Name: New Caledonia will vote for independence. (Geography Now!)
Uploaded: 2020-03-28T16:49:25.000Z
Duration: 7 min 2 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

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you know everybody Once again, As you know, we are working on the next few country episodes.

To-infinitive

So while that happens, we've got to give you another fill a week now, Usually we do an administrative division videos like we did.

Past simple

India, Russia, Brazil butt This week, something important happened for those of you that kind of follow up with international news.

Some of you might know that the New Caledonia Independence referendum will be happening on November 4th.

And will New Caledonia become a new nation or stay with friends?

And I'm super excited because one of you guys, the subscribers is from New Caledonia will talk to him soon.

We talked about this in the France episode, but basically New Caledonia is an island archipelago area in the sub region of Melanesia of Oshi.

Currently it is under a sui generous or special collectivity status with France.

This means they can kind of still govern themselves.

But France still steps in when it comes to things like foreign policy, currency, police, military stuff like that.

And it is kind of true that a lot of their economic dependence lies on France.

As of today, when it comes to their GDP, about 1/5 of it actually comes from French aid, which equals to about $1.5 billion.

They do also have about 25% of the world's nickel reserves.

And there are fears that if they were to become independent, they would kind of fall under the overarching China's hegemony expansion.

That's kind of already happened to Vanuatu.

They built a war for warships, but what it basically comes down to are the indigenous kayak people.

This is the part where you're gonna meet New Caledonian geography.

Would you like to just introduce yourself?

I'm so my name is Ken GM, 27 years old and then from New Caledonia.

This is, uh, like a traditional pollination or Melanesian kind of house.

Okay, so the independence movement, how exactly did it start?

So, you know, when the French came to New Caledonia, there were actually people living in New Caledonia.

The connect people, they have their own like system off culture, their own society, languages and so on.

So I think it will started when the leader, Shomari Tchibo, said that he's had enough of it, you know.

And so here we are now deciding whether we want to becoming the planet are remained French.

What are the viewpoints of both sides off this whole thing that's going on in the vote?

Well, the people who are against independence thing, that without friends, we could last out advantages that we have.

Because friends gives a lot of money to us.

They provide health care, the military, they create jobs and stuff like this.

And also a lot of people identify us French and also a big thing Is that being a French city, then you the I mean a good thing.

Second say, thrown international live Alikhan travel.

You can study in the European Union passports, stuff like this.

Now the people who are in favor or the independent.

They just country that they have a right off deciding for themselves so they want their own nation.

They want to their culture to be acknowledged.

I think that in today's society they still face prejudice and marginalization.

That's why they want to become independent because they want to govern themselves.

And they don't see why a country like France that's so far away should decide for them.

Yeah, I mean, it's like there's so many socio economic factors that play into this.

But then again, it always kind of keeps going back to the cannot people.

What do you think a fully independent New Caledonia would look like?

Well, the truth is, we don't really know because we know that the French Prime minister it will feel it.

He said that whatever the results are, friends is gonna help New Caledonia transition, you know?

So everything that comes after the Fourth of November, we have to be negotiated.

For example, if we talk about the currency, the currency that we have now is the plastic shrink this currency is.

Oh, that's the currency that's shared with French Polynesia.

Yes, in French pollinator and in what isn't for 20 yeah.

Yeah, People always forget about them, but they exist.

So after that, if you want to have a new currency, will have to negotiate with the European Union actually to decide if it's still possible our own military, because we don't know if France will still stay here to protect us.

So that's one reason why people are bit afraid of it off the Independence.

Because it's a big thing that we don't know.

And we probably have to, uh, apply for the U.

So, Kenji, I guess I mean, just any final thoughts, Any last words you just really think the whole world should know about this whole situation going on with New Caledonia?

I I think that the world should know that we've lived relatively peacefully for 30 years after the civil work.

I think that it should status in which we're still together in peace.

Whether it's with friends are without friends, So, yeah, I want everyone to know that we've made We've made huge before ts to live together.

We share common values and we should be able to live together.

Yeah, I also have just one little final last extra question.

What are some things about New Caledonia that you kind of want to just teach people about?

Like, a lot of people don't know much about New Caledonia.

Where some cool things about New Caledonia that you want the world to know.

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New Caledonia will vote for independence. (Geography Now!)

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