But let us consider for one moment the reality of what is happening in this world today in racial terms. There can be no doubt that the grassroot peoples of the Southern Hemisphere are embarking on a natural course of balance. This is to be expected and accepted (if we are clever), after hundreds of years of evil and ugly colonial yoke. There can also be no doubt that in some cases, as in South Africa, where the rule of a fanatical white minority, using Christianity as their motive, anthropology as their weapon and technology as their alibi against the traditional land owners, can end only in the most dreadful letting of blood, the like of which we have not seen since the last World War. I need not spell out the similar patterns emerging in South America. Fiji, however, is a very real beginning of the Southern Hemisphere of the future, if indeed there is to be a future for humankind under the umbrellas of nations who have at their heads fascist, nationalist boys who long to play with atomic toys.

Reading between the lines, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, New Guinea, and the Torres Strait Islands will surely follow the trend that Fiji has set in the push for grassroot autonomy, the natural balance.

The Anglo-Saxon world is shrinking; the grassroot worlds are reawakening from the effects of the colonial brutality. Where, then, does this leave seventh-generation Australians? At present we have a situation where grassroot peoples are on one side and European and ethnic races in this country are on the other side. The predicament can easily lead to placing the Australian-born seventh-generation community in a proverbial hotseat with regard to their perpetuation of cruelty, apathy and violence towards the Aborigines, the grassroot custodians of this land.

But let us make no hasty mistake when pondering this natural, long-awaited and coming shift of the Southern Hemisphere. Grassroot autonomy in every sense, that is, economically, culturally, socially and psychologically, is the only path to racial harmony. And on this basis it is time to start drawing up a blueprint for the global village of the future. We of the Pacific must provide the working model of socioeconomic equality for all peoples.

There is no doubt that education, correctly applied, can meet our future needs in this, and recognition and acceptance of the true value of grassroot and ethnic teaching methods is a step in the right direction for an evenly balanced future.