the discomfort of mixed race people in a society split in two

2023-12-03 20:00:11

This is an argument used by the State to try to find a compromise in the political discussions on the future status of New Caledonia, supposed to conclude at the end of the year: New Caledonian society has changed since the violence of the years 1984-1988, in particular because of its greater mix, and it no longer wants to be part of the binary clashes inherited from colonial history – Europeans against Kanaks, Whites against Blacks, loyalists against separatists.

But crossbreeding is struggling to find its political expression, and the ethnic question remains sensitive in New Caledonia. History weighs, as recalled by Isabelle Merle, researcher at the CNRS, specialist in colonization, who gave a conference entitled “Making a people? » in Nouméa, November 23. The New Caledonian project of the early 20th century was particularly inspired by white societiesin particular from the Australian neighbor, taking a very dim view of the mixing of whites with ” native “, she recalls. This vision has led to the erasure of miscegenation in a sort of competition between fantasy races, or to anchoring numerous prejudices which persist in today’s New Caledonia.

The anthropologist Dany Dalmayrac, himself a mixed-race Kanak, offered an analysis of these ideas affecting people from unions between descendants of Europeans and Kanaks in his essay The Condition of Kanak Métis in New Caledonia (Ecumes du Pacifique, 2022). According to him, the mixed race people remain “instrumentalized” by a political world that wants to defend itself from all racism.

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The researcher is concerned about the similarities between the current situation and that of the 1970s, steeped in « doctrine Messmer ». Then Prime Minister, Pierre Messmer wrote in 1972 to the Secretary of State for the French Overseas Territories that New Caledonia, “settlement colony, although doomed to multiracial diversity, is probably the last non-independent tropical territory in the world where a developed country can emigrate its nationals”. This circular, which became famous, aimed to advocate the maintenance of the archipelago in the French fold.

“Inner divide”

According to Mr. Dalmayrac, the Kanak mixed race identity does exist, but it is struggling to become aware of itself and to structure itself. The group would represent at least 20% of the population, according to its calculations, while official figures show 11.3% of mixed race in 2019. In New Caledonia, ethnic statistics were authorized in order to measure the rebalancing socio-economic in favor of the Kanak, established by the agreements of Matignon, in 1988, and of Nouméa, ten years later. The “mixed race” category appeared in the 2009 census questionnaires.

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