COMMENTS (New comments are welcome. Click "Comments" at bottom of post)
- Wrong question, right answer said...
- Croz, I find this a very strange question to be asking under the circumstances. Doesn't it stand to reason that if race is to be erased from national life, the same applies to special electoral provisions for racial minorities? How can you have a multiracial agenda and then talk about how best to represent the interests of ethnic minorities? I guess it's to be expected that someone from New Zealand - where there is a Maori Party - still thinks in terms of race when it comes to the formation of new political parties in Fiji. But my understanding is that no party will be able to contest the 2014 election if it has policies that are designed to benefit only one racial group. And that is how it should be if we are to ever get the racial monkey off our backs in Fiji. Under the regime's plans, there will be political parties formed just like everywhere else that have broad social and economic agendas. They will be genuinely multiracial and it won't matter whether you're Indian, Fijian or Bulamakankan. Call it a utopian fantasy if you like but your question is essentially redundant if this is the model to be forced on us by the dictatorship as a price for restoring democracy. Some would argue that it's the only way to bust the mindset that has bedeviled our attempts at cohesive nation building. And how ironic it will be if the initiative actually works - dictatorship delivering a progressive social move that democracy never could.
Croz Walsh said... - @ Wrong question ... You are, I think, too quick to dismiss the question. Race (a biological fact) will not disappear in 2014 but hopefully racism (extreme prejudice against racially and ethnically different others) will be much less. Minor ethnic groups will still exist, and they will have their own particular interests and needs. Consider the second part of the question: the suggestion to use "list" seats to ensure that minor groups have some say in national affairs. These seats are used by parties overseas to ensure the election of people they particularly want as MPs to make their party more skilled, more representative and more appealing to voters. I also mentioned "some other institutional structure outside Parliament." For example, an advisory board, or a reconstituted Senate that has, say, ethnic, religious, NGO, labour, professional and business Senators). Or will the Ministry of Indigenous Affairs suffice? Who, after 2014, will protect the cultural interests of Rotumans, and improve the status of the Kai Solomoni about whom Winston Halapua wrote about so vividly?
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- Level playing field for once said...
- Croz, what is the point of abolishing race based politics yet continuing to talk about having to serve the interests of different races? The Kai Solomoni and Tuvaluans can join mainstream parties like anyone else. You haven't identified why anyone at all needs special treatment. Rotumans are Fiji citizens just like kai loma or kai valagi. They don't need separate representation. If you want to have an Anti Discrimination Board to protect minorities, fine. But this institution should cover any minority, racial or otherwise, like the only gay in the village.
- Croz Walsh said...
- @ Level Playing Field ... I'm not talking particularly about parliamentrary representation. A pro-active Anti-Discrimination Board would do fine if the minority groups are properly represented. Nor am I talking about "special treatment." Many people confuse equality with sameness. Sometimes to treat people equally you have to treat them differently. Individuals, groups and peoples have different histories, strengths, weakenesses and needs. When this occurs, to treat them the same would be to treat them unequally. If you're a parent, think how this might apply to how you treat your children.
- Common roll, common purpose said...
- Croz, what is a minority racial or ethnic group group in the Fiji context? Is it anyone who isn't indigenous Fijian? Because if it includes the 37 per cent who are Indo-Fijians - let alone the others - then I fear we are merely continuing the process of "separateness" that is at the root of almost all the nation's problems. There's nothing wrong with racial minorities forming community associations of their own to pursue their own causes. But this notion of yours that institutional structures are needed seems to me to go against the whole multiracial ideal. Surely we need to get into a situation in Fiji in which people of all races align themselves with political parties because they have good policies, not because of the ethnicity of their luminaries. For you to talk about "list' seats smacks of precisely the same mindset that produced the communal seats in the first place. Why harp on about the interests of racial and ethnic minorities when we have an urgent need to abandon race-based politics and work together as one nation? What is the strength of the multiracial societies forged in Australia and NZ? It's that people sit around tables solving problems without thinking "oh he's Indian" or whatever because everyone has moved on from that. This is what's desperately needed in Fiji and we won't get anywhere until it happens.
- Recipes for making fruit salad said...
- Crosbie, the biological definition of race is a geographically isolated breeding population that shares certain characteristics in higher frequencies than other populations of that species, but has not become reproductively isolated from other populations of the same species. Therefore when you say that race is a biological fact you’re strictly correct. However I believe you’re really referring to culture, not race. An American of African heritage will have far more in common with an American of Polish heritage than he will with a Senegalese tribesman. This seems to be the general point being made by the previous writers. In Fiji’s context a rural Fijian might well have more in common with his Indian neighbour than he will with urban Fijian yuppies. ‘Common Role’s” point that “…people of all races [should] align themselves with political parties because they have good policies..” is the crux of making this country the place it should be.
