I invited Professor Jon Fraenkel to respond to my criticism yesterday of the front page Fiji Times story in which he was quoted as having slammed Justice David Ashton-Lewis for a “disgraceful interference with Fiji politics”.
Alas the Professor has a thin-skin and has taken particular exception to some of the comments by Grubsheet readers about his attack on the Judge.
Here’s the content of our email exchange:
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Graham. I’m seeing what you allow and entertain on your viper’s nest of a website, allowing any ad hominem attack by anonymous keyboard warriors who feel unable to address ideas and so therefore invent personal attacks, and your own broadsides are similarly ad hominem and give succour to this kind of correspondence. You cant seriously expect me, or for that matter anyone vaguely sensible, to respond on that awful poisonous grubsheet medium. Its really quite disgusting, but also pathetic and very sad. I hope you feel suitably ashamed. Goodbye Jon
PS let me include your last email to me when your mind was rather more attuned to reality below.
From: Graham Davis
Date: Monday, 30 January 2023 at 10:12 PM
To: Jon Fraenkel
Subject: Re: Paper
Truly excellent, Jon. Congratulations.
Do you gave a Facebook friendly version? The alternative is for me to screen shot each page. Or perhaps that has already been done?
It is well worth sharing this with a wider audience, if I can have your permission to do so.
The alternative is to have a link on Facebook to a website version. But if ain’t on Facebook, most Fijians won’t bother to read it.
Cheers,
GD
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And my response:
Jon, for someone in your exalted position to publicly traduce a lawfully constituted judicial inquiry by a judge of the Supreme Court of Fiji is what is genuinely “disgusting, pathetic and very sad”. The irony clearly escapes you of having spent years during the Bainimarama era campaigning for the rule of law only to subvert it when it suits you politically. And it is frankly you who should “feel suitably ashamed”.
I praise when I think it is deserved and I criticise when I think it is deserved. My comments about you were expressed in reasoned terms and fully justified under the circumstances. And I have given you the chance to respond to them.
Do you honestly expect me to censor the comments of others? I allow people to comment anonymously for a very good reason – that in Fiji it is still the only way most people feel safe to say anything at all under the Coalition’s glorious new era of free expression. If what is being said about you isn’t true, you have every opportunity to respond to that too.
I get ad hominem attacks all the time, including Manoa Kamikamica recently branding me publicly as an alcoholic for raising some of the issues that have now been upheld by the Judge. It’s the price of entering the bear pit of Fijian politics, and you know it.
I’m sorry you’re upset but it is you who needs to be “more attuned to reality”. You stuck your neck out on an issue about which many people have strong feelings and got whacked. Qori.
GD
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UPDATE FRIDAY PM:
Not content with our exchange, Jon Frankel has another go at me:
Fraenkel:
“No small wonder you are so universally despised within Fiji by those who dare speak under their names. You live by the motto of the lowest denominator”.
And my latest response:
“It’s not a popularity contest, Jon. But in any event, you need to get out more and broaden your social circle. Because there’s plenty of support for me from those who recognise that I do what I do in the national interest. And that’s reflected in the thousands of people who access Grubsheet every day.
I was top of the pops with those who now despise me when I was singing from their song sheet before the last election. So it’s swings and roundabouts. And now that I’m not…tough. We have been betrayed by your kai vata in politics and the law. And I am doing my part to ensure they are brought to account for that betrayal.”
Awaiting Round 3. ..
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NOTE TO READERS:
The record shows that I regularly reject or redact comments that I regard as false, defamatory or obscene.
Jon Fraenkel appears to be especially upset about certain readers raising aspects of his time in Fiji at USP. So in deference to his sensitivity, please be kind to him in subsequent comments.
Jon must have a lot of time on his hands to engage himself in sending emails and criticising the Judge if he calls himself an academic. I don’t think the ordinary people in Fiji would even care what he says or does. We’ve got better things to focus on.
How do these prejudiced and openly non-independent people lacking any common sense and haters become professors?
And then they teach our children?
Truth hurts and the guilty doth protest the most. Jone Frankenstein and ilk with racist or ideological or both leanings are being actively encouraged and facilitated by the FNU to propagate the entitled views of an ethnocracy for Fiji, with apartheid as the proposed rule of law.
Fraenkel is quite right. We are mere keyboard warriors. What Fraenkel forgets is that this modern world is a digital one. The keyboard warrior is today seen as a freedom fighter and you only need look at Myanmar’s keyboard warriors. The perseverance of Myanmar’s youth to fight for freedom is proving to be the key to the country’s democratic future.
Look at the keyboard warriors working to ensure support for Ukraine and other hotspots around the world, ensuring everyone is aware of the horrors that are taking place and forcing everyone to take a stand against corruption, genocide, and other hate.
Fraenkel doesn’t realise that many keyboard warriors that he is referring to are actually working in the civil service, both locally and abroad in missions. We work hard to collect and ensure the information that this filthy and corrupt government is trying to suppress is brought to light, so GD and other freedom fighters expose to the world.
In Fraenkel’s world, keyboard warriors are putting a damper on all his plans to grease the balls of government ministers and make him look good. After all, he is a PhD and we’re mere grains of sand. In Fraenkel’s world, everything looks rosy through his rose-tinted glasses and anyone not seeing the same thing as him is a naysayer and opponent of the government. This is the same bloke who believes the constitution can be simply amended through the courts because his friend the CJ is corrupt enough to allow it.
Fraenkel needs to look hard at what is happening and realise the very keyboard warriors he is disregarding are trying to convince him to take off those rose-tinted glasses and realise the actual carnage that is taking place in Fiji. After all, in Rabuka’s eyes, Fraenkel and the rest of us vulagi’s are mere visitors in the country. So, is the visitor trying his best to stay in the country, without becoming an unpleasant smell by continually hugging and kissing this corrupt lot?