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| By Ireen Manuel. |
My father was a well-respected and regarded builder in town. We lost everything and our home after the coup. A part of my parents died the day we moved out of our family home that dad built in Delai Labasa. I will never forget the day my father gathered all of us on the mat in our home and painstakingly told us that he had only one Fijian dollar in his pocket that day and that was all we had as a family. I will never forget how he broke down and cried in front of his five children that day. Outside our home, we had few pawpaw trees. We survived on curry pawpaw and rice or roti only for nearly 6 months. That is all we had for dinner every night and the left overs were taken for lunch to school and work.
There were many families that were hurting more than mine. Following the horrific coup of 1987, Fiji Indian women were raped, beaten and abused in sugar cane farming communities. Prominent Fiji Indian women who were providers of key health services were found working on the taboo declared Sunday's and were taken in the army camps. These women were made to undress in front of troops of army who were mostly i-Taukei men and made to walk around the fields of the army grounds, easily visible to the public. Fiji Indian men suffered at the arms of the army too. Many were taken and physically tortured, beaten and some were left disabled for life. Many were buried in the hot molasses around the Labasa Sugar Mill. There were tired, beaten and homeless Fiji Indians everywhere in Labasa. These were average, hardworking Fiji Indians who lived a humble life.
The effects of displacement have a long lasting pain attached, which I am sure many Fiji Indian women carry deeply in them like me. It means that we struggle to search for and warrant our identities. We now raise families where our parents, grandparents and children continue to live with the thinking and soul searching on where we belong. Some live in many worlds and we must acknowledge that too. I am not an Asian. I am a person of the Pacific and we are Fiji Indians. Our nationality is Fijian and will continue to be despite the lack of historical literacy that exits and the discrimination that continues. Somewhere, I am hoping that people will understand our histories better and the displacement that has continued for my people 140 years on will stop and solace will be found. The biggest impact of this negative identity crisis is on the Fiji Indian youth of today.
I mentioned earlier that the first coup in Fiji was going to have the most changing impact in my life. It was my first exposure to what racism was about. The first coup for me as a nine-year-old was a lesson that I was no longer a free soul and a safe girl child as the abuse on Indian women heightened. I was always hungry, and my stomach would hurt. I was anxious as I did not know what the next day would bring. I had lost many friends at school as many girls did not come back to school to continue with their education ever after that or they had moved towns. I had lost my family home with the flower gardens that mum nurtured, and I had lost my temple friends. I had lost my friends who fished for salala with me off the Labasa Bridge. I had lost my friends who helped me pull sugarcanes off the locomotive carts and who helped me climb the jamun trees as we searched for snacks on our way to home after school every day. I had lost my being.
It was engrained in me to work harder, achieve excellence and get out of Fiji at some point in my life. As a child, I wish I knew that it was going to be another 15 plus years of misery before that happened. Till then, I had to keep facing the racism and discrimination of being a Fiji Indian person in the country that I dearly called home. The saddest part for many families today is losing their young people in Fiji to migration. The hard part is that after so many years, and in another country, I am still struggling to be a Fiji Indian and a person of the Pacific. The story is such...labasa.
1 comment:
Beautifully expressed, Ireen, and if not for the horrors, I would relish in the memories of growing up in Labasa. I was in Form 6 (Year 12) when the first coup took place. My school closed for almost two months and we lived in constant fear of "what was going to happen next?". The image that still haunts me is the blank look of people who were forced out of their ancestral homes where they had live for generations. To say it was beneath human dignity is an understatement, for the tears said it all. I guess, I was too young to understand then but now, with a family and a house of my own, I can feel the pain. I cannot imagine anything like that happening to me (and for that I am truly blessed). But the love of Labasa is still alive and no amount of bad memories can take that away. Sometimes, we must put the weight down simply because it becomes too heavy to carry. I extend my peace to those who suffered.
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