I am in Ua Pou again after a year. And as I walk thru town, I remembered a conversation I had with locals that gave us a ride.
It started as usual about this German sailor that got killed in Nuku Hiva. One women went on and on about how innocent that Marquisan killer is in reality. He was raped by this German and his wife was in it and
happy that her husband got what he deserved bla bla bla. And then it went on about white justice here in Polynesia. Whenever there is a dispute between a Polynesian and a white person ....its the Polynesians that
goes to jail. Never the white man. This was all new to me and I was curious and listened to her story. " Look " she says, " It was the same with Gauguin that bastard " . In French : "Gauguin c'est un vrai salaud" and
the white justice protected him, apparently. Or so she said. I asked her what was Gauguins crime? "Oh, you must know: he had his maison de jouir and kept young girls there. He painted them naked and slept with
them, the bastard. He got them pregnant and there are many descendants from him in Hiva Oa and Tahiti.
So he didn't just have ONE girl, he had many , I asked. " Yes, many, the bastard!!"
I listened to this story and thought about it for a while and then I asked: " But if there where many girls as you say, there where also many parents and grand parents of those girls, no? " "How come, they let this
happen? " Silence...no answer. "White justice or not, I am also a father of two daughters and I am pretty sure what I would have done." More silence. " If an old scruffy, painter with a opium and alcohol habit
would knock on my door and ask if he could paint naked pictures of my teenage daughters and sleep with both of them ....I would yell at him and tell him go to hell you fucking bastard. I don't need a white justice
system for that. Just throw him out the door!! Now there was total silence. After a while somebody changed the subject to the beautiful fruits that grow on this island....
Its common here, to blame the "white man" for just about everything that went wrong here. Its easy that way.
It would be a lot harder to say that parents didn't have enough money to feed all kids in the family . And just like in Europe a hundred years ago, you gave the hungry kids away to a farmer, a rich man, the
church...anybody that could feed them. Or maybe the age of consent was much lower then. Or the age when a girl could get married. I am sure it was different, just read captain Blighs memoirs. He wasn't happy
that his crew had sex with local women .....or girls. I don't know.

To come back to Gauguin: He was broke and went back to France,trying to sell his art. He wanted 1500 Francs for his now famous " Nafea Faa Ipoipo " when will you marry? Nobody took it . After 20 some
years, Staechelin, a Swiss collector had the courage to buy it in Geneva. It was not popular, but he paid 20 000 Francs. To much naked flesh and a weird style with those funny looking natives in it ...Weird,
sleazy,dirty art.
So the family kept on collecting and had a lot of success buying and selling, not just Gauguin. The collection was too big and most of it was hanging in a Basel Museum , for the public to see.
And when it was time to sell, they where trying to sell it to Basel. But the poor Basel politicians with their billions in Chemical and banking money, could not or would not match the offer from the Emir of Qatar. So
it went to Qatar for 300 million $, a world record.
People screamed: "Qatar will fall to Isis or the Taliban and they will rip it to pieces in the name of Allah!! So now the family became bastards, selling it to an Arab...and those are bastards too.
The guy in charge said:" If you cant sell anything , you shouldn't be an art dealer" The prices went sky high and often after that they collapse. They thought it was a good time and they sold. And now they are the
bastards.
When I heard about them selling it to Qatar, I went to the last show in Basel and looked at it. At Beyelers I was at the door at 8 am and it was packed already. Hundreds of people stood around the Gauguin
masterpiece. I had time to be close to it and admired it. It has radiant power. The bastard was good, and only now we start to appreciate it. Never mind the young girls...its awesome. Or was it just the millions
that impressed me, I don't think so. I find it sad, what many people worried then , had become true. The painting has not been shown since it was sold to the Emir. It sits in an air con box, somewhere. Or in the
Emirs bedroom. Nobody knows.
There is a certain curse on this painting...now the Emir is the bastard :-)