The relationship of Oceanic peoples has been conceptualized in Va Moana, as a relational experience happening across space - across Moana. Yet, what happens when these relationships encounter colonialism, imperialism, and settler colonialism? 

We see these forces lead to genocide, a genocide that is ongoing through the forces of settler-colonialism, settler capitalism, settler conflict, and settler extraction. Colonialism has led to the evaporation of ancestral land through nuclear testing, the commodification of land and culture through tourism, the desecration of Indigenous homes through resource extraction, etc. It has been ongoing for hundreds of years with no evidence of ceasing in the future regardless of international calls for the Rights of Indigenous Peoples or Truth and Reconciliation. 

It is the time that nations must rise up on common ground to cease the merciless genocide of global indigenous populations. 

A further layer of complexity is added here, as common ground is hard to find. Take the forced displacement and resettlement of Bikini  and Enewetak Islanders and their eventual resettlement on Hawaii Island. These growing communities have seen continuous conflict and discrimination from fellow Kanaka,  Japanese settlers, white settlers, and other Oceanic settlers. A central question  that needs to be answered in order to find unity, is how do we as indigenous peoples reconcile our own differences and understand these differences, disruptions, and fractures in relationality are caused through the power matrix of colonization and the structure of settler-colonialism. 

Education has been, and continues to be the tool to help every generation understand the root of our conflict with each other. We need to be anti-colonial and anti-oppressive. Learn through social movements centred around love. 

Here is a link to a video on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICl2g4c1T6s