Does the Government Accept Criticism?

This issue was discussed in three comments to a posting last week. They are republished here for readers who, in not regularly checking comments to posts, can so easily miss out on one of the blog's most valuable features — the open exchange of intelligent opinions.


Debate and Opposing Views Needed said...

Croz, I noticed a growing trend from your bloggers celebrating the silencing or removal of the remaining government/military critics. I have no problem with people getting excited about the fact that Fiji has silenced pretty much everyone - that's their right to say as much. It is worry though.

What is worrying is they seem to think that removing all criticism will some how make everything better in Fiji. I suggest it won't. I suggest it makes for a complacent and lazy government.

We need critics, even biased and sometimes misguided ones have their place to draw attention to issues.

For example I at time hate with a passions the unions i have to work with. They are not professional, always angling for a fight and the execs usually are more interested in securing their roles by creating noise than actually doing something for benefit of the majority of their members. Despite all that I fully support the rights of unions to exist. They keep me on my toes as an employer.

Fiji without critics and without debate will become even more lazy than pre-2006. Many of the quotes you have posted sum this up better than me but just thought I would throw in my two comments.

Anonymous SOE said...

@ Debate and Opposing Views needed....

 No need to fear unnecessarily about a failure to ventilate views. That will take place while reforms continue with greater ease as people of character and good qualifications are increasingly positioned where they are required. Previously, under Qarase and earlier governments, the qualifications were there but no character or good judgement to speak of. Often, highly qualified people were perfectly assured that their actions were justified and endorsed in some way: by whom, by what code of conduct, in whose best interest? Their own.

Anonymous Critical Boundaries said...

    @ Debate. No-one is saying all criticism is bad, including, incidentally, the regime, though it is plainly oversensitive when it judges that criticism to be unfounded or unfair.

The problem is that many of the regime's critics are harping critics, unable or unwilling to give it credit for anything lest they be seen to give it even the slightest legitimacy. The main criticism is always the government's refusal to hold an early election. In the absence of electoral reform, this presupposes an election held under the pre-2006 racially based system. For the regime, this is unacceptable and non negotiable. So it judges any criticism about this issue as unacceptable and gets highly irritated when its critics press home the point.

The other sensitive issue is anything to do with the economy and especially comments that the regime judges capable of undermining confidence in Fiji. This is why people like Warden Narsey cop a bucketing even when they're not specifically in the ranks of the regime's political opponents.

On both the aforementioned issues, I think many people would sympathise with the regime even if they're not staunch supporters. We desperately need to remove race as the determining factor in Fiji politics. Now that Indo-Fijians are in the minority, there's no valid reason whatsoever not to adopt the principle of one-man-one vote. And no reason whatsoever to further empower indigenous Fijians with things like qoliqoli rights when their hold over the land is so inviolable and absolute.

On the economy, only the most hard hearted SDL zealot would want to see ordinary people in Fiji suffer from an economic collapse. Yet that's precisely what would happen if the regime can't maintain at least a modicum of confidence in its economic program and keep the tourists coming. Whatever the present threat to general prosperity, you'd have to admit that that likes of Sada Reddy have done an impressive job in keeping Fiji afloat against a tsunami of negativity.

And the maintenance of law and order has been a key factor in hundreds of thousands of Aussies and Kiwis ignoring their government's advice not to visit Fiji in the four years since the coup.

Also to be fair, Frank Bainimarama is showing more practical determination to fix the chronic problems in the sugar industry than any of his democratic predecessors since Ratu Mara.

And thousands of ordinary people in rural areas are starting to see basic services like water delivered after decades of inaction and neglect.

Is any of this acknowledged by the regime's critics? No. Start giving credit where credit is due and some of the intolerance to dissent you refer to might abate. But back the regime into a corner and keep whacking it then it's plainly axiomatic that you'll get whacked back.