People's Charter Pillar 2 (Nation Building) and State of the Nation Paper Chapter 2: For Discussion

N206.  

DEVELOPING A COMMON NATIONAL IDENTITY

AND

BUILDING SOCIAL COHESION

Critical Problems and Issues:

• We lack a common national identity and unity as citizens of Fiji.
• Beginning with our colonial legacy of “divide and rule”, and the institutionalisation of communal identities, our people have tended to identify more strongly with their religions, ethnicity and by their various communities or provinces than by nationality.
• Racially divisive leadership has contributed to the situation that we are now a fractured and fragmented society.
• We have tended to focus on the differences that divide us rather than on our common shared values and interests.
• We must change for our common good, as one nation and as one people, through our shared vision and values for a common national destiny.

A Minibus Owner's Story; Tonga Warns AustNZ Over Fiji

N0122. CANCELLED LICENCES PROOF OF 'JUNTA CORRUPTION'. I was alerted to the public transport situation by a letter in FijiToday by a minivan driver who warned all of the blog's readers not to "do any business in Fiji at present" because "justice in business depends on who you know in the right place."

The writer said he had been issued a permit to run a minibus service between Lautoka and Ba but after two weeks the licence was revoked along with the licences of ten others. A Ministry of Transport official told him he and other minivan owners "were causing bus companies to go broke." He thought complaints by the bus companies were the cause of the revoked licences, adding "Surely this is part of the corruption that this government was going to wipe out."

I commented on Peter Firkin's FijiToday blog sympathising with his position and advised him to complain through the Chamber of Commerce and contact me if he thought I could help.

Weekend Reading

Click here or Scroll Down

• Lockington's Everyday Fiji ... Life Goes On -- Allen Lockington  Click here.
• Impressions on Returning Home -- Sudarsan Kant  Click here.
• Fiji And its 'Dictator': Another View -- Christopher Griffin* Click here.
• Michael Field’s Swimming with Sharks --  Thakur Ranjit Singh Click here.
• Scurrilous Misreporting by Anti-Government Blog -- Crosbie Walsh Click here.

Forum Chair Natapei's Inaugural Address

41st PACIFIC ISLANDS FORUM PORT VILA, VANUATU
3 -6 AUGUST 2010 PRESS RELEASE (69/10) 3rd August 2010

The Chair of the 41st Pacific Islands Forum and Prime Minister of the Republic of Vanuatu, Hon. Edward Natapei, MP, has called for the removal of barriers and elements in the region that deny democracy and good governance.

The meaning is clear but just about everything else is wrong about this cartoon posted on the ozfiji. com website.  The cap is not a RFMF one, the palms are not coconuts, hardly anyone lives in a bure any more (under 4% in 1996, or 4,800 Fijians and 465 Indo-Fijians!) and  not many bure have so many windows. Ling Ling should visit Fiji to see what things really look like.

As for the message, my understanding is that  ethnic Fijians have always been i-taukei and Fijian, and they always will be.  The only change is that now  all citizens  are legally Fijian.

Just as in New Zealand where there are Maori New Zealanders, Pakeha New Zealanders, Chinese and, yes, Fijian New Zealanders, Fiji will now have i-taukei Fijians, Rotuman Fijians, Solomoni Fijians, Kailoma Fijians, and so on.  In some situations Maori will say they are Maori; and in others New Zealanders. Ethnic Fijians will be i-taukei or Fijian as the situation demands.

The Decree is about promoting national identity and a sense of belonging for all Fiji citizens. No one loses anything. All should gain.