After all the repetitive negative public publicity Fiji has been receiving lately, most particularly from uninformed Australian media sources, it gives me great pleasure to see two very influential "big guns" fire back.
Fiji is pulling itself up with its own bootstraps
Letter in The Australian Financial Review Friday 12 February 1010
In your editorial, "Fiji's Bosses understand big-stick diplomacy" (February 6-7), The Weekend Australian Financial Review called on Foreign Minister Stephen Smith to emulate Theodore Roosevelt and carry a big stick when he's dealing with Fiji. The editorial says the Australian government should make it clear to Fiji "that Fiji needs Australia and New Zealand more than Australia and New Zealand need Fiji."
In your editorial, "Fiji's Bosses understand big-stick diplomacy" (February 6-7), The Weekend Australian Financial Review called on Foreign Minister Stephen Smith to emulate Theodore Roosevelt and carry a big stick when he's dealing with Fiji. The editorial says the Australian government should make it clear to Fiji "that Fiji needs Australia and New Zealand more than Australia and New Zealand need Fiji."
This is an unworthy response and is condescending to a smaller neighbour. It is also strategically unproductive. The last few years have demonstrated that if you send a man to Fiji with a big stick, he will be met by a man with an equally big stick. Congratulations are due to Smith for inviting his Fijian and New Zealand counterparts to Canberra for talks this month. And congratulations are due to all three ministers for conducting the talks in a professional manner with agreement to meet again in tripartite format in the future. We now have a rational dialogue process restored to our South Pacific region, and with that the tide has indeed turned for the better.
What is happening in Fiji today is the correction of a colonial inheritance that first came unstuck with the coup d'etat of 1987.Those coups unleashed a blight of entho-nationlism over the next two decades that was at its worst when a racist, violent mob invaded Fiji's parliament and held the government hostage for 56 days.
The people of Fiji, be they indigenous or non-indigenous, have come to see the blight for what it is. They recognise the futility of separate development, and clear support is emerging for the Bainimarama's government policy of eliminating racism from Fiji's political system. For the first time in history, the citizens of Fiji will go to general elections in 2014 on the basis of one-man, one-vote without regard to race.
The world abounds with failed states, where lawlessness has been let loose. In our region, the Solomon Islands fell to that level and it has cost us $1 billion to date for the regional assistance commission (RAMSI) to set that right. Fiji is not a failed state; it is a country that is exorcising the demons of its past and reconstructing itself as a stronger, fairer nation for all its citizens. It is pulling itself up by its own bootstraps.
Mark Johnson
Bellevue Hill NSW
Dick Smith
Malolo Lailai Island Fiji
Mark Johnson is the son of Tui Johnson, one of Fiji's most influential business leaders of the 20th century. Formerly deputy chairman of Macquarie Bank, Chairperson of the APEC Business Advisory Council and of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Mark was awarded the Order of Australia in this year's Australia Day Honours list.
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7 comments:
This is a terrific letter from two elder statesmen of the business community taking the Financial Review to task for an absurd editorial that bore no relationship to the facts about Fiji. It is moderate, reasoned and well argued, going straight to the heart of the matter, which is the need to create a modern political system in Fiji in which race has no place. Vinaka vakalevu, Mark and Dick, for using your local knowledge and mana in the international business community to intervene in the debate in such a timely manner. The truth is that whatever upheavals Fiji faces, it can count on the support and wisdom of enlightened Fiji kaivalagi like these two gentlemen. Dick Smith has been a beacon of sanity for a long time in trying to get people to see the folly of indigenous extremism and other factors holding the country back. Let's hope that having now joined this struggle in such a public way, we hear a lot more from Mark Johnson, a Fiji boy who's gone on to become a titan of the business community in Australia and can also be a huge force for good.
Boot on the other foot
This is great. These guys are right in telling Australia that however much it doesn't like what's happening in Fiji, it was necessary. One thing I didn't know is the ridiculous amount spent on the Solomons to keep it afloat. Kemudou, one billion dollars on the kai Solomoni and they're still a basket case? Whereas Fiji has cost them nothing but they do everything they can to bring us down? There must be global warming because those Aussies are sure getting too much sun.
The only "big stick" required here is one that is not brittle. Our neighbours see us as coup mongers. Ignorance has the better of them in that the coup cycle started in 1987 and our former PM Qarase legitimised the objectives of the coup of 2000. The 2006 takeover was an absolute neccessity. Someone had to get into the driver's seat of that 'fateful bus' and do a "U" turn. The final bastions, guardians, and protectors of our beautiful Fiji are not Australia and NZ. It is our own RFMF. Like it or lump it, Fiji is in the best hands than ever before.
Islands in the Stream
Why have they kept their powder dry for so long? However, better late than never. Vinaka, Mark and Dick. Fiji knows best what needs to be done. Fiji has the means to do it without help from outside but some capacity building and understanding would greatly assist. Fiji has not become a failed state: both Australia and New Zealand should thank heaven for this. For three long years they have battered us just as we have been assailed from within with destabilizing, confused, mistaken and by international standards, anti-democratic actions of a minority of leaders. Acts of terrorism resulted: taking hostages in Parliament, subverting the Police Force and threatening the civilian population with violence and corrupt practices for almost twenty years is a sufficient and demonstrable test - by any rational measure. Common sense should tell us all: we have been almost to hell and back. Now we need a break: not only at home but also from our friends!
Exactly what I had always wanted to say! The two gentlemen hit it out of the ballpark, thank you very much.
On another angle, the more Australia and New Zealand take a hardline stance on Bainimarama, the more exposed their devious agenda on Fiji and other Pacific island countries become. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure all these out.
The Australia and New Zealand government leadership wanted all Pacific island countries to forever live in a subjugated state so that it justifies their policies towards the people of the Pacific and also makes these countries forever dependent on them. This is why they fervently show support to anyone in the Pacific who is an enabler to their devious agenda and demonize anyone who is a barrier. I say enough is enough. Fiji will do it in her own way.
I have the firm belief that Fiji can live without aid. Take a very good look at the blessings Fiji has. But we have been made not to realize this because our leaders, especially for my kind the indigenous Fijians, keep perpetuating and supporting colonial infrastructures that have gone past their used by dates. These leaders are then supported by thieves, thugs, failed businessmen and politicians. They never bothered to review and reform all Fijian and other government institutions and infrastructures and make it more relevant to the world as we now live in.
Thank God for a courageous leadership like Bainimarama and his RFMF team. We now have a one-time chance to make things better for everyone. I am 100% positive Fiji will emerge a much more vibrant, progressive and healthy country once what the RFMF has set out to achieve for Fiji by the time we go to election in 2014. Let’s do it our way, Fiji.
God Bless Everyone.
Great letter by the two gentlemen.
It is this type of support that will be effective in swaying western opinion about the true situation in Fiji. It comes from those who are at the coalface every day and who have lived in the islands for many years. It carries more weight that any official announcement from the IG which unfortunately since 2006 has not found favour in the eyes of most western media.
We must be realistic and understand that even when Fiji successfully goes to the polls in 2014 and democracy is restored, the re-building process will take years to complete. We must accept that we are part of the region in which Australia and NZ are important contributors insofar as development is concerned.
After all the internal "housekeeping" has been done, we must make every effort to re-build those smouldering bridges with our neighbours.
We have seen the collapse of the Berlin Wall in our lifetime, and a bloodless re-unification of Germany after 50 years divided by race, ideology, economics, religion and lifestyle.
There is hope.
Furthermore, once Australia and NZ come to terms that there will be no early election, Frank must put his diplomatic cap on and invite them both to play a more active role in the lead-up to the elections.
By shouldering some of the responsibilities, it will only help improve relations.
It is perhaps the last diplomatic coup before he bows out.
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