# COMMONMAN’S TRAIN OF THOUGHT ON A VISIT TO AUSTRALIA

GD writes: After his three part series on identity and belonging in Fiji, CommonMan turns more whimsical this week as he reflects on a recent visit to Australia and his enjoyment of traveling by train.

Australian railways are a far cry from the sugar trains that used to pass by CommonMan’s village in Nadroga. Not only are they fast and comfortable to Fijian eyes but whether it is short journeys on urban trains or trams or long journeys through the Australian “bush”, CommonMan finds that railway carriages are great places to think and reflect.

One day, perhaps, there might be a train linking Suva and the West. Now there’s food for thought.

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Being in this great country was such a pleasure. Some people may have issues with the socio-cultural aspects of Australia, but my experience there has been nothing short of privileged. 

I think you have to have lived at length on one side of a spectrum to appreciate what is on the other. I have only ever lived in Fiji, so I very much appreciate the advantages of living in a developed country like Australia in terms of its first-class public amenities, services and infrastructure, advanced education, excellent health facilities, fair pay for a day’s work, etc.

I guess the opposite is also true. Many Australians are attracted to Fiji because it offers what Australia lacks, like culture, the warmth of a communal, village-like structure, and close-knit family oriented ambience. What one country lacks, the other has on offer. An exchange of sorts, like two niche markets marketing different things to different demographics with different preferences.

I enjoyed the train rides to and from work. To me, it is a novel experience. It seems that I find joy in the simple things in life. In addition, it is not just the level of comfort as you watch the passing and ever-changing scenery; it is also the efficiency of its systems. It is so efficient that they even tell you if it is running late. I might not have spent too long there, but I did not experience a train being more than 2 minutes late. 

The passing scenery helps me unwind my mind and look back, in retrospect, at reels of my life through the train of time. It strikes me that most of us villagers live in a culturally manufactured comfort zone that normalises mediocrity. Preserving culture and protecting land is the end goal, so wanting more is naturally suppressed. We do not even notice it.

It is why development is so important. It gets people out of their slumbering existence, so we step out, step up and realise that there is more to life than merely existing, protecting culture and maintaining ownership of land. It helps us adjust our way of thinking so we can transition from financial stagnation to economic progress. Land holds the key.

But, it is important to first change our perception of land. The iTaukei perceive land differently from people in the West. Land is not just a physical object; it is a living entity just like the vanua. In fact, the Fijian ideology on land is intertwined with that of the vanua, so much so that the term ‘qele’ (literal translation – land) and vanua are often used interchangeably.

The root of our economic stagnation is not just systemic; it is also socio-cultural. We must begin to abandon traditions that are a hindrance to progress. However, there are also aspects of our culture that have a deeply profound meaning we must not lose.  And must never reach a point where land loses its spiritual dimension, so that we end up exploiting and destroying the very environment that sustains us, much like the West has done all over the world. Two key words, Cultural adaptability and sustainable development.

In iTaukei culture, a person’s tethering to the vanua begins at birth. After a child is born, the umbilical cord is buried near the home, and either the clan’s totem tree or a fruit tree is planted on top of it. It is a symbol of a person’s untethering from his mother for sustenance and his connection to mother earth for his living and livelihood. A spiritual earthly connection. The tree and the ground around it become sacred. Land from that point on takes on a deeply spiritual identity and symbolism.

At home, I planted four yasi or sandalwood trees atop of my kids’ umbilical cords. They are of the indigenous variety (yasi dina) brought from my wife’s village in Bua. Bua, according to history, was the capital of the sandalwood trade back in the olden days. I have told my kids they can cut down their individual yasi trees on important personal milestones like marriage, etc. It’s a break from the old traditions.

Customarily, these kinds of trees are never cut down. They are considered sacred. But in many Fijian villages near cities and towns, such traditions have begun to lose significance.

Then each land owning unit has a totem animal, fish or bird, a tree, which are all considered sacred and cannot be ‘touched.’ There are other lands that are considered ‘tabu’ (sacred or forbidden) in iTaukei culture like old village sites, all burial grounds, particular reefs or fishing grounds, groves of trees, mountain peaks or ranges, ceremonial grounds, certain caves, etc.

Land has inherently innate value. It is not a commodity as in the Western sense. It is a living entity. An under-girding part of the vanua that attaches peoples’ culture and their spiritual connection to place.

The extension of that kind of cultural thinking is all-encompassing and extends outwards towards the whole. It is why there are bushes where there was once farmland or commercially viable locations are left to permanently fallow. It’s not necessarily that the iTaukei is lazy; do not get me wrong, some iTaukei are. But that is a skin-deep analysis and it misdiagnoses the underlying problem. It is that the iTaukei perceives land differently. 

And then our elite in the GCC and our academics tell us to protect our culture at all costs. I remember messaging the iTaukei Trust Fund Facebook account when they put up an EOI for Scholarships for iTaukei language and culture (Degrees, at USP. I enquired why there were no scholarships in STEM fields and Commerce, those being the fields in which the iTaukei are under-represented or lag. And the answer was that it’s important that we protect culture as we’re beginning to lose it.  

While the prevailing academic discourse often frames these changes as a form of loss, I see it as an evolution of sorts. One where aspects of our heritage that no longer resonate with current realities are consciously shed. It is not necessarily loss of culture but rather culture that is adapting. Cultural adaptability is necessary for growth.

I also find it rather amusing that these academics all now live overseas enjoying Western lifestyles while pontificating to us about preserving indigenous culture. A certain academic loves to pontificate about the importance of preserving culture while sipping fine wine.

But still on trains, the only other train riding experience I have to compare Sydney’s tram service to is the sugar cane train. The freaking railway line is just meters away from my village.

Looking back, amazing as it was, it was quite dangerous. We would untether the last trailer from the train while it was moving at speed. But we would first move the marker flag to the second last trailer. We did all this around a corner so the train driver wouldn’t notice. 

The trailer was then used to collect and transport firewood along the railway line to the village, transport the village rugby team members who had no bus fares to Lawaqa Park for club rugby, as transport to school for the more audacious, or the beach, for fun and a myriad of other things. When unused, we would lift it from the railway into the bush, camouflaged it with leaves and branches. Multi-purpose and multifunctional. It was a hell of a time to be young. 

It saddens me that boys in the village now do not have the kind of experience we did. Today, the closest approximation kids have is the Railway-Run game they play on their phone screens. The train no longer runs because the sugar industry is in dire straits.

Sadly, the death of the sugar industry mirrors the death in the depth of leaders we have in the country. From the giant Ratu Mara who helped structure trade deals with the then European Economic Commission, like the LOME CONVENTION, envisioned and established regional organisations such as the South Pacific Forum to coalesce and unite Pacific voices so that the world stooped to hear us; to regional trade agreements with our nearest developed neighbours, Australia and NZ, via SPARTECA. 

From the giants of those yesteryears who championed multiracialism and multiculturalism to the bigoted ethno-nationalists of today. Oh, how far our leadership stocks have fallen.

As I get off the train, I am reminded that some use government as a gravy train. So, they don’t want to get off. They are used to the gravy. On one hand is Frank Bainimarama, who tried to fleece the government of another $700 000 even though he’d been on a $328 000 salary for about a decade.

On the other hand Rudderless Sitiveni Rabuka, who has lost a lot of trust and public support but still says he will contest the 2026 elections as the PAP party leader. 

Just recently, he disallowed a group of very competent ladies who had applied for certain diplomatic postings because, according to him, they did not have the desirable experience. Conveniently forgetting that his appointment of the High Commissioner to Australia ticked all the boxes for cronyism. This guy had even less experience than the ladies save for the fact that he was a co-founder of the People’s Alliance. Or that the designated Ambassador to the US had not even applied for the position.

Then there is the case of the lady on the other side of the spectrum who stumbles from one tragedy to another. She graduated from stealing husbands to now stealing from government by double dipping. To compound that is the astronomical cost of our ministers and the President. These guys treat public funds like it’s their personal bank account.

But that’s enough talk of gravy for one day, so this train of thought ends.

On the other hand, there’s Rabuka of whom so much was expected but has been nothing short of a big disappointment to many. In all appearances, judging by recent events, he has been influenced by the very same subsection of the ethno-nationalistic core and fundamental Christian zealots that had supported his coup in 1987, so that now you hear rumblings of the GCC forming a political party while the government has opened an embassy in Jerusalem.

As a leader, the timing of these two things couldn’t be worse, given the ongoing Israel-Palestinian conflict and the Fiji Airways Israel Dinau Tour. Not even funny that the same people had ridiculed Frank Bainimarama for the “GDP ni Dinau” comment. 

The gravy train in Fiji powers on while the sugar trains become a distant memory.