Discontent at the grassroots August 24, 2007

Viliame Gavoka, the former chief executive of the Fiji Visitor’s Bureau, articulates in a letter to the Fiji Times today, the feelings of ordinary people about the political and economic direction our country is headed in.

His letter was about the interim regime’s failure to fully fund the Tourism Action Group (TAG), which is trying to staunch the negative impact of the military coup on that sector on which much of Fiji’s economic health depends.

To illustrate the frustrations at the grassroots at the state of our country he wrote:

“On Tuesday, after an absence of many years, I attended a meeting of the tikina council in my district of Cuvu expecting the usual vanua-type (agreeable) tone to the proceedings.

I was wrong and totally unprepared when one of the elders launched a diatribe against the state of affairs in Fiji, especially the economy and tourism.

The emotion and power behind his words together with the currency of his thoughts surprised and encouraged me.

Surprised that this elder, whose interest hitherto confined to matters of the tikina could articulate so well and with passion, issues of national interest.

And as I looked around the hall, it was obvious that what he said represented the view of everyone in the meeting.

It struck me that while the Fijian people may have acquiesced silently to the state of things in Fiji, no one should take their silence as acceptance.”

On the subject of letters to the editor, two other letters in today’s Fiji Times deserves a mention.

A Surendra Kumar of Nadi, in a letter titled “Bunch of Jokers”, referring to Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama’s “joke” in giving a fabricated election date last week, asks: “Isn’t it possible we put these jokers on the stage? They will definitely beat the Bounty Bubbly show and bring thousands of dollars to boost Fiji’s economy.”

And this one titled “One for the boy” from Allan Loosley of Tavua about army spokesman Major Neumi Leweni’s diplomatic posting to Beijing, should get the gang at the army camp all hot and bothered:

“We all know Neumi Leweni’s transfer to Beijing is a ‘job for the boy’, something this so-called government promised to stamp out.

Due to their cultural isolation from the rest of the world for centuries, most Chinese cannot speak a foreign language and probably one or two can speak Fijian.

Off goes our steadfast major into the valley of billions with his spoken English skills, expecting to make himself understood. I wonder how the Chinese will translate his continual ‘errs’?”

I wonder…