on July 30, 1980, the Republic of Vanuatu as an independent sovereign nation was created. Flag of Vanuatu Vanuatu is an archipelago officially recognizing 83 islands as part of its nation. All of them were created through volcanic activity and 65 of them are inhabited. The population of the island are the native Ni-Vanuatu people which make up close to 99% of its citizens. Their native language of Bislama is spoken as well as the languages of English and French. Over 90% of the population is Christian. Its capital is Port Vila and the country has around a 335,000 person population. The total area of all 83 islands still makes it one of the smallest nations on the Earth ranking 157th. Their currency is the Vatu. Vanuatu is still recovering from its colonial era. It is a poor nation with approximately 30% of the people living below the poverty line. Part of the reason for this is that the majority of the population practices subsistence farming, fishing and craft making which gives the people the basic necessities for survival but does not produce enough to make it an economic force of internatioal trade. The largest island, Espiritu Santo has the largest mountain resting at 6165 feet above sea level. Due to ongoing volcanic activity from a couple of submarine, underwater volcanoes, the island grows in size slowly every single year while continuously being aware of the threat that their calderas can activate at any time. Next week: Argentina
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On occasion, I will stop my ongoing project evaluating nation-states to discuss an ongoing political topic, personal interest, or cultural event. The main purpose of this nation-state project is not to degrade or critique historical eras and imperial rule. Whether we want to believe it or not, corporations, organizations and governments are still the slave to human desire and self interest. History plays this out repeatedly over thousands of years. Outside of naturally occurring environmental events like earthquakes and volcanoes which throughout history have altered civilizations, most of history was created through human action whether through positive means like world changing inventions or through negative actions like global wars that kill tens of millions of innocents. Most of us just want to get up every day and make just enough money so that we can do something fun with their families on the weekend. So what is my motivation to engage in this project? And how have I changed over my middle aged lifetime?
I was born in Southern California during the mid-1970s, a few days after Richard Nixon resigned over Watergate. 1974 was not a very good year in the United States as the country’s removal off the gold standard in 1971 led to an inflationary crisis, correction and eventual stagflation that lasted throughout the 1970s until Paul Voelker skyrocketed the interest rates into the double digits to cool the spending. From 1980 to 1988, I attended Catholic School and experienced everything that an individual would think a Californian would do. I loved the beach and was an above average boogie boarder and body surfer. Could not surf for the life of me. Loved to ride my bike around the city of Redondo Beach. As children, we were living in an adult world. The infantilization of our culture was still a good decade away. But living in an adult world meant that children had more freedom to experiment and wander. And wander I did. One of my favorite things was watching the aspiring Beach Volleyball League play its tournaments in nearby Hermosa and Manhattan Beach. My parents never had an issue with my biking along the ocean many miles away from our home as long as I made it back before the sun went down. Throwing in the eight years of Catholic School which developed my ethical and moral standards despite my issues with that Church, I moved into adulthood with a sense of ethical righteousness and an intelligence that was subtle but as I have been told, sometimes intimidating. Even from early adulthood, I did not think like a capitalist. Now that I have been part of a relationship with a women who does, this has been the one sore spot between us. My interest was always in the spiritual and philosophical. While I did spend the early 1990s partying, going to the best Gen X-band concerts, enjoying night club after night club, and having some rough nights of heavy drinking and substance abuse inside crazy Los Angeles which was at the center of the culture back then, I also would go to the Torrance Library on weekends and study Tibetan Buddhism. This led me to take a day off from school in the late 1990s to meet the Dalai Lama and hear him speak at the Pyramid in Long Beach, California. While others focused on advancing their careers, I was more interested in studying the political philosophy of Murray Rothbard or Mikhail Bakunin or the psychological studies of Karl Jung (I can call myself a Jungian). And while my firm sense of confidence in myself led me to believe that financial wealth would soon follow, this proved to be a much more difficult task. While I am definitely middle class and living comfortably, my partner likes to remind me of the mistakes I have made (This was often due to listening to economists and financial “experts” that were outdated in their thinking applying a common sense model to an economy that lacked all sense of logic and rationalization). In the 21st Century, a data analyst living inside a world of logic will not be a good investor. The best are the ones who treat the market like the casino it now is and have learned the proper way to read the cards. Never underestimate the illogical beliefs of a corporate banker. I believe every person needs to evolve their identity and thinking every eight years to a decade. Stay active mentally and physically. Politically, even from an early age, I leaned into similar politics as my father, a classic liberal who believed in the ideas of the Constitution and the creation of a society that did not specify preference for one privileged group over another. I do not negotiate on my anti-war stance (Except in very specific self-defense scenarios) nor my belief in natural human rights which are guaranteed in the Constitution. As an open-minded individual that is mostly tolerant and who has been open-minded enough to experience so many diverse cultural events ranging from Church revivals to perverted burlesque shows, my anti-war beliefs are a line in the sand that will never be negotiated on nor can I be convinced to consider a different opinion on this. Understanding this, the year 2020 changed my life. I was always a person that dabbled in libertarianism but like the idea of nirvana in Buddhism which so few people can actually attain, I have always felt that libertarians are good-hearted people living inside an ideology that will never be understood nor practiced by many of their fellow citizens because the power dynamics of present-day politics makes the entire idea impossible to implement. But 2020 broke me because the shared culture that I believe the United States still had got fractured. When I discuss this issue, it usually needs an explanation. For many Gen-Xers and older, the defunct music channel VH1 did a series that was extremely popular that celebrated the innovations and trends from a particular decade. These shows were popular because growing up in those decades, we can remember those shared cultural experiences whether the Cabbage Patch Kids craze of the early 80s, to the embracing of the ridiculous song “I’M TOO SEXY” in the 90s, to the absolute cultural sensation of movies like JAWS and STAR WARS in the 1970s. These moments are what defined us as Americans. Than COVID came around and the culture shifted to one of fear and authoritarianism. The decline of a shared cultural identity has been on life support since social media began becoming ubiquitous in the late 2000s. With the cultural need to have a smartphone, our culture has shifted from one that had a shared common identity and purpose to one that is individualized and narcissistic. While the internet has changed so many things for the good, it has also led to some societal implications that no one in government or business wants to acknowledge. What I discovered with these changes is that the individualization of our culture has led to an almost religious belief in institutions. For example, Scientism: The belief that scientific research is infallible and that as a citizen, you need to listen to the “experts” pushing this scientific research onto you. But for a logical mind, it quickly becomes apparent that much of this research was often guided by the individuals or businesses that funded it. Making scientism equivalent to a faith based religion. Do you know that we have never done a scientific study on the entirety of the vaccine schedule? Maybe taking the vaccines individually is fine scientifically. But when you give a child a combination of five different viruses at once in three different shots, the research on the individual vaccine no longer matters as the underlying circumstances have changed. Technologicalism: A belief in technology bringing about a more peaceful and logical world. This is often blended in with autocracy. The people who are technologicists often want to rule or control the world around them because they firmly believe in their own moral superiority. Making this another issue that is an article of faith. Christian Zionism: The now popular version of Christianity in the 21st Century United States that believes that Israel is a chosen nation of God because of a controversial analysis of parts of the Bible. This ideology completely changed Christianity in the 20th Century. It also led to apocalyptic teachings like “LEFT BEHIND” which is a speculative prediction of how the end times of the Bible will play out in the modern day. These Dispensationalists and Evangelicals truly believe in the ideas of these teachings even though again, it is clearly an article of faith. And the worst of these examples, Statism: The idea that an individual can change the world for the better through voting or citizen action. Because of how diverse our political beliefs actually are, statism has evolved into a wrestling match between two competing ideologies while a ruling class actually controls the government and is moving the nation in the direction they desire it to be. These “elitists” want control but this does not mean they actually know how to rule. Like the rest, the belief in the postiive aspects of government to guide society forward is another matter of faith. During my lifetime, we have eliminated those shared cultural moments and corrupted our institutions that meant so much to older generations like churches and town hall meetings which used to give people a sense of purpose and identity. We lived in neighborhoods where neighbors socialized and took care of each other’s kids in times of need. Now, all identity is personal and even illogical. This has led to people looking for anything that gives their lives meaning. Things have changed so much in my lifetime. I have seen a total transition from a more self disciplined analog adult world to a child-like digital world where all knowledge is available to every human on the planet and yet this has led to more cultural division than I have ever seen in my lifetime. During my childhood, it was common for families to have every night of the week blocked out for some sort of club, sport, or local activity. When I see individuals attaching themselves to science, politics, social media, or government in an almost devout, religious way, not only will these topics be unsatisfying for your own mental health, it will not lead to the social acceptance that your mind seeks. So how do we fix this? This is where I am at in my middle aged stage of life. For me personally, I now embrace four things that have finally brought me the sense of happiness and calm that I have spent the entirety of my life trying to achieve. If you are a social individual that loves being around people all the time, I am probably not the best person to take advice from. I prefer solitude most of the time. Because I have learned that a disciplined, creative mind can find joy in loneliness. And because I have a wife and two kids who give me plenty of attention, solitude is often what I seek. But no person can survive without human interaction. Here are four activities I embrace that have given me mental fulfillment. Hiking: I believe WALDEN by Henry David Thoreau maybe one of the wisest books ever written. Whether enjoying a backcountry hike with the wife engaging in small talk or walking through the tall trees of the nearby National Forest on my own quietly and experiencing the birds singing in the trees, the bees buzzing nearby, or the lush, green bush that is growing the most beautfiul and shiny berries, nothing motivates my mind more than a walk in nature. It is an incredible way to distract you from a terrible day or just give you some quiet self reflection. Constant Mental Stimulation: There is a famous saying. “If your bored, it really is your fault.” Life is about experiences and learning. If you reject either and complain about being “bored” as so many young children do now, it is not that the topic is boring, It is likely that you are uninteresting. Recently, I bought myself a house that requires some patching and upgrades. I have spent the last six months learning how to lay concrete, patching cracks in the brick, digging a ditch in dirt to run the water into my backyard, and properly pruning trees to keep growth under control. You will never learn even 1% of the vast amount of knowledge that exists. And to live an enjoyable and satisfactory life, I believe you need to learn as much as you can during the short time you live on this planet. Children: Do you need a dose of humility? Have a couple of kids. Preferably as I have, one boy and one girl. Watching them grow up and become human beings with full fledged personalities and flaws has been one of the best experiences of my life. And no matter how rich and successful you maybe, your kids do not care. They will remind you repeatedly that you are just “DAD.” Plus, it has been interesting to experience the fact that the world is much easier for girls now than boys despite our society believing the exact opposite. My son has had to work much harder than my daughter to find success as societal support mechanisms are in place for girls. For boys, they are much harder to find. But despite his struggles, he has really come around and has begun to develop into a full fledged and interesting person. One of the best pieces of advice I can give. Sometimes, just observing and letting your kids figure things out on their own is often the best “parenting” any person can do. Travel: Travel is all about experiencing something new. There is nothing on this planet I enjoy doing more than traveling. Even on a slow, boring weekend, jumping in the car and taking a highway into the unknown often brings incredible pleasure as you find that hidden steakhouse underneath a beautiful, red rock mesa in the middle of the Utah desert that has one of the best sirloins you have ever had. That is the beauty of travel. Engaging in one new experience after another. This is part of the reason why the idea of researching nation-states became so interesting to me. Because at some point, I will likely travel to one of these places. I hope you enjoyed this 2400 plus page self help essay. Whether you take my advice or not, it does not matter. Happiness depends on one biological mechanism over all others, your mind. Don’t ever let anyone try to take it away from you (Especially the government and its propaganda). Enjoy your thoughts even if they are bizarre and socially unacceptable. Being human with all your flaws and positive traits is what makes life worth living. The world is a vast, beautiful and interesting place. Experience as much of it as you can. At the end of 2023, my family and I did our first international cruise. Part of that experience was having a one day layover in Antigua which is the larger more populated island of the two. Going into the Caribbean for the first time, it does surprise you how poverty-ridden many of the islands are. Especially if you mix in a few trips to a couple of United States territories. On that trip, we went to three territories in which all three islands had more cultural appeal and more wealth (Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands which are United States territories and the island of Saint Maarten which is part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands) than their independent national counterparts. Of those three with national sovereignty, the Dominican Republic, St. Kitts and Nevis and Antigua were difficult to enjoy. Throwing in a couple of other poverty ridden countries (Belize and Honduras) from a later cruise (Which will be discussed later), my family and I decided that we would avoid the resorts (We never left it in Honduras and quickly went back to the resort in the Dominican Republic after being surrounded by the worst poverty) and went to see the interior of Antigua while throwing in a ziplining adventure along the way. While the ziplining was fun (But not as enjoyable as the one in the Forests of “DELIVERANCE” Georgia}, the drive through the heart of Antigua was depressing. Shacks and rickety sheds litter the highway with families loitering around the streets playing ball and trying to find some sense of enjoyment. There does seem to be an attempt to clean the island up but this drive ruined the enjoyment of the zipline tour. While the lush vegetation of the island is beautiful in many spots, it is often ruined by the sense of hopelessness that you will perceive upon traveling through the interior. During our time in and around the St. John’s tourism resort, there was a shooting nearby that led to a flood of emergency vehicles on the street. Casinos are legal on the island and can be found in almost every tourist location. One of the more enjoyable experiences was talking to workers who ferried over from Barbuda to work their full-time jobs. Many of them do this every day. The ferry ride is 90 minutes meaning many of these people spend 12 hours a day working and transporting themselves back and forth between the two islands.
There is evidence of people living on this island as far back as 5000 years ago. While not much is known of this tribe or where they originated, much more is known of the first inhabitants of Antigua and Barbuda in recent history. The Arawaks which were a tribe that lived in the north of South America and the Antilles islands (Including Trinidad & Tobago) settled Antigua and Barbuda in the 1200s and brought a sustainable agricultural economy to Antigua and Barbuda including tobacco, corn, sweet potatoes, guava, and cotton. The Arawakan language is one of the few remaining on the planet that originated among the indigenous tribes of South America. It is considered one of the most diverse languages on the planet with elements of it found in hundreds of other languages as well as being widespread throughout the Caribbean, Central and South America. In the 1500s, the Caribs who originated in the Guyana and Orinoco areas took over the island. They were known among tribes for their advanced maritime skills. The name of the island “Antigua” comes from Christopher Columbus who discovered it in 1493 and named it after a church in Spain. The English eventually settled Antigua in 1632 and turned the country into a sugar plantation slave state with the usage of many native Caribs and imported Africans as the labor force. Barbuda was colonized later in 1678 and was turned over to the noble British Codrington Family who had a significant presence in the Caribbean (And will be discussed again). The Codringtons intended on turning Barbuda into a slave breeding colony but the experiment failed. The slaves that were left over ended up creating their own community. Emancipation of the slaves occurred in 1834 and like is often the case with British colonies, both islands quickly fell into an economic decline which the island still seems to be recovering from to this day. The push for sovereignty was slow. The British slowly gave them nation state status under the Commonwealth in 1967. Full independence did not occur until November, 1, 1981. Antigua and Barbuda remains an active part of the UK’s Commonwealth of Nations with other nations like Canada and Australia. As the country tries to rebuild itself, it has focused on tourism as the primary driver of its economy due to the large amount of scenic beaches that litter the coasts of both islands. St. John’s is the capital of Antigua and the biggest city with a population of a little over 22,000. Antigua is the larger island and very heavily populated with a little over 95,000 people. Barbuda is not very well developed with only about 2300 people living on the island and is located 38 miles due north. Antigua is close to four times the size of Barbuda. Barbuda has the famous Pink Sand and Princess Diana Beaches on its southern side which are often considered two of the nicest beaches in the Caribbean. St. John’s is angled down towards the ocean from the landmark Anglican Saint John’s Cathedral looking over the city with many of the most famous buildings being located at the top of this hill. Like other Caribbean nations, Antigua and Barbuda operate on the Caribbean dollar. The flag of Antigua and Barbuda is very unique. Created in 1967 after the country was granted limited sovereignty, the flag has a red base with an inverted isoceles triangle in the middle. The triangle portrays a rising sun representing the dawn of a new nation. The sun rests on the color black (Representing the people), blue (Representing the ocean), and white (Representing the land). The country is anywhere between 65 to 80% Christian with the state religion of the UK, Anglicanism, being the largest Christian minority sect. I can not recommend a trip to Antigua but the isolated island of Barbuda should defiitely be seen. It is a very quiet island with beautiful peaceful beaches with very few tourists to ruin the experience. Next week, an even more unique island nation, Vanuatu. Until then. |
AuthorEXPERT OF SOME Archives
August 2026
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