Tapu Misa: Why Tongans are losing their reverence for royals

Unfashionable as it may seem, I've always been a big fan of gentlemen, especially as they seem to have become an endangered species in these uncivil times.

So I don't have a problem with the mild-mannered leader of the National Party explaining away his performance on last week's leaders' debate as the natural reticence of a gentleman refusing to get rough with a girl.

Boys are bigger and stronger, after all - not to mention bigger-brained and more intelligent, if a certain British scientist is to be believed. (Yes, well, let's argue that another day.)

I was more interested in Don Brash's comment that he'd not seen the need for women's rights when he got married the first time because he thought women already had equal rights. Thankfully, his daughter, Ruth, helped him to see the light.

As he told the Herald: "It wasn't until I saw the world through my daughter's eyes that I realised the world was not equal and there were lots of things which were not fair to women."

Hallelujah. He can see clearly now, though apparently this vision only applies to gender inequalities. After the release of his party's Maori policy this week one can't help wishing that someone would open his eyes a little wider and help him on to his next epiphany.

Will Don ever realise that the world is unequal in other ways, and that an aspiring leader of this country needs to be able to see through the eyes of more than just his kind of people? Maybe not in this lifetime.

Still, Don's admission did illustrate one thing: that it's entirely possible for even big-brained beings to live alongside people all their lives, even marry them, and still not understand what the hell they're on about.

This is as true of a good number of men and women, as it is for many Maori and non-Maori New Zealanders, hence our divorce statistics and continuing racial tensions.

The same seems to be true for Tonga, where the ruling class, accustomed as they are to their unquestioned position in society, seems to be having trouble understanding the commoners who make up the majority. Not surprising given the way the common folk have always seemed so happy to toe the line. Until recently, that is.

Now, the stark inequalities and deep divisions of an otherwise homogenous society have come to a head over the civil servants pay strike, which is now into its second month.

The Tongan Government says it's simply putting into effect much needed public service reform planned since 2002, which includes a realignment of pay scales.

It is telling, but not at all surprising, that the Government didn't feel obliged to consult the people concerned. In fact, the first many knew about it was when they opened their pay packets.

Some had received pay rises of as much as 60 per cent, while others got a 5 per cent rise, their first since 1986.

Which is of course the sort of thing a Government does when it takes its people for granted.

I have to confess that I've not always understood the kind of reverence that many Tongans seem to have for their royal family, and in particular King Taufa'ahau Tupou IV.

I've watched educated New Zealand Tongans all but prostrate themselves before the royals, and was incredulous when, some years ago, my Tongan husband took a business associate to meet the King and submitted to sitting humbly on the floor, like a good Tongan, while his Palagi associate was given a chair. Even the most modern Tongans have swallowed this kind of treatment.

But as many Auckland-based Tongans observed last week, while Tongans have had to literally crawl to see their King, every tin-pot conman has been able to gain access to the monarch and prise the country's millions out of his hands.

Like that $26 million from passport sales which the King put into a trust fund so that his pesky ministers wouldn't spend it on foolhardy schemes like road-building. The money hasn't been seen since the King entrusted it a smooth-talking American whom he appointed his court jester.

Tonga is full of such tales - unfortunately true, and told with a mixture of sadness and anger.

Everybody mutters in mutinous tones about the way so-called privatisation has ended up with the King's children being in control of state assets.

The Crown Prince Tupouto'a has a monopoly on power supply through his company, Shoreline. Since taking it over, power prices have soared, as have directors' salaries (to around the $100,000 mark, according to a former employee).

Yet Tonga's chief economist, Saia Faletau, told Radio 531pi, while on holiday in Auckland last week, that he'd never been able to identify whether Shoreline had actually paid for the monopoly.

Everybody knows too about Princess Pilolevu's Hong Kong-based companies, which control satellite orbital rights, internet domain, and duty-free shopping - and which, as a former High Commissioner to Tonga, Brian Smythe , noted in a 2001 report, generate considerable revenue streams "which more properly belong to the state".

Smythe described the royals as "very cultured and intelligent". It had been a pleasure, he said, to partake of their champagne and caviar. But, he said, democracy was "a foul word" in the kingdom and the royals showed no inclination to hand over power.

It's perhaps not surprising that the royals and the nobility have seemed oblivious to the simmering and mounting discontentment beneath their gaze.

What is surprising is why Tongans, among the Pacific's most highly educated, have put up with their lowly status for so long.

But that deeply imbedded Tongan reverence for its royal family is cracking.

The marches and torchings of Government cars in Tonga, and the sometimes hot-headed demonstrations outside the King's Epsom residence that would have seemed unthinkable to many Tongans a few years ago, now signal an unstoppable sea-change in attitude that's gaining momentum by the day.

Change is coming, whether or not the royals are ready for it.