Sunday Feature: An Insider's View from the Outside

Nesian is a pseudonym for a moderate, Fiji-born, part-Fijian,
Hindi-speaking, sky-blue passport-carrying, former Fiji-resident. An `Insider's View From the Outside' is the result of years spent thinking about all that has happened since the 2000 coup.

Janus* Complex

We delude ourselves if we think the rest of the world really cares about what happens to Fiji.The only time the country warrants any attention is if the strategic interests of the Western world are at risk.

 This is the thought that went through my mind as I watched televised news of an array of current and former global leaders as they hemmed and hummed in response to a journalist’s question about boycotting the Olympics over China’s human rights violations in Tibet.It wasn’t even a question about imposing economic sanctions.

But here was the centre left in glorious display at the Progressive Governance Summit in London – Bill Clinton, Gordon Brown, Kevin Rudd, Helen Clark (normally a good bloke, as the Australians gleefully attest), Thabo Mbeki, as well as the presidents of Liberia and Chile.And not one of them could string together a coherent reply.

In the end, the sum of their responses was this: Boycotting the Olympics would be counterproductive because it would affect ordinary Chinese and not the ruling Communist Party.

What does this tell the ordinary person in Fiji? “Sorry sonny, but in the eyes of the international community, your life has less value than an ordinary person in China."This kind of hypocrisy is galling, particularly when you have lived through successive periods of economic sanctions and witnessed the effect it has on everyday people.

The absence of an effective stance against China’s actions to preserve economic arrangements, weakens the argument that harsh action is needed against Fiji to maintain democracy.

But why should we be surprised?

* The Roman god of gates and doorways, depicted with two faces pointing in opposite directions.