Samoan Islands

The Samoan people are the ethnic group living on the Samoan Islands. They have inhibited these islands for a long time. The Samoans gained their independence from Germany in 1962 and from New Zealand which had further captured the islands from the Germans. Samoans comprises of a tightly woven ethnic group that shares a rich culture, language and history. In 2006, the number of Samoans living in Samoa was estimated to be 188,000. Many of the Samoans are believed to live away from the island, like in New Zealand.

The Samoans have a well defined social structure. The basic unit in a Samoan home is headed by a Matai who is the head of the home. Certain extended family members live together in groups with a leader confirmed by the clan. The work of the Matai is always to be on the lookout and to ensure that all the clan members have had food. Any assets in the form of land or farms that the members may have are managed by the Matai. It is also the responsibility of the Matai to represent his members in the village council. Three-quarters of the population of the Samoans is under the authority of the Matai. The Matai also controls all of the land on which they live. This forms a sort of a semi-democracy and it has contributed a lot to the development of the Samoans.

Samoans live on the basic minimal and do not place any emphasis on the used and availability of material possessions. They live in large open wooden structures, thus they have no privacy. The houses are built necessarily for the comfort of the Samoans since it is very hot as they live in the tropics. To guard against wind and rain, some coconut leaves are used to cover the sides of the walls. These houses demonstrate the open style employed within the Samoan culture. All the food, water and even families are shared out to the entire membership, creating a strong bond between the Samoans. Every Samoan village has a church where they worship their God and pray. The Samoan men spend their time in the farms planting, weeding and counting the profits. Women have nowhere else to do but to remain in the houses. Women are left behind to maintain their homes and children. Samoan children do attend school though for just a few hours. The Samoans do not place a lot of emphasis on education for they are not inclined to follow in the ways of the civilized people.

Samoans rely on agriculture as their main economic exchange. They export a lot of agricultural products despite their country being prone to major storms. Two-thirds of the Samoans rely on agriculture for employment and accounts for almost all the country’s exports. Samoan exports include coconut oil and cream. Agricultural products are also processed in the numerous machines and the processed products are exported. Tourism has also started picking and there is a need for stakeholders to educate the Samoans on ways to deal with such surges on the tourist numbers arriving in Samoa. The Samoa government has been in the fore front in seeking for the ways and means by which to encourage the villagers to embrace banks. Most Samoans do not believe in the banking sector thus would rather keep their money anywhere else but not in the bank. The Samoan labor market is rather flexible allowing for further employment opportunities. Samoans living abroad also contributes to the growth of Samoa. In 2009, the total foreign remittances into Samoans accounts was in the scales of US$20 million. Samoa also benefits from aid and funding from other countries. China and the United States provided a lot of money to Samoa for the developmental purposes.

Almost all of the Samoan people are affiliated to a particular Christian group or church. The Congregational Christians and Roman Catholics form the largest population. The rest are divided among Mormons, Assemblies of God and Seventh Day Adventists. Samoa was affected by the devastating tsunami that left a trail of destruction across the country. Property worth millions of dollars was destroyed. The destruction swept across homes, schools, churches and other areas. As a result, Samoa has been in need of a lot of aid to assist in its rebuilding. Australia has been one of its biggest donors. The European Union has also lent its hand in assisting Samoa get back to its feet. A debt Management Policy has been set aside by Australia to assist Samoa to manage its debts. There has been a lot of assistance towards Samoa in its rebuilding.

Samoa has been looking for a skilled workforce in its industries. Since the establishment of a mentorship program, more than twenty native Samoans have graduated from the Australian universities. Such graduates will go a long way in building and developing their country. The world has in the last couple of months gone through a very tough phase with the recession in The United States of America sending a ripple effect to other countries around the world. It has been difficult for people to maintain their lifestyles on the same salaries they had before while it is even harder for the majority who are jobless. Getting a job is no longer easy and it is made worse by the rise in product prices and the inflation that is spread throughout the world. This has led to the numerous protests from people the world over and it has not been different here in the United States. As a result, the law enforcement agencies have been having a tough time trying to ensure that peace prevailed amidst of all the demonstrations.

Occupy Wall Street are a series of demonstrations that were started by an activist group known as Adbusters in protest of the rise in living costs, corruption in both the government and the large private sector companies, and economic inequality witnessed in America. The protests are also aimed at the financial services sector and at lobbyist and they carry the slogan “we are the 99%” in reference to the gap between the wealthiest Americans and the rest of the populace (Grossman, 2009). These demonstrations have been held in over 70 cities around the USA since the inception in the mid-September, 2011. The effect has also been felt in other countries where similar protests have been held.

As a community, everyone is affected by the protests taking place all over the place. It is a tough choice to choose either to join the protests or to sit back and ridicule the protestors. This is because the protests are being held to demonstrate the pain of living today which is what we are all going through. It is therefore important that everyone contribute to the protests in one way or another since they touch on our current situation. On the other hand, some people may find the protests be disturbing and uncalled for since they do cause a great deal of disturbance. Those people who live anywhere near the areas where the protests are taking place know just how disturbing they can be. The level of noise is too high and the fact that there are hundreds of people walking around means that there is also a heightened level of insecurity since the protesters are not screened to enter the parks. As such, the neighboring community is affected since even businesses closed on the days of protests mainly due to the retailers fears of riots and consequent looting.

The government has been on the recovery mission to try and reduce the inflation rate that has been a contributor to the protests. Other stakeholders like the financial sector companies have also gone silent or are trying to reduce their lending rates to enable the people who had taken loans especially for their homes to retain them with new repayment plans. The results to such protests need to be felt for the protesters to cease their protests and it is therefore clear that the protests are here to stay since the economy is still recovering albeit slowly. The government and other companies are also witnessing further losses when the businesses remain closed during protests and more and more people join them leaving their work stations unattended.

The police have had a herculean task of maintaining order throughout the protests. In New York, there has been a police officer tasked with advising the protesters on the ways they could keep away from being arrested and assisting in giving any other information relevant to keeping the protesters within the law limits. The city has had to grapple with a sharp rise in the cost of paying overtime charges since they have been deployed to watch the protesters round the clock. In Oakland, violence broke out in the midst of the over 10000 strong crowd and police were forced to make arrests. Similar cases that led to the arrest of numerous protesters were reported in Portland, Boston and Denver.

The police have been overwhelmed by the large numbers of protesters who have been rowdy leading to the arrest of several protesters. It maybe the duty of law enforcers to maintain peace but in situations like these, the protesters become too rowdy leading to the police making arrests. In some instances, the police have been forced to use rubber bullets to shoot into the crowds to either disperse the crowds or to arrest some protesters. This obviously is not an easy task and is draining both physically and emotionally for the police. It has therefore not been easy for the law enforcement officers in their quest to offer their services to the populace whilst maintaining law and order.