The i-reguregu (tradional presentations) were made by all 14 provinces, by the high chiefs of the three confederacies, by numerous vanua, by religious and public institutions, by business, by members of the diplomatic community, by government, and by people of all races.
For a short time Fiji stood still and remembered what its people have in common and what makes Fiji so special.
The former President and late Tui Vuda Ratu Josefa Iloilo has been laid to rest in an historic state funeral at Viseisei.
Thousands of people from all walks of life attended the church service and entombment ceremony in Vuda, with masi and black cloth covering the chiefly village grounds. The Tui Vuda was accorded the highest military honour, the 21 gun salute, during the ceremony.
His casket was carried by the Republic of Fiji Military Forces from the Jone Wesele Memorial church to the entrance of the Naburenivalu, the chiefly burial ground, where it was handed over to the Tokatoka o Nakelo, then finally to sixty men of the Yavusa o Natububere who are traditionally obligated to bury the Turaga na Tui Vuda.
The area surrounding the Naburenivalu was filled to capacity as the people of Fiji witnessed Ratu Iloilo’s final journey. Naburenivalu is decorated with brown masi tied in huge bows, as if to welcome the Turaga na Tui Vuda home.
May he rest in peace. May the example of his life's work be not in vain.
N0133. WHO ON EARTH WROTE THIS? Associated Press (Suva). "A traditional high chief and former teacher, Iloilo became a key ally of armed forces chief Commodore Frank Bainimarama who overthrew the elected government in a December 2006 coup amid rising tensions between indigenous Fijians and the country's large ethnic Indian minority." Rising ethnic tensions in 2006?
13 comments:
N0133. Given your constant comments on how the Qarase government just HAD to be removed irrepsetive of the many other options available and your slavish complicity with the current regime and there a rather self-serving interpretation of the events of 2006 and after, the comment is entirely accurate. It is still the perception that the coup was seen as an indian coup and still is. At the time apart from the tension between the elected government and a military that saw itself beyond government scrutiny and oversight, the only other tension was between communities involving land/lease issues, poverty and the arbitrary application of chiefly authority over non-indigenous fijians in relation to rents etc, religion...The perceptions and generalisations of races about each other in fiji have not changed 'one jot' since 2006. This is a source of sadness and no matter the pluralistic and inclusive tones coming from the regime, any efforts will lack legitimacy and authority.
@ sara'ssista.....the perception that the 2006 takeover was 'an Indian coup....and still is....?'
Well, that perception is incorrect. The 2006 takeover was conducted for a multiplicity of reasons and if you have failed to grasp them all by now, then you must be less insightful than you lay claim to be. If you spent just a jot of your time looking at the Middle East as it roils with instability, you will gain some insight as to why coups d'etat, uprisings, revolutions of the 'hoi polloi' and middle classes, even military takeovers occur. The reasons have not changed 'since time immemorial'. They have all been present in Fiji both before and since 2006. In fact they were building well before 1987. Why feign surprise or take refuge in fabricated 'perceptions'? This is downright dishonest - you know full well that it is. It is no more than a 'Fishing Expedition'.
sara'ssista.....What do you mean Indian coup. Coup for or against the Indians ? What about the indigenous Fijians? You obviously are ignorant of the complexities of the relationships not only among the different indigenous tribal groups but also within each group. Believe it or not some indigenous Fijians even think that the 2006 coup was driven by a compelling desire by the Military to achieve justice for all.
@ sara'ssista.......
Ignorance and an ability to spout and lead off in all directions for the sole purpose of 'Stirring the Pot' is where you purport to come from: all of you! Just how helpful do you suppose you are? We must therefore presume that your aim is to be unhelpful and add fuel. Watch Bahrain closely now as things unfold with tragic intensity. We have experienced our own Fiji version of this intensity.
Quit stoking the latent but perpetual incandescent embers and think something creative for a change: something "Out of the Box"?
Stoking .... the thing that came out of the box was the military led coup advocating justice for all. You need to be a creative thinker to believe it but most people aren't so the cynicism continues a la coup 4.5 despite the soldiers marching on to their vision - Fiji for All, not Fiji for Indigenous Fijians only which they put a stop to.
@ Anonymous said .....
Well, look where the Middle Eastern solution of governance: forty/thirty years of government for the underclass has got many Arab leaders now? Sunni minority leadership, "Do as we Say" and overlordship of the Shia majority. With different percentages in the different locations but nevertheless it tells a revelatory story. When does stability yield of necessity to full democratic rights for ALL in a country? Why should citizens find full rights in other countries, non-natal countries, which they disallow for all at home? These questions will not go away. All taxpayers are entitled to full human rights and taxpayers' rights. This is beyond argument in today's global economy. Gaddafi brings in mercenaries from N. Korea and from African countries to threaten his Benghazi subjects with mortars, tanks and heavy guns. What does this say about forty years of corrupt leadership? What does this tell us of the contact Gaddafi has had with some of our own politicians? A corrupt and possibly insane man whose forty years are now up: supported and fawned upon by both GB and the United States for their own questionable interests. Suddenly, they have very fast diplomatic footwork to do: are they up to it?
Dubai resident says:" Egyptians deserve better. More complicated in Bahrain but empowerment of the people with reform is required" BBC World Service Radio
How right the Dubai resident is and this applies globally in all politically-challenged countries who refuse full rights to all their citizens. Liberty, UN-guaranteed human rights are the responsibility of all civilised governments. Corruption has undermined basic and fundamental human rights. The amalgamation of private wealth and benefit from Public Money must be condemned wherever it takes place and those who indulge themselves brought to account. Those who live off public money are to be constantly reminded that they do and their modus vivendi held up to constant public scrutiny. Failing this, the tanks and the mortars will roll in and the mercenaries paid to shoot because once Arab blood is spilled the war has begun. Do we fully recognise how deeply embedded this belief is?
Diplomatic .......Fiji for All is a concept not supported by many, probably the majority of indigenous Fijians and is likely to crumble after the political lifetime of Bainimarama unless there is heavy investment now in education at all levels including adult education which the current regime appears to be doing. Isn't the woeful lack of education among the unemployed masses a basic cause of the uprisings in the Arab world ?
@ Diplomatic and the woeful lack of basic education.....
That might be so in some areas of the Arab world but it was not so in Tunisia where the uprising was essentially ab initio of the middle classes (a 1968 French-style revolution?) and featured many young graduates with no jobs. In Yemen it is almost certainly true. But in Algeria and in Morocco any disturbances may be expected to have tribal roots - as in Libya. It is fascinating to note the nuanced differentiation of these countries and how they have evolved (or not evolved in Libya's case). Jordan seems to have fallen into the place of insufficient education and economic development leading to a dearth of jobs for the young. The percentage of young people in all these countries is noteworthy and in Fiji, our inattention to the burgeoning birth rate will prove most inconvenient in the provision of adequate goods and services given our constrained GDP with little prospect of reaching the magical 6% benchmark anytime soon. Rising inflation is another serious factor in all these economies and in our own. Who dares hazard a guess at the real rate of inflation in Fiji now? A very brave person indeed.
@ The eye of the storm......
Interestingly, Al Jazeera this morning reports that mercenaries in Libya are being paid $500 a day (may we presume US?) and a bounty for each person killed (several thousand US dollars). This suggests a reluctance to kill civilians in cold blood by using state security forces. Odd how scrupulous a half-mad man may be after forty years of absolute rule? It suggests that he believes he may survive to go on and he wishes his hands to be seen to be clean: reminiscent of Pontius Pilate?
@ a Libyan Pontius Pilate.....
The washing of hands image reminds us instantaneously of those who insisted upon the Washing of Feet in Albert Park, Suva so many years ago. Instead of washing the feet of those they had harmed themselves and for whose interests they had shown such utter contempt, turning their backs repeatedly on the ordinary people who paid their remuneration for years, for their blacked out cars, travelling in speeding motorcades through the populace they so despised: Libya's Gaddafi brings this all back vividly. Gaddafi whose family and hangers on have dominated Libyan governance for forty three years. Whose son Saif has the audacity to shake his fingers at the global audience, gesticulating in defiance that he and his father will remain. Now the price of oil rises to $105 a barrel on world markets and threatens us all. So who permitted such monsters to remain in power? Who supported them and colluded with them? No need to reply. We all know. There is a bitter experience of this in the midst of the South Pacific Region where support has been given to the corrupt and the malfeasant for years. Such support and collusion will never be forgotten by all who have witnessed and endured it. It will be decried openly when the time arrives to do so. Sending warships and helicopters into our waters to confront us? What were you thinking of? This is now history and will never be erased.
Muammar Gaddafi has had his local admirers and political allies. Apisai Tora is one of them. To what extend has Mr Tora taken close advice from this political monster so bent now upon bombing his own people and attacking them with imported mercenaries from even Zimbabwe flown in by heavy air transport. A genocide of his people by a half-mad man and his hideous sons. May the international community now find the language to defend their support of such a depraved and violent man. Their struggle to find adequate language will leave us all hanging upon each and every word.
Has he run away (as is now being reported from Tripoli live?) as someone else did? Leaving the people in abeyance as it were: the very same people who paid him and his overblown Cabinet? Turning his back to the people of this country as only cowards do. Traumatised and in disbelief, the people of Benghazi and Tripoli overwhelmed and under bombardment by their own rulers shake their justified fingers at the International Community for leaving them to suffer this outrage. Collusion and silent connivance: we know all about it and our own betrayal is revived yet again.
SOE - Don't we remember too well Fiji's own overblown Cabinet with Ministers, Assistant Ministers their advisors and their fleets of pajeros. How would they have paid themselves in the current global economic crisis ? Oh yes - more debts off course. No way would they have trimmed themselves down to size until sooner or later the people would revolt as history has recorded in many countries at different times.
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