The Forum > Article Comments > Silence in paradise > Comments
Silence in paradise : Comments
By Netani Rika, published 31/8/2009Journalists in Fiji face a daily battle against Commodore Frank Bainimarama's censors to give the people a voice.
- Pages:
-
- 1
- Page 2
-
- All
I've had these kinds of conversations over recent years with Fijians in Fiji, in the Region, and in Australia, from a senior Ratu, experienced journalists, villagers, and so on. To summarize (and Crosbie Walsh's Encyclopedic Atlas of Fiji, 2006, plus reliable demographic data, informs this too)...
Given demographic changes since 2000 and probably earlier, Indigenous Fijians are now significantly in the majority.
If credible elections were held, either along lines set out in the (now abrogated) 1997 Constitution OR (setting to one side how this could be legally mandated) One Roll, One Vote, One Value, who'd win a free and fair Fiji election? Soqosoqo Duavata ni Lewenivanua (SDL) or somebody very like them, probably with a few more extreme groupings bolted to them.
"What'd happen then?" I've asked my informants. "You go figure," they've replied, rolling their eyes towards the northern Suva suburb of Nabua where the military has its HQ, and perhaps having another Bilu of Yagona or a calming pull on their Fiji Bitter.
Bainimarama, to be sure, started out to break the coup cycle, crush ethno-nationalism, and re-make the "psyche" of Fiji along genuinely non-ethnic lines (People's Charter and so on).
But he's completely blown it, and is embedding further resentments which he might contain with brute force, by militarizing all State institutions, or the New Methodists deflect with their weird "fundamentalism"... the draconian media censorship just fuels Fiji's notorious coconut wireless too.
Nobody with credible insights I've talked with about Fiji's current morass can see a sustainable End Game emerging.