The following was submitted to the Fiji Sun for publication as a reply to Graham’s column of Sunday. As the column was reprinted from this blog, however, I feel it is appropriate to post the reply as a blog comment as well, which will also open it up to response by Graham and others. But first I must thank Graham for getting such a lively discussion going on such an important issue. This is like manna from heaven on the eve of World Press Freedom Day later this week, which we at USP Journalism have numerous events planned to celebrate.
Unfortunately, however, Graham was seriously mistaken on several important matters of fact in his column. I am sure he is familiar with C.P. Scott’s aphorism that “comment is free, but facts are sacred.” If he can’t get his facts straight, how seriously should we take his opinions? Of course, you can also point to his tactics, as some others have done. I think most readers well understand where Graham is coming from on this issue and others.
As an award-winning historian, I can assure you that even the most eminent of us disagree on what the facts mean, and history is continually being revised as new facts come to light. If you want to know exactly what I am teaching first-year journalism students at USP, you can read the Introduction to the textbook I have assigned for JN101 this semester for free online at http://www.journalism.org/node/72.
I’m disappointed that Graham Davis (“Edge of Reality,” Fiji Sun, 29 April) was “underwhelmed” by my panel presentation at the Pacific Islands News Association’s recent Media Summit at Pacific Harbour. In chronicling how disappointed he was, however, I feel that he seriously misrepresented what I said. There were some audio problems with the panel, however, so perhaps he didn’t hear me very well despite sitting in the front row. Panelists were given only 10 minutes each, as there were five of us and only an hour allocated, so I also had to rush through all the things I wanted to say. Maybe I went too fast for him, so perhaps I should go through them again.
I wanted to introduce myself to the delegates, most of whom I had not met, being a relative newcomer to Fiji. I mentioned that despite being from a land far, far away, I have some familiarity with the region because I had sailed through the South Pacific after leaving the newspaper business in Canada many years ago. I told of how I arrived in Tonga in 1996 while Taimi ’o Tonga publisher Kalafi Moala was imprisoned for exercising freedom of the press. My time in Tonga piqued my interest in such issues to the extent that I sailed back north the following year to enroll in doctoral studies in Journalism in the U.S. I feel it is thus fitting that I have returned to teach Journalism at the University of the South Pacific.
I also wanted to promote the Journalism programme at USP because we were somehow not included as a conference sponsor, while FNU logos were seemingly everywhere. I wanted to introduce our new radio station manger, Semi Francis, and to mention that Radio Pasifik is now back on the air in Suva at FM 89.4 after several years of silence. We hope to soon have an official launch, and to begin broadcasting in other Fiji markets and across the South Pacific via the Internet.
I had wanted to introduce my colleague Irene Manueli, who does such a great job of putting out our Wansolwara student newspaper, but she had to dash back to Suva for a class that morning. I held up the latest issue, however, and mentioned that I had brought a number of copies for delegates, which were quickly scooped up. I also announced that we hope to soon have the Wansolwara back online. It has been offline for several years. You will want to check out our issue this week, which will be included with you Fiji Sun, as we have a nice scoop on the ongoing Miss World Fiji saga. I urged delegates to send us their best and brightest students, as we are the regional Journalism programme. I also mentioned that we hope to soon offer introductory and advanced courses via distance learning.
I glanced at my watch to see that I had used fully half of my allotted time with preliminaries, so I got right to the subject at hand. It had been rather broadly defined on the programme as “political, religious, racial, ethnic, legal, drug related, climatic and health issues in a historic era when the media is buffeted by winds of change.” I said that I thought too little time had been set aside for discussion of such important issues. An inordinate number of sessions, on the other hand, had been devoted to trivial matters such as sports and to PINA’s seeming obsession with non-communicable diseases, which had been given two full hours that morning while our panel was originally scheduled for only 45 minutes. I said rather pointedly that there were more important issues for journalists to discuss than NCDs. While there had been some sessions on important issues such as climate change and corruption, there had been virtually no discussion of press freedom or other political issues that will largely determine how these other important issues are dealt with.
I said that I thought we needed more discussion in the Fiji media on political issues, which is the hallmark of a free press. I praised Graham’s recent column on race politics in Fiji (“Qarase stirs up trouble,” Fiji Sun, 14 March) and said that I thought we needed more such provocative political commentary. It might be painful and messy, I said, but it will be necessary – rather like lancing a boil — if Fiji is to get over its recent political trauma and return to democracy.
I then announced that USP Journalism had just been given the go-ahead to hold a two-day symposium in September on Media and Democracy in the South Pacific, at which we intend to explore these kinds of issues in depth. I invited delegates to attend and even participate, as we plan to include presentations by journalists and journalism students as well as by media scholars and political scientists. I got my vinaka vakalevu in at just on 10 minutes, so I was pleased I had packed so much into such a short time.
I thus don’t quite understand how Graham could write that I “said nothing especially critical at the conference itself.” It is true that I did not bring up my dissatisfactions at PINA’s conference-ending Annual General Meeting. That was because I was informed that USP did not have a vote there, being only an associate member, and as far as I could tell it would have been pointless to protest anything because no other dissenters were in attendance. Many of them, of course, had boycotted the entire conference. Some who had come to Pacific Harbour apparently realized that the deck had been stacked against them and simply chose not to attend the AGM.
I sat amazed as the voting delegates were asked to simply rubber stamp a list of resolutions that had been prepared behind closed doors by committees representing industry groups. Approval was obtained without much discussion. Those of us who are journalism educators and media critics had met before the AGM with the aim of forming our own industry group, which would give us a vote and thus a voice. Some doubted the usefulness of that, given PINA’s seeming resistance to discussing important journalism issues, but I would prefer to help reform PINA from the inside.
As for Graham’s contention that my remarks “have come out of left field a full month after the conference ended,” that is not true either. They have come in response to his recent column on the subject. (“Pacific Media at Peace after Pacific Harbour,” Fiji Sun, 25 April.) Bruce Hill of Radio Australia, who had been good enough to come and talk to my third-year International Journalism class after the PINA conference, was well aware of my dissatisfaction with how things had gone there. Thus when Graham attacked him as a trouble-maker in his column, Bruce called me to get my reaction. I reiterated that all was not lovey-dovey in Pacific media, nor in PINA, as Graham and some others would have people believe. I offered to go on the record with my dissenting opinion.
I have no problem with the way Bruce presented my interview, nor with the way he reported on the PINA conference, with which Graham took great issue. Bruce played the contentious interviews for my class, and I was impressed not only with his interviewing skills, but also with his even-handed reporting. He interviewed a PNG government official who made a fairly outrageous statement to the effect that news media should not report critically on government. An outraged Kalafi Moala, according to Bruce, practically insisted on responding with some strong comments of his own the next morning. Was Bruce stirring up trouble or manufacturing conflict? Hardly. He was doing good journalism. Bruce is a real pro. He doesn’t deserve Graham’s criticisms. That said, I know exactly what Graham means by the Australian media manufacturing conflict in Fiji. I have had my own views misrepresented on Radio Australia, but not by Bruce.
I also feel it was WAY over the top, not to mention fairly thin-skinned and defensive, for Graham to portray my account of the PINA conference as somehow implying “misrepresentation” on his part, or as “pouring scorn” on his account. Nor was I suggesting the PINA conference was a “seething mass of discontent.” And I certainly didn’t, as he claimed, “comprehensively trash” David Robie’s account.
What we have here is called a diversity of viewpoints, which is usually considered a virtue in journalism. People can choose for themselves which one they think is closest to the truth, or they can take them all with a grain of salt. Graham and I obviously have different perspectives. I am a journalism scholar and an outsider here, while he is a practitioner who enjoys a well-entrenched position as a government insider, judging by his sources. I’m also pretty sure we were talking to different people at the PINA conference. No doubt this was a much more peaceful affair than the last one in Vanuatu, but that doesn’t mean the wounds are healed and everyone is happy. I think many have given up on PINA and simply absented themselves, which is sad. I don’t want to do that. Not yet.
I and others feel strongly that PINA should be acting as an advocate for their member journalists, not working on behalf of sponsors to use their member journalists to advance a development agenda. It is undeniable that Fiji’s media are at a crossroads in 2012 with the lifting of the PER after almost three years of censorship. They are instead now subject to the provisions of the 2010 Media Decree, which has criminalized what were once journalism ethics. From what I can tell from talking to Fiji journalists, there is a tremendous climate of fear and uncertainty in advance of the first rulings from the new Media Authority. What do journalists need to know to stay out of jail and avoid being fined?
Then there’s the State Proceedings Amendment Decree 2012, which is supposed to replace parliamentary privilege by exempting government ministers from legal liability for defamation for any statements they make. It also exempts news media outlets from liability for publishing or broadcasting their defamatory statements. But if ministers have immunity and their political opponents don’t, it will have a chilling effect on government critics. How credible will the pronouncements of ministers be if they are not legally liable for making defamatory misstatements? Should the media thus be reporting their statements at all, especially if the other side is not allowed to speak freely? After all, that wouldn’t be balanced reporting as required by the Media Decree. It’s getting a bit ridiculous.
These all would have made useful topics for discussion at a conference of journalists in Fiji, but there was no mention of any of them at the PINA summit. They are the kinds of issues that we will be discussing at our Media and Democracy symposium in September, however. We will also be discussing them at our World Press Freedom Day events on campus this Thursday and Friday. Unlike PINA, we want to shine a light on these issues. They are the types of things we discuss with our students all the time. Some of them who attended the PINA conference, by the way, were also unimpressed with the lack of open discussion on these issues. Obviously they have been learning to think a little bit more critically.
I’m pleased that Doctor Edge has chosen to respond to my article “Edge of Reality” but find it curious that he takes the last and least important point I make – my criticism of his own PINA presentation – and makes it the leitmotif of his entire response. Most people start from the top and go down. Dr Edge starts from the bottom and goes up.
I was making the point in the final paragraph of the article that Doctor Edge had an opportunity in his presentation – had he chosen to do so – to publicly raise some of the criticism of the PINA summit organisers that he subsequently made on Radio Australia a month later. He didn’t and confirms this with a detailed account of precisely what he said, which doesn’t sound any more impressive to me four weeks on, not least because he didn’t address the subject he was asked to speak on – the moral challenges to individual journalists of changes in media practice.
Doctor Edge skirts over the central issue of why – when PINA was so demonstrably peaceful – he should choose to portray it on Radio Australia as a place where dissent was not only present but was wilfully suppressed by the PINA leadership and secretariat. This has what has caused the most angst among PINA luminaries, who passionately feel that they have been maligned and misrepresented and worse, weren’t confronted with their alleged transgressions until AFTER Doctor Edge had given his interview to Radio Australia a month later. He sent them a letter last week outlining his complaints and informing them that the USP intended to leave PINA.
We now have confirmation from Doctor Edge himself of one of the central tenets of my original story; that any controversy – at PINA and subsequently – was generated almost solely by the Radio Australia reporter, Bruce Hill. In fact Doctor Edge reveals that his offending interview with Hill for Pacific Beat would not have taken place without Hill’s direct intervention. Furthermore, it appears to have been in pursuit of a personal agenda – Hill’s dissatisfaction with the way I portrayed him in my original article.
Dr Edge says the interview arose directly out of the “criticism” I made of Hill in that piece when, in fact, that criticism came from Professor David Robie of Auckland’s University of Technology. I was reporting that criticism, not making it myself, a crucial difference that Doctor Edge – as a journalist himself – ought to recognise. My “peace breaks out at PINA” angle reflected not only my own observations but the views expressed to me at the summit by the likes of Professor Robie and the Tongan publisher, Kalafi Moala, as well as the PINA leadership. Doctor Edge’s account here suggests that Bruce Hill objected to me quoting Professor Robie saying that without Hill, there would have been little or no controversy at PINA. So he either enlists or provides the opportunity for Doctor Edge to contradict the “peace breaks out” line in a radio interview a month later.
At the very least, this smacks of precisely the same “conflict journalism” Professor Robie has accused Bruce Hill of in the past. Hill reads my article and doesn’t like it. So he goes to the guy he did some lectures for at USP – Doctor Edge – and by mutual agreement, the two embark on an exercise of rewriting – on Hill’s program – the entire premise of what reporting has already taken place, not just by me but Professor Robie on the AUT site, Pacific Scoop NZ.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with this IF it’s based on fact – if there was dissent at PINA and the leadership and Secretariat stifled it, as Doctor Edge has alleged. The trouble is there’s no evidence that this happened. Even the most vociferous critic of PINA – Terry Tavita, the media advisor to the prime minister of Samoa – has disputed in these columns that there was “dissention” at the 2012 summit. So it’s surely axiomatic that if there’s no dissent, there’s nothing to suppress. This is not to say that certain dissenters stayed away from PINA. That is not in dispute. But it’s the accusation of suppression made by Doctor Edge a month after the event that has enraged the PINA leadership.
By Doctor Edge’s account, he was deeply concerned about not having the opportunity to influence events at PINA for the better because the USP wasn’t a full member. That is one thing. Accusing the organisation of a willful and deliberate policy to silence contrary voices is quite another.
Seemingly impressed with Bruce Hill’s willingness to lecture to his students and host him on Pacific Beat, Doctor Edge doesn’t attach the same opprobrium to Hill that he attaches to other Radio Australia journalists who, by his own account, haven’t given him a fair hearing. But it seems pretty clear that it was Bruce Hill who lured him into the current furore by raising with him my own portrayal of the summit and persuading him to mount a counter attack. If this isn’t the “conflict journalism” Bruce Hill has been accused of before, then I don’t know what is.
Doctor Edge’s concerns about freedom of speech in Fiji and any constraints on reporting are almost universally shared and were a major feature of my original story – the dangers of self censorship, the punitive nature of the decrees he cites and the interpretation of what it means to be “pro Fiji”. So his nudge-nudge-wink-wink “we know where he’s coming from” approach and casting me as having some sort of special relationship with government are also the cheapest of shots. I call it as I see it and at PINA, I simply didn’t see what Marc Edge saw. From where I sit, the “award winning historian” was engaged in rewriting history, not recording it.
you two are three years too late..dissention came to a head three years ago at Port Vila..when there was a split at PINA and people went off and did their own thing..and no I dont agree with Kalafi that it was caused by the then Vanuatu media rift..it was caused by PINA’s failure to adequately respond to the political and media crisis in Fiji..end of story..we were well aware of what PINA was incapable of before we turned up at Pacific Harbour..none of us came with any high expectations..
I’m glad to see you fellas playing together well.
Start from the top and go down! Start from the bottom and go up! Does the order really matter!?
This is updated version of PINA Wars, taking in political economy angle of PINA stoush:
What Prof Edge has observed about PINA is nothing new. It has a bit of a dodgy record, contrary to the perfect picture some like are painting of imagined glory days. Things seem to have gotten worse after the coup. Someone new to the region might not understand the full, debilitating effect of non-communicable diseases in Fiji and the region, and can play down the problem. Media is duty-bound first to educate itself about it, and then educate people about it, although some journos revel in self-imagined image of toughness and hard-bitten and swashbuckling, and old school – wear it like a badge of honour; they will pompously dismiss non-communicable diseases as ‘boring’, ‘soft’, etc, etc . non-communicable thingie should be there, but was was perhaps overdone at PINA at sponsors’ behest. It woud not be the first time.
But underneath all this is the long-held wish and agenda to relocate PINA from Fiji or destroy it so Pasima can replace PINA – this ambition is well and alive. Some faces at PINA Suva confirm this. Those new to the region can unwittingly play into this agenda, although it must be said those at the helm in PINA are also doing a good job discrediting organisation by, among other things, lack of accountability.
Competition for donor funds is fierce. look at whose chasing these funds. link PINA criticism with who is competing with PINA and trying to corner funding, picture will become clearer – region is full of junket kings and queens. throw donor agenda into the mix – mark edge will understand in time the murkiness of it all. and the fact that it is not all about media freedom. as they say, follow the money!
Media freedom in Fiji under the current is quite complicated, needs patience, clever manoeuvring; getting tired of simplistic notions of press freedom being applied to Fiji; easy for likes of tavita and Lisa Lahari to pontificate from outside; try living in fiji like us. media is partly responsible for own predicament, as we have read in this blog before, what with allegations of shirt journalism and all that at the Fiji times.
@Graham Davis
As far as I can see everyone is in agreement that there was no dissent shown at the conference. Even Bruce Hill in his interview with Dr Edge says “You say there wasn’t any real dissent at the PINA conference.”
The main argument here, it seems, is whether PINA stifled dissent at the conference as claimed by Dr Edge or whether all the journalists at the conference were all happy and peaceful.
For dissent to have been stifled first there must be disagreement. It is clear just from Grubsheet there is dissent amongst the journalists at PINA. Terry Tavita, Lisa Williams-Lihari and Dr Edge all have differing views and opinions to you. So we definitely have dissent amongst the Pacific journalists.
So the question now is why was that dissent not shown at the conference? Was it because it was stifled?
I think the answer to that is clearly yes but it may not have been by PINA.
The conference was held in a country that has just endured 3 years of media censorship. The conference was also packed with members of the Fiji Ministry of Information who were the actual censors in the news room. You raise this question. “In the uncertain aftermath of the formal lifting of censorship, the average working journalist is still walking on eggshells, acutely conscious that it hasn’t taken much to be branded “anti-Fiji” in the past. Has overt censorship in Fiji merely been replaced by an insidious form of self-censorship?”
The answer to the question is clearly yes. Feel for the Fiji journalists at the conference. If every time they were thinking about disagreeing with something they would look up and see the Orwellian eye of the Ministry of Info staring at them, what do you expect them to do? They obviously did what they have been trained to do by 3 years of censorship, Back Down! After all if they say or publish the wrong thing it could lead to a $100,000 fine or a prison term.
You have a very public Pro Bainimarama stance. In every article you write on here it is in support of the dictator. You are seen to be his friend and friends of many of his supporters. No one, living in Fiji, who has an opposing point of view is going to raise it in your presence for fear they will shopped to the authorities and taken up to QEB.
Dissent is stifled in Fiji there can be no argument about that. As soon as a politician or an NGO voices a contrary opinion the Land Force Commander of the RFMF, the man with 3,000 rifles to support him, lashes out with some idiotic comment.
You quote in one of your comments a prime example of the Regime’s interference in free speech. “Fiji Government intend to ask for clarification from the University of the South Pacific whether it supports Dr Edge’s comments” You seem to accept that as normal. What has it got to do with the dictator and his cronies? The Fiji Government is not in charge of USP it is just one of the Forum countries involved? I don’t see the Solomons Government or the PNG Government asking for clarification. Only the dictatorial regime which can only survive by clamping down on all dissent.
There is clearly dissent amongst the Pacific journalist. The dissent was not shown at the conference. It was clearly stifled. Whether it was stifled by PINA or because it was held in a military dictatorship is the real question here.
I would like to point out that I never used the word “stifled” in my interview with Radio Australia. That word was in the headline, but it was never used by me. The headline was probably written by some junior producer or web content person. What I said was that they “managed to keep a lid on all the dissension.” There is dissension within PINA. We have established that. But they managed to keep a lid on it. I stand by that statement. I also said “they managed to keep a lot of the dissension out of the conference, but that doesn’t mean there’s not dissension.” I stand by that statement as well. I also said “there is a lot of dissatisfaction with the PINA. So I think they have to address some of the issues. They seem to have escaped doing that and may not have to for another couple of years, maybe they’re hoping things will calm down by then. But just because there was no dissent at the conference, doesn’t mean there is no dissent in PINA.” So I am repeating two things over and over: There is dissension in PINA, but they managed to keep it out of the Media Summit. The word “stifled” has been bandied all across the Pacific on this. I just wish to point out that it is not a word that I ever uttered, nor would I in this context. It has a more negative connotation than saying “kept a lid on it” or “kept it out of the conference.” This has been a lesson in the importance of word choice.
Marc, “keeping the lid” on something is defined as “maintaining control over something”, a “curb, restraint or limit”. It is a conscious, premeditated act to assert and maintain control.
In the context in which you used the phrase, it was surely acceptable journalistically for this to be taken by a Radio Australia producer or anyone else as “stifling” (stop, extinguish, deaden, quench) or “suppressing” (forcibly put an end to, present, restrain) – words which also clearly mean “maintaining control over something”.
We have both been senior journalists and I do think you are “shooting the sub” in a semantic showdown that is largely irrelevant to the main issue here. Stripped to the bare essentials, you said the PINA organisers had “managed to keep a lid on all the dissension” at the summit and they say they did nothing of the sort because dissent wasn’t an issue with which they had to contend.
I personally expected one of the chief critics of PINA in 2009 – Terry Tavita of Samoa – to support you in all this. But he’s clearly enunciated the view that “dissension” wasn’t an issue at PINA in 2012 and we are both having this argument three years late.
“Pin a medal”, the specific charge levelled by Marc Edge was that dissent at PINA was stifled by the organisers. So your contribution – while welcome – is a red herring.
Yes, I take your point that the fear of the evil eye of Minfo might have been enough to cower your run-of-the-mill local journo. But this is Marc Edge we’re talking about, a man who certainly doesn’t show any fear of the regime a month on.
This suggestion of yours that I’m a “friend” of Bainimarama is extremely tiresome. I’ve met him on no more than four or five occasions when I’ve interviewed him and we’ve had a couple of extra handshakes or hellos at functions we’ve happened to be at together. His father knew my father but the first time I met the PM was in 2006 before he staged his coup.
For the record, I go through precisely the same channels as any other journalist when I want to interview him – the Permanent Secretary for Information, Sharon Smith Johns. So the notion of some sort of special access is a nonsense.
As I keep saying to anyone who’ll listen: I support the notion of a prosperous, multiracial Fiji with equal rights and equal opportunities for all of its citizens. That being the case, it stands to reason that I support the regime’s multiracial agenda but am also clearly on the record for having criticised its attitude to the media. I’m also identified as a critic of the SDL government that Bainimarama removed because it clearly stood for the interests of just one race – the i’taukei – to the detriment of other citizens.
Of course the Fiji Government – as a stakeholder in USP – has the right to question the university about anything it chooses. I’m not aware of a specific protest but gather from third parties that the real offence was Dr Edge’s threat to take the USP out of PINA and join the breakaway PasiMA grouping. If this is the case, surely the government or anyone else is entitled to ask the USP if this is official policy and seek an explanation. I don’t happen to see anything sinister in that.
It’s clear that if this were to happen, there are wider implications because the USP would be cutting its ties with a regional umbrella group in PINA and forging links with a breakaway organisation closely identified with Polynesian critics of Fiji. I’d imagine Melanesian countries other than Fiji – who are also stakeholders in the USP – might also have something to say about that.
@Graham,
You are getting very pedantic. You accept my point that Min Info’s presence at the conference would have kept the Fiji contingent of journalists quiet. So OK Dr Edge was pointing the finger at the wrong group. Whether it was PINA or the Fijian dictatorship keeping the lid on things is really irrelevant, somebody did.
I did not say you are a friend of Bainimarama. I said “you were seen to be a friend” as a result of the pro dictatorship stance you take in every article you write. I meant it the same way I would about say the Murdoch journalists in the UK. In the Margaret Thatcher Years they were friends towards the Conservatives. In the Blair years they were friends towards New Labor. In the Brown years they became friends of the Conservatives once again. They wrote positive articles about their friends and negative ones about their enemies
You say “I (Graham Davis) support the notion of a prosperous, multiracial Fiji with equal rights and equal opportunities for all of its citizens. That being the case, it stands to reason that I support the regime’s multiracial agenda”. Most of the Grubsheet articles on Fiji bring up the race card, heaping praise on the regimes multiracial aims. However I have at no point seen you write an article about the lack of prosperity in Fiji. Our economy is smaller now than in 2006. 6 years on. Our Polynesian neighbours, closest in size, have enjoyed a growth rate of between 4-5% annually whilst our Melanesian neighbours have grown even more.
Under dictatorship the Fiji economy is being left behind. And you ignore that fact. Why don’t you write about the lack of investment in Fiji, the rise of unemployment, the increased cost of doing business or the regime’s ongoing use of decrees to target individual companies?
To say Fiji has a right to question USP about anything it chooses is technically right. But as I say no other Government is interfering in this matter, USP’s choice of media organization membership is hardly of national importance. The only Government sticking its nose in is Fiji because it needs to keep a lid on dissent.
The way you have written your comment is further proof of your “friendship” with Bainimarama. You are very quick to excuse any action of the dictator or his regime and very quick to criticize any of his opponents.
Pin a Medal, I’m pedantic? As soon as I address one of your points, you say “but…”
Suffice it to say, I believe general prosperity will return when Fiji stops being punished by the bigger powers for defying their wishes and democratic stability returns. It’s already happening – albeit very slowly – without either.
Good on you Pin a Medal,
I agree Graham seem to concentrate his writings on Fiji on the issue of racism.Tell us which country is so perfect and its free from racism and various other segregation that exist on the face of this earth.Can you be a bit more creative by writing on the other more important issues that Pin has suggested above,something more appealing to the modern young Fijians of all races.And tell us which society or organisation that is free from disagreements and so forth and I can still remember very clearly in 1987 after the 1st coup when you appeared live with Ray Martin on television.
Wilson, race happens to be the biggest issue in Fiji bar none, the only thing that is preventing the country from being a powerhouse of stability and prosperity and a beacon for its less developed island neighbours.
No other country in the neighbourhood has the same fixation with race – as evidenced by the shameful attitudes displayed last week to Miss World Fiji, Torika Watters.
So you say I should concentrate on other things. Why? Everything else will flow if Fiji can bury the racial bogey one and for all. Yes, it’s an obsession of mine and I make no apology for it. I grew up with the notion of a multiracial Fiji and I will die with it.
@Graham
Pedantic is defined as: overly concerned with minute details or formalisms, especially in teaching.
But going “But” after you address my points would make me Argumentative and possibly disagreeable.
Oh Darn it! I see what you have done there you tricked me into being pedantic. Man you are so clever Graham.
But that is beside the point. I see you cleverly side step the real debate about Was dissent stifled at PINA. I think we all know it was and you have run out of arguments.
Your point about prosperity is another classic case of Graham being “friends” with a dictator. Despite Bainimarama being in absolute control for 6 years and Minister of Finance for 4 years you absolve him of all responsibility for Fiji’s disastrous economic record since 2006.
Instead you resort to that stand by used by all dictators through the centuries. Let’s blame the foreigner. By bigger powers I assume you mean Australia and New Zealand, just how exactly are they economically punishing Fiji. How have their policies stopped growth in Fiji?
As you should know the private sector is the driver behind economic growth and I cannot think of one policy of the bigger powers that has affected the private sector.
The economic malaise of Fiji is totally the responsibility of Bainimarama, Khaiyum and their buddies. They are the ones who have created an investment climate where no one wants to invest. With no investment comes no growth and no jobs.
Terry Tavita,
What crisis are you referring to? The censorship of the media? Well that was always known to never be a permanent fixture, wasn’t it? It’s gone now, as predicted, media freedom with heavy criticism of the government is being freely reported, by the public through news items and even opinion fora.
I find it a bit rich that a samoan has the gall to label Fiji’s situation as a “media crisis” as you conveniently do. In case you have forgotten, samoa’s laughable media have to live with the Publishers and Printers Act of 1992. Let me revise your memory by quoting this website where one of your own has criticized this act quite heavily (http://www.pjreview.info/sites/default/files/articles/pdfs/pjr16(2)_samoaobserver_malifa_pp37-46.pdf).
Talk to us in Fiji when you have even drafted a policy on informations and secrecy. Here, at least we have the Whistleblowers Decree in implementation.
If you indeed have no faith in PINA, why then show up at all? Why bother to even attend? Was the prospect of shopping to rich to stick by any ethics that you attempt to portray?
You are too quick to comment on Fiji and its leadership, right from your (below Form II English – to quote an eminent professor at the USP in 1998) to your leader. By the way, we in Fiji are permitted to stand and lead whenever we are of the voting age. Granted, we’re not there yet, but this is a transition which looks like it’s about to end soon. At least, the eligibility to lead in Fiji is not determined by whose bed one was spawned on, or who carried the baby for registration. For us, while we have our chiefs, we also have democracy where commoners have led the nation.
Your entire (matai-led) lot can learn from this.