By Santy Asanuma —-
The surgeon fish in school (delebechel) is used in traditional Palauan symbolism because they behave and move in unison (di ta bedeklel ma bedul omrolir e rokui). Even if they are disturbed by a fisherman underwater and would scatter, they would quickly regroup and assemble into single line formation moving tactically in one direction behind the leader in front of the line. The significance of this quality is consciously memorialized and exemplified by being depicted virtually in all the traditional men’s houses (bai) motifs throughout Palau.
This summer in month of May 2012 I had the pleasure of meeting a group of twenty American students from the University of Virginia who were doing a study on the diet of Palauans and how it has connection to the prevalence of NCD. One surprising finding that they recorded was almost all Palauan that they talked to in the survey knew what NCD is all about. At least our eating disorder clearly makes us a distinct group of people. The result of this study will be completed and presented to Palau in one year time for us to be better informed on how we solve our NCD problems now and into the future. However, this paper is not about the health of Palauans as a group but rather takes interest in looking into how well Palauans group or not today without the mesekuuk ideology of the past.
I had a window of opportunity to pick on the minds of these smart American university students on what they think stands out to be the most important value for them as Americans today. If not all, almost all of them spoke with such passion that individualism is very important value for Americans and is perhaps the foundation of American society today. Individualism points to being free to be yourself and not being forced to do things that they do not like. The ideology of individualism is probably the direct opposite of the mesekuuk ideology.
I told them that I was not surprised because that is the trend and thinking among most young people of Palau this day and age. The idea of accepting what a group (cheldebechel) is going to do without questions and acting like everybody in the group is frown up as “old-style.” Even the muumuu for women in a group has slightly different cuts or ornaments. Uniform is not necessarily the same especially for people who are very individualistic (kuk ngodech ra re bekl el chad).
When a “cheldebechel” (an organization) decide to have an overnight trip to Babeldaob, some members either miss the trip or manage to return the same day leaving the group behind. Nothing in promoting of individualism (ng di chad ma teletelel) can be compatible (ng mo atter) with the meskuuk concept of a group. The big question that these American university students could not answer was how do we achieve a sense of nationalism (kid a chad ra imol beluu) within a society of individuals and not a society of group of people? I was surprised on how they struggled to verbalize the American nationalism in light of their value for individualism.
I introduced to them a Palauan analogy of a temikel (coconut frond single stick) that by itself is fragile and virtually useless but when you bundle many temikel together you have a durable and useful skobang (stick broom). To strengthen Palau we must build it as a collective and not an individualistic society.
