In the midst of all the shit, a rare gem :D (y) By Nirmal Singh Lolesh K. Sharma Your comment based on Mr. Qarase’s interview on fijivillage/news-feature/FijiFirst-leader-brushes-aside-Qarases-comments-that-we-can-never-have-equal-citizenry-9sk52r which was sensationalized by Vijay Narayan and misquoted Mr. Qarase either intentionally or unintentionally. If you listen to Mr. Qarase’s audio recording and report by Vijay Narayan you will note the difference) and your reference to me to respond as a former staffer of American Embassy, let me begin with American democracy. With a single sentence early in the text of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson established the concept of human equality: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Ironically, many of the men who signed the final version of the document were slave owners, with no acknowledgement of the hypocrisy they were about to go to war to protect. It took more than a century to bring about a law that would provide the basis for the ultimate guarantee of a free and equal society. Coming to Fiji’s situation, does 2013 Constitution really gives us Equal Citizenry? Or it is just words that excites us but has no value in reality. Equal citizenry in the 2013 Constitution is not even worth the paper it is written on. It is hypocrisy of highest order. If the writers of the 2013 Constitution were serious about equal citizenry then they must apply the spirit of that provision by making sure equal citizenry is enforced. My understanding is that equal citizenry and equal rights are two different things. If the writers of the constitution really want equal citizenry then every citizen should have the ownership / access to land. Do all citizens own land in Fiji? Do all citizens have equal stake in the natural resources of the state? Can we claim the ownership of Qoliqoli? No we don’t and cant. So where is the equal citizenry? What we have is equal rights: right to worship and practice your religion according to your faith, freedom of expression, freedom of choice, and freedom for lawful assembly, equal access to our courts and legal system and other unalienable rights. Truth is sometimes bitter but by putting equal citizenry in constitution doesn’t make us equal. Today 2013 Constitution is in force and let’s ask ourselves – do we even have these rights today? When we don’t have these basic rights then why talk about equal citizenry. Another fact is that, despite the 2013 Constitution, there remains a fundamental dualism at the heart of people’s ideals about race in Fiji. We harbor a glaring contradiction between the conviction that a persons race is an irrelevancy, and the reflexive social practice of attending assiduously to racial identity. We say we are one people; yet, we sort, count, respond to, cavort with, and assess one another on the basis of race and this applies to both our races. We must accept that we are different. We have different cultures, different religion and different way of life so we can never be same. We have to negotiate peace and mutual respect and understanding within our diversity. Now let me also clear another issue. Some people are asking how come a person working for United States – a country based on the principles of democracy, human rights, rule of law – could join a “perceived” racist party, SODELPA. For me, better race relations cannot be brought about by making laws to bring people together. It is an evolving process and is achieved through integration over a period time and it must come from your heart. In Fiji, it will probably take another two generations before we become a fully integrated and egalitarian society. We could have achieved this earlier but this “natural” process of evolution of integration was interrupted through “Genetic Engineering” by “political biologists” who carried out their experiments in 1987, 2000 and 2006 and what we have got today is a “mutant society” that has lost the sense of reality on the ground. Let me be blunt here: Race relation in this country now is worse than ever it was in the history of this nation because we are forced to accept and integrate with each other. It is simmering like a pressure cooker with no pressure relieve valve that will sooner or later blow up in our face. Just read the racial hatred expressed in our blogs and social media. Just look at my case. I tried to reach out to sodelpa which is primarily of Fijian people and just look at all the insults and swearing I get from my own people for doing so and these are no average men. They are supposed to be responsible citizens and understand the situation better. No one can say I went to sodelpa to build my political career. If that was the intent, I had better options. My intent has been to reach out and build trust, understanding and love between two races and I am proud to say that if that was the bench mark to win then I have already won because I am seeing the difference in attitude from our Fijian people. It is the people who lack the deepness of understanding of the political and racial reality on the ground by opening their mouth and shutting their mind that is posing challenges to our evolving race relations. Finally, I urge my Indofijian community to have a deeper understanding of the political and racial reality here. Under the 2013 Constitution we will be lucky to have ten indofijians in parliament come this election. In whose hand our future will be when our Fijian people will have nearly 80% of the numbers in parliament after September 17th? Let’s show our gratitude and appreciation to our Fijian people for sharing their land with us. If our community cannot make peace with the friendliest people in the world then we have failed. The onus and burden lies on our community to reach out to the Fijian people and develop a relationship of understanding, love and respect. Let us integrate by hiring more Fijian people in our businesses, by sharing our knowledge and acumen of business and trade, by sharing their good days and bad days, by holding hands and taking care of each other. Fijian people will respond with unprecedented goodwill and love. Let us show our gratitude for their generosity. Therein lies our future and pursuance of equal citizenry!
Posted on: Wed, 06 Aug 2014 00:49:15 +0000
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