“There was no one quite like him:” Pōhiva’s democratic message still relevant to kingdom, says his biographer

The late Tongan Prime Minister ‘Akilisi Pōhiva was a clear-visioned man whose message was still current, according to veteran Pacific journalist Michael Field.

Field, who is writing a biography of Hon. Pōhiva, said a book about his life would be useful to the kingdom. Tongans needed Hon. Pōhiva’s message, he said.

“I’ve known most of the Pacific leadership since 1975, and there was no one quite like him,” Field said.

Since Hon. Pōhiva’s death democracy and political progress appear to have largely disappeared from the Tongan political discourse. Field said developments in Tonga had come as no surprise.

In the past he has warned that Hon. Pōhiva’s democratic reforms could unravel and that dangerous times lay ahead for the kingdom.

Disentangling what the written records said happened and what people remember happening was not hard, Field said.

“It was not harder than any of the other various projects I worked on,” he said.

“The advantage is that if you’ve been around a while as a journalist you know how to keep pulling the right strings and then knitting it together into a story. The problem with some of it is that the research can be a bit tedious; lots of wading through documents.

“But biography is not exceptional in that sense – you just have to get used to drinking a lot of coffee.”

Field said it would be hard to pick a political biography that had inspired him or informed the way he approached the task.  He said political biography could often be influenced by how recently events occurred. In respect of the Hon. Pōhiva biography he said he was influenced by recent journalism and by Elizabeth Wood-Ellem’s e work on Queen Salote and Patricia O’Brien’s work on Samoa’s Taisi O.F.Nelson.

Field said he would like to a biography of Mata’afa Iosefa, the only man in global history to have beaten Germany, Britain and the United States on the battlefield. A critical biography of the Tongan royal family would be interesting and controversial.

He said he had often thought a biography of the ‘common soul’ of the ordinary people of the Pacific would be an intriguing project. (Field, 2020)

In 2010 Field said it would be unwise for Hon. Pōhiva to become Prime Minister because he was more revolutionary than leader.

However, when he died, Field described him as “remarkable.” Speaking to Kaniva News in January this year, Field said he saw no contradiction  between Pohiva’s remarkable  nature and  the problems of his administration.

“I stand by my original claim in 2010 that the premiership ended up as a mess,” Field said.

“What I did not know, but know now extensively, is how disruptive the anti-democratic forces have been on Tongan governance.

“I strongly believe that ‘Akilisi’s finest and most useful work was as the leader of a movement which happened to be in opposition for much of his political life.

“In many ways, even before he had become Prime Minister, he had saved Tonga. I will leave the argument for why until the book’s publication.

While Hon. Pōhiva was a champion of democracy he was accused by his enemies of corruption and sometimes  seemed to have laid himself open to charges of behaving in erratic and not entirely democratic ways. However, Field said many leaders could be accused of being erratic for a variety of reasons.

“The first Prime Minister I worked for used to go to events without shoes and could not use a phone, but he was brilliant all the same,” the veteran journalist said.

“People who go into politics full-time are different to the rest of us.

Field said Hon. Pōhiva’s entire life was one of intense struggle in everything he did.

“My sadness, as an observer and writer, is that he was among the many Pacific leaders who died in office,” Field said.

“I never said it to ‘Akilisi, but I did on other occasions to other politicians, point out the merits of retiring to enjoy life with the grandchildren, at the beach or somewhere, but Pōhiva and all the others, seem driven by their politics.”

The main points

• The late Tongan Prime Minister ‘Akilisi Pōhiva was a clear-visioned man whose message was still current, according to veteran Pacific journalist Michael Field.
• Field, who is writing a biography of Hon. Pōhiva, said a book about his life would be useful to the kingdom. Tongans needed Hon. Pōhiva’s message, he said.

For more information

This article appears in a slightly different form in the current edition of Pacific Journalism Review.