Temokalati: The Newspaper on Pacific Liberation.

CULTURE & SOCIETY / INTERNATIONAL / ISSUE 5

From founder and editor of the new Aus-based paper “Temokalati”. 

Temokalati (Democracy) is a unique project on the Pacific Left. It is one of the few publications on the Left which has a focus on the politics, societies, and culture of the Pacific, while putting forward an unambiguously socialist perspective, with revolutionary politics. Very few other publications have such a clear and detailed focus on the Pacific as we do, though they will touch on the topic. One of the main catalysts for starting the project was the lack of knowledge people on the Left had about the Pacific. For this reason, Temokalati also aims to fill a gap in reporting and analysis.

There is a great amount of Pasifika workers living in ‘Pacific rim’ countries, such as Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. Despite this, no Pasifika socialist organisations, which aim to organise Pasifika workers and carry out the long battle for democracy and liberation in the Pacific, seem to exist in these countries. There could be a few reasons for this. For one, no socialist organisations or parties exist in the main countries that Pasifika workers come from, such as Tonga, Fiji, and Samoa. Where they do exist, such as in New Caledonia/Kanaky, they maintain connections to workers abroad through diaspora networks.

It is also the case that Pasifika peoples living abroad are fairly conservative. This conservatism stems from the politically stifling nature of our home countries (especially Tonga), as well as the strong influence of Christian churches, which aim to suppress dissent through peaceful social coercion. But this conservatism, and apoliticism, is not universal. Many Pasifika workers are also involved in unions in Australia, New Zealand, and beyond: for example, in the CFMEU (Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union, Australia).

Temokalati thus serves the dual purpose of informing the broader Left about political struggles and histories in the Pacific, while also building a platform around which a Pacific Socialist organisation can be organised. We believe that only a Socialist Party with a Marxist program can win the battles necessary to establish a liberated Pacific, free from the Church, the imperialists, the colonialists, and oppression.

Revolutionary Socialism is the complete transformation of society, politics, and the economy. It overturns the system of private property and market economics that dominates the globe, and puts in its place a social, co-operative economy, governed democratically by working people. It replaces a government run by church ministers, nobles, chiefs, and politicians, with a government run by working people themselves. Socialists are democrats because we aim to establish a radically democratic system, called Socialism/Communism. This is a system built on popular sovereignty, the rule of the working class.

We are also the only Tongan Republicans, who support completely overthrowing the Tupou Monarchy and establishing a democratic republic across the islands. For this reason, our publication would be considered seditious and therefore declared illegal in Tonga proper. The lack of democratic and politics rights in Tonga, and certain other Pacific countries, necessitates us being based in Australia, where we are relatively secure under an ‘implied’ freedom of political communication.

Issue 1 of our magazine was released in December 2025. We aim to publish this magazine more frequently, but are in a process of finding new writers, building a base of readers, and finding supporters. Locally, our first issue was well received, and we are working toward spreading it around circles of sympathisers and potential readers. Aside from minor errors which were soon corrected, it is a high-quality magazine giving a broad overview of Pacific politics, from the embryonic revolution in Tonga’s 2006 riots, to the socialist position on national liberation in the Pacific. Originally, we published online via Substack. Since the Albanese government implemented a terrible and censorious age verification system, we have decided to move to WordPress.

Our future plans include a long series analysing post-colonial Fiji (from the coups, to post-colonial race relations), an analysis of ‘Melanesian Socialism’ and the Kanak & Socialist National Liberation Front, material on Papua, analysing China’s role in the Pacific, and a focused piece on Eloi Machoro, the Kanak Socialist and separatist. We encourage left-wing workers and students, union militants, democrats, and socialists, to get in touch.