15 November 2014
On
Tuesday 18th November, Samoa’s Head of State, His Highness Tui Atua Tupua
Tamasese Ta’isi Tupuola Tufuga Efi will attend the launch for the book Whispers and
Vanities - Samoan Indigenous Knowledge and Religion, (Huia Publishers) in which
he has played an important role.
This book is a response
to a ground-breaking address on Samoan religious culture given by His Highness
to the 2009 Parliament of the World’s Religions in Melbourne which challenged
some fundamental aspects of modern Samoan indigenous religious culture.
The renowned African
philosopher and scholar Theophilus Okere who provides the foreword to this
book, sees this address and the responses contained in the book as a “cry for
the liberation of peoples and cultures from the domination of the
principalities and powers”.
“For the reign of what
has been dubbed ‘the C-triumvirate of Colonialism, Christianity and Capitalism’
has decimated many cultures, driven some underground, others into ‘whispers’
and yet others into extinction.”
There are thirty-eight
contributing authors to the book's collection including a diverse range of
prominent Pacific and non-Pacific writers, poets, theologians and academics -
from theology and religious studies, to sociology, psychology, history and
education.
The book launch
commences with a powhiri at Te Wharewaka o Poneke on Jervois Quay, Wellington
at 10.00am.
Following the book
launch, there will be a mini-symposium from 2.00pm with some of the authors
discussing the sensitive and complex issues raised in the book, as well as
drama-dance performances and Samoan community responses to this landmark book.
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