FIJI: A KIND OF PEACE
Julian Fox SDB
SUVA: 17th July -- It has only recently become
possible to speak of a 'post-coup' Fiji, since hostages held for some 55 days
were released a little less than a week ago. The world's media, who had
drunk deeply of the Pacific potion mixed by George Speight and co. have gone
home. Everyone beyond the fleck of foam that is Fiji in Oceania's vast
expanse, knows that constitutional democracy has had the flick for the time
being, and possibly thinks that there is little more one needs to know. They can
though, they believe, breathe a sigh of relief that Fiji has at least achieved a
kind of peace.
Just what kind of peace has been achieved in Fiji
at the moment, for those who live here, is uncertain. In the final days of
the coup, if one can indeed speak of it as any kind of past event, the outbreaks
that had characterized the first few hours of 19th May spread to many parts of
the country, while Suva itself sat in some sort of quiet trough between the low
of early lawlessness and the high of hope that hostages would be freed. It
was then, in those last days, that the Monasavu power station was taken over,
reducing power output by 75% throughout the nation; and that a gaggle of police
posts throughout the land were captured by rebels sympathetic to GS at one
level, but seeking redress for old wounds quite unrelated to him, at
another. Symbolic of the general malaise was the breakout of some 20
prisoners just two days ago from Naboro Maximum Security prison, and the holding
hostage of warders by those who didn't break out. One of the oddest
demands of this group that had even the Attorney General of one week (and no
more) bemused was that prison warders should get a pay rise! It would be
funny were it not for 14 prisoners shot in the bygoing, one dead.
And yet, ordinary citizens get on with life that
has eased just a little. The schools have gone back after two false
starts, and look like staying back now. Tertiary institutes have indicated
firm dates of return and given notice to students and governments around the
Pacific of these. The curfew, only a Suva phenomenon these days, operates
now between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m., and has most of us applauding a little peace and
quiet anyway. Retailers too are happy to have it till Christmas if needs
be. So I suppose all that is a kind of peace.
And yet, it is peace without justice, something the
prophets of old railed about. Reconciliations galore have gone on, and you
have to understand Fiji culture to appreciate the importance of these
events. People here can forgive almost anything. Again, it has to be
better than the violent intransigence of the warring groups further West of us
in the Solomons, but it depends how short or long a view one has of life in
Fiji. The landowners who took over Turtle Island Resort had a beef
concerning lack of compensation from around 1870. There are long memories
at stake in everything here. What happened on 19th May will not be quickly
forgotten by those who were hardest hit either. The culture seems to
admirably allow the lion and the lamb to sit down together around a bowl of
'grog', whatever has occurred - but that would not stop 'apocalypse now' if
anyone were to seriously and with political intent question the new doctrine of
Fijian supremacy. If peace is the absence of war, then we are struggling
towards it. If it is a much deeper concept of minds and hearts made one,
then we are nowhere near it.
