Today’s Fiji Times front page has Grubsheet again thinking with time on my hands: Is there no end to the moral collapse of the iTaukei?
It’s the astonishing story of a chief from Tailevu who has taken the side of the Russians in the war in Ukraine – an act of monstrous folly that shames the entire nation. On top of all the other shame brought on us by our indigenous compatriots.
- A convicted treasonist and accused paedophile at the apex of the state in the form of our President, Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu, who also stands accused of usurping powers that belong to his chiefly subject, the Prime Minister, to keep his relative, the Chief Justice, in office as head of the judiciary when he has been accused of perverting the course of justice.
- The government’s chief law officer, Siromi Turaga, forced to stand down as acting attorney general and minister for justice after a tape of him having sex with his wife appeared on his Facebook page. His daughter is evidently claiming his account was hacked but anyone with the barest of knowledge of Facebook knows that its Meta owner has the best anti-hacking measures in the world.
- The disappearance of more than $50-million worth of seized cocaine from the High Court and the substitution of some of it with flour. The Chief Registrar reportedly “taken in” for questioning and the arrest of the husband of the sister of the head of FICAC – a senior court official who is now on the run.
- The extrajudicial killing of the accused drug lord, Jone Vakarisi, who was tortured and murdered at the RFMF’s Queen Elizabeth Barracks. Precisely six months later, no-one has been charged in relation to that killing and both the RFMF commander, Major General Ro Jone Kalouniwai, and the Defence Minister, Pio Tikoduadua, remain silent. So does the Fijian mainstream media.
- Fiji’s climate campaign and the government’s information effort in the hands of another social media porn star, Lynda Tabuya, who was found guilty by the People’s Alliance of a “sex and Illicit drug scandal” yet has never been properly brought to account and is now poised to star in the PAP’s election campaign.
- And now comes news that a Fijian chief has chosen to side with the Russians in their brutal invasion of Ukraine. How much worse is it all going to get before someone – anyone – says enough is enough?
The best we get from the Prime Minister is “every saint has a past, every sinner has a future”. And from the President of the Methodist Church, calls for a national day of prayer. And we wonder why Fiji is in the grip of a drugs and HIV calamity and standards of public conduct have collapsed. Because as the old saying goes, the fish rots from the head.
We don’t need prayer. We need the iTaukei from the Great Council of Chiefs down to take a good look at themselves. Except that it’s a chief now fighting on the side of the Russians and another chief and his son facing trial for killing an Indo-Fijian in Sigatoka. On top of all the other chiefs with shady and/or criminal pasts, including the chief at the apex of the state.
All the rest of us can do is despair. Because the national leadership once embodied by Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna is gone.
In World War One, our greatest statesman was told by the British that Fijians weren’t allowed to fight the Germans on the British side. So what did he do? Ratu Sukuna crossed the English Channel and joined the French Foreign Legion, fighting with such courage and tenacity that he won France’s top medals for valour.
What is happening now? A Fijian chief has chosen the side of the aggressor and joined Vladimir Putin‘s appalling invasion of Ukraine, which poses not only a threat to that country but the security of the whole of Europe and the world.
That’s how far Fiji and the iTaukei race have fallen. And the great Ratu Sukuna would be spinning in his grave.
Yes, there’s only one way to describe it. Moral collapse. That and everything else.
At least Siromi Turaga has had the decency to resign over the sex tape with his wife.
The Siren of Rom 233 – totally bereft of shame – is Fiji’s face to the world with the following qualifications:
What would Ratu Sukuna really think about it all? Be honest, Fiji.
There was a giant among men who made the iTaukei famous for nobility and courage the world over.
Now his successors are moral pygmies.
Even in France today, Ratu Sukuna is remembered and his exploits celebrated.
The following account isn’t from Fiji. It’s from the local tourism authority in one of the battlegrounds of World War One.
NOTE TO READERS:
Yes, I’m still on holiday. But I should obviously be reading an uplifting book, not the depressing Fijian media.
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