20 Years of Storytelling and Advocacy in the Pacific

Peter Sipeli is a freethinker. For over 20 years, he’s shared his thoughts, experiences and stories in the hope of opening minds and hearts to create change across the Pacific, particularly in the human rights and LGBTIQ space.

Today, Peter is still a passionate storyteller and human rights advocate. He’s also an arts manager, a spoken word supporter, poet shop owner, is managing the RoC Market in Suva and is a Project Manager on an Arts Therapy initiative. He says that even after 20 years, stories still are the most effective method of connecting people with an awareness of human rights.

Arieta: After 20 years of sharing your story with communities across the Pacific, do you still feel there’s power in sharing your story? What do you hope people connect with most?

 
Peter: I started telling my story as it was an easier inroad to get people in the room to understand the impact of being different, and of being gay. There is incredible power in sharing your story honestly, and to be able to articulate the hard and good times of life – it lays bare your truth in a way no one can be offended by. Human truths are powerful tools for affecting change. The sessions I’ve done with different people, such as police officers or through spoken word in poetry slams, still affects people and makes them think, regardless of the space. More than anything, I hope it opens their hearts and then hopefully their minds.

Connection is this inexplicable thing. I felt it in the room when I did that TEDx talk. I feel it in the spaces that I do training with police officers, and I hope to connect with them through my pain, and through my struggles. When you lay your pain out in the open, it makes people aware of their own pain and struggles, and it makes it human and relatable.

Arieta: As an LGBTI advocate in the Pacific, have you faced criticism for your views, and if so, how do you deal with them?

 
Peter: I faced criticism in the beginning, and mostly it was from the gay community in Fiji. Back in the 90s, there was an older sect of gay men who thought what we were doing was stirring trouble and bringing light to our community issues, when these things ought to be left alone. I think it’s a teething problem of any certain group beginning to frame and identify itself as we were at that time. I think it was largely based on fear.

Fiji is an incredibly religious country and there are very strong views on being gay or lesbian. Those ideas and attitudes are things I don’t face in my day-to-day life. When these issues do arise, usually the movement of LGBTIQ activists and allies stand up and make statements if there is hateful ranting going on.

I deal with hateful commentary and remarks by living a wonderful life filled with purpose, and one that’s centred in the arts as a way to show people we’re just as lovely and boring and predictable as the next guy, and that hateful ideas and attitudes don’t add any value to life.

Arieta: What have been the most rewarding experiences since sharing your stories, thoughts and ideas with your community?

 
Peter: Even now, after many years of doing this kind of work that I call “storytelling as a form of advocacy” – and with our culture being an oral one (storytelling is key to our cultural practice) – it still isn’t a strategy that is used here in Fiji. People use a western method of advocacy, workshops and more workshops.

The most rewarding thing so far is seeing people open up and be able to ask questions. I’ve found that when I walk into a room to talk, especially with the Crisis centres, most of the police officers are there with their bible or their apps open on their tablets ready to battle with me. But when you bring the focus of the talk to human treatment, suffering and isolation, I’m able to open up the conversation and really begin to have a more human and caring conversation.

Arieta: When you look back on your work and the impact it’s had in the Pacific, what do you hope to be most proud of?

 
Peter: I hope to see our younger generation doing this – using their own lives as narratives, and as powerful tools for engagement. For people to use storytelling and truth as a way forward in connecting people, and not to be bogged down with big donor and UN farmed words and ways that alienate people.

Arieta: What advice do you have for people who want to share their stories, and their truths?

 
Peter: Be brave, tell your story with all the honesty that you can muster up, identify a community that you fit into and are safe in – and if your community isn’t that space, find out, and build one. Find strength in your story as your human experience will be different from anyone else, and that adds value to finding connection and hopefully building a new path forward for better treatment of all people.

Photo credit: TEDx Suva
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