(+) Methodist Leaders in "Denial"

"It is time the Christian churches step away from politics once and for all for the benefit of the nation. For too long the failure of the churches to separate their pastoral role from national politics has fanned the flames of unrest." Fiji Times editorial March 17, 2009.

What a pity! There seemed to be some hope for a Government-Methodist rapprochement after Rev Akuila Yabaki's plea for dialogue (see previous post.)

But no. Fiji Live reports the Methodist Church's stance is unchanged.

I can understand the Church's refusal to sack Revs Lasaro and Kanailagi (photo), as requested by Government, but not for the reason given. I also have reservations about two other Church statements. My comments refer to elements within the Church; not the Church as a whole.

Gen.Sec.Rev.Tuikilakila Waqairatu said the Church does not believe the ministers have offended. If this is the case, members of the Standing Committee need to look very closely at the Church's Christian foundations. Their immediate offence is the use of the church to derail the Bainimarama government, and defying the Emergency Regulations. This is arguably an offence or not an offence, depending on your perspective. Their more general offence is the crime against humanity sort. Both men are extreme Fijian nationalists, far more than church ministers. They have been engaged in what most of today's Christians would say are immoral and unchristian acts: they have preached racism and supported racist causes for over 20 years. And during all, or most, of this time they have been senior officers of the Church.

The Rev.Waqairatu says, "The Church’s involvement in politics is for the spiritual and moral aspect." This is true, up to a point. The Methodist Church is the major part of the lotu of the lotu, vanua, matanitu trilogy. But the Church has allowed Lasaro and Kanailagi's decidedly unspiritual and immoral political preaching to go on unchecked for 20 years. It has helped-- or at least not stopped -- their election to high office within the Church. By not standing up against the racist taukei faction, the Church is thus seen to have supported three racist coups, and two political parties and two governments with racist policies. It is this brand of politics, not the spiritual or moral -- in which they have definitely been involved -- that the Government asks the Church to renounce. And it would insult the Church leaders' intelligence to pretend they did not know so.

The Rev.Waqairatu also called on the Government "to consider the spirit of love, compassion, morality and responsibility in the direction they move in." I find this "pot calling the kettle black" request ingenious. One must ask where were Lasaro and Kanailagi's love and compassion when they advocated actions and policies that, to varying degrees, insulted, hurt or impoverished thousands of innocent people between 1987 and 2006? Do they still excuse the desecrated temples? The refugee camps filled as Methodist Fijians threatened isolated Indo-Fijian farmers? The affirmative action policies that left one-half of Fiji's poor untouched? Or the displaced Indo-Fijians who moved into squatter areas when their cane farm leases were not renewed, as urged by taukei Fijians? Can they imagine how it feels to be a second class citizen, even when you are a sixth generation Indo-Fijian? Have they forgotten Qarase's proposed legislation that led to the 2006 Coup? Or the tens of thousands of Indo-Fijians who have emigrated? None of this, of course, was really about Indo-Fijians. They were merely the scapegoats. There were deeper causes and more devious reasons for the coups, but where was the Methodist Church then? Why were these human rights abuses not denounced from its pulpits? How can it allow two men so grievously marred to serve in the Church? How can it instruct Government on the spirit of love and compassion when its silence let the Laraso's and Kanailagi's have their way?

A Personal Note
For the record, I was at the receiving end of a Rev. Kanailagi attack in July 2002, a month before the Church's annual conference. Speaking to a public audience on poverty I said churches, and particularly the Methodist church, because of its numbers and its means of fund raising, needed to find ways of easing the poor's church donation burden, an issue then in the news because of similar remarks by MP Mike Beddoes. In 2002 Rev. Kanailagi was a Senator nominated by the Qarase Government. While speaking on the President's address to both Houses, he called "a Professor Walsh" every name under the sun: a fly-by-night expert, a person ignorant of the relationship between lotu, vanua and matanitu, ignorant of and insensitive to Fiji's cultures and faiths, a communist, an atheist ...

But that was nothing to what he called the Fiji Times and Five One. They were "agents of evil ... of some foreign agencies planning against Christianity and the indigenous people [note the coupling] ... poisoning the country with false accusations against the Methodist Church." How, he asked, could one expect fair reporting when "all the reporters were Indian?" He welcomed the Cabinet decision to review media laws.

What goes around, comes around. Reported in The Daily Post July 7, 2002. Need more be said! The Church had hoped to raise about $2.4 million at this year's Conference. Photo: : Matuvuvalu album.

STOP PRESS. METHODISTS MODERATE STANCE - A LITTLE
Rev.Ame Tugaue told FijiLive the Church will make a fresh attempt next week to meet with PM Bainimarama in a bid to convince the Government to allow the annual church conference to go ahead. He said political issues proposed on the agenda had been removed, but ...


The Church and Intellectual Accountability

"The problem is not that the Methodist Church is involved in politics but that it has failed to reason publicly its many intrusions in politics [or been] compelled to justify its ethno-nationalist ideologies within the context of a multicultural society. The Methodist Church in Fiji can once again meaningfully contribute to the ordering of society, but only if it is held intellectually accountable for its actions and inactions over the past twenty-two years."
-- Sudarsan Kant. Read his full comment by clicking "comment" under "Methodist Church Should Consider Dialogue."