We Must Change our Game!

 

UNFORTUNATELY, Fiji conducts its politics the way it plays its rugby – a spectacular run is followed by a slick pass, a head-high tackle, and a red card off the field. Like this: (run) Mara, (pass) Bavadra, (head-high) Rabuka, (red-card) sanctions; or (run) Rabuka, (pass) Chaudhry, (head-high) Speight, (red-card) sanctions. Or (run) Speight, (pass) Qarase, (head-high) Baninamarama, (red-card) sanctions.

The result of this habitual pattern of political play, this tried and tested game-plan, is a counter-productive loss to the nation of an estimated $9 billion dollars. ‘That is a cost of $10,825 for every man woman and child as well as every unborn child over the next 10 years’, according to Mick Beddoes, former Leader of the Opposition. If his figures add up, can any developing economy in the world afford a $9billion draining from its potential earnings?

One could be forgiven for thinking with this kind of recklessness in regard to administering and managing the nation and its wealth that Fiji has all the money in the world to waste. But we haven’t. So why do we put ourselves through this self-inflicted political masochism? And why have we done so four times in the past thirty years? None of our Pacific neighbours comes close to matching our record in this regard. None.

One theory put forward by a prominent national observer is that it stems from a self-inflicted curse called the ‘kalou-gata’. That every-time a Christian Fijian rehearses this word in their prayer and worship they are bringing self-injury upon themselves since they are blessing the Evil one who rules hell rather than the God of heaven. We could call this a ‘blame the Fijians’ theory. An older related theory is that evil spirits of the Evil one have been unleashed on the vanua through the presence of counter-Christian gods. This could be called a ‘blame the non-Fijians’ theory.

A less religio-racial, more class-based, explanation revolves around our lack of true individualism and the immature democratic experience at the hands of ruling elites, from missionaries and colonialists, to chiefs who have disproportionately benefited from the formers’ double patronage. This could be called a ‘blame the chiefs’ theory.

Yet another explanation would have it that the ‘spirit of capitalism’ (as German sociologist, Max Weber, called it) has overtaken the indigenous mind to such an extent that its blinds them from the ‘Protestant ethic’ half of his analytical equation resulting in a habitual grab-for-power-because-of-money action and to-hell-with-democracy. This could be called a ‘blame the lack of elective affinity’ theory.

Yet another theory, roughly following Karl Marx’s 19th century theory, suspects global capitalism and its supporting governments as interfering in our local system leading to coups that suit their agenda rather than Fiji’s. This could be called a ‘blame globalisation’s rich and powerful’ theory.

Another theory sees Fiji’s problems as the result of its failure to produce social and political structures that suit our unique historical moment and cultural mix, and as the result of our slavish obligation to fit into straitjackets handed down by colonial administration. This could be called a ‘blind to creative dialogue opportunities’ theory.

We don’t know which is the correct theory. Each has something to offer in the way of explaining our apparent national obsession for international red-cards every time we have an election outcome which does not suit the losers. We can’t say with any finality what it is that causes us to forget the horrendous cost of our counter-productive actions in Beddoesian terms. Or what the ultimate cost of coups is to our national trust and confidence in each other.

But every time we commit the equivalent of a head-high tackle in political terms, the nation stumbles. Whether we have the ability to get back up and on the international field of play one more time will depend on whether we have finally learnt something from our past. And whether we are prepared to change our game-plan once and for all.

Daily Post Editorial 11/12/07