Resilience in the Pacific: Sir Anand Satyanand launches two books on Pacific issues.

• Author: Satyanand, Anand
• Position: Book review

RESILIENCE IN THE PACIFIC

Addressing the Critical Issues

Editors: Brian Lynch and Graham Hassall

Published by: NZIIA/Institute of Policy Studies, Wellington, 2011, 205pp, $27.60.

NEW FLAGS FLYING

Pacific Leaders Remember

Editors: Ian Johnstone and Michael Powles

Published by: Online publication, Radio New Zealand International, 2011: www.rnzi.com/newflagsflying/

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I am delighted to take part in the launch of these two initiatives. The first is Resilience in the Pacific: Addressing the Critical Issues, a compendium of lectures and addresses delivered at a conference organised by the NZIIA and the Institute of Policy Studies and held at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in February this year.

The second is New Flags Flying: Pacific Leaders Remember, which is a project that consists of a compact disk, booklet and website with the possibility of a book in the offing. They bring together a series of interviews undertaken by esteemed New Zealand broadcaster Ian Johnstone with the first generation of leaders of the independent Pacific nations. The interviews are accompanied by background text prepared by Johnstone and author, academic, former New Zealand diplomat and human rights commissioner Michael Powles.

Before undertaking those official tasks, I would like to comment on the wider significance of this event and these publications. I come to a gathering such as this from a variety of perspectives. While many see me as New Zealand's first governor-general of Indian descent, I place equal store on my Pacific heritage. While my grandparents were born in India, they migrated to this part of the world and Fiji was the birthplace of my parents. They later moved to Auckland where I and my brother were born.

While my family subsequently lost contact with our relatives in India, we retain direct links with family in Fiji and also Samoa, where I have had an uncle who lived there who married twice in his lifetime, and thus I have had two aunties and several cousins, the latter of whom I remain in contact with.

Personal links

Those ties with the Pacific and my Pacific heritage have never faded. Throughout my career I have developed and maintained a host of pro-fessional and personal links with the Pacific. Those ties have been reinforced for my wife Susan and I in our time in the governor-general role. We have visited the Cook Islands, Niue, Tokelau, Samoa, Tonga, East Timor, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. We have...