In a recent interview with Paul Holmes, Helen Clark posed the question whether it was always necessarily appropriate to expect to be able to drop a developed country’s model on a developing one?*
While Fiji has long had a tradition of democracy, are the regular coups a sign that the democratic model needs some adaptation?
Bainimarama comes to the current situation – of his own making – from quite a different cultural background to most of us, one that’s somewhat feudal and patriarchal. Is this the nub of the issue?
Until now we have gone to Fiji for our family’s annual winter warm-ups, and felt entirely comfortable that the coup-phase was a transition stage and because I did not want the people at the resort we visit to suffer the consequence of tourists not going. But what now? Is my presence helping or hindering them?
The other dimension of Fiji’s current situation is that it is a text book case of how not to communicate. As one of my colleagues said not one of the parties is listening to or acknowledging the other. There will therefore be no movement unless someone is able to offer a compromise.
There are some who say that Bainimarama is being backed into a corner and the media have had a role to play in this. In order to give him some room to move don’t we need to offer an alternative solution, and perhaps in doing so, acknowledge that our model of democracy may need some serious adaptation for Fiji?
That said, the Pacific still supports a monarchy. New Zealand recently participated in the Tongan King’s birthday celebrations, a man who is said to be out of touch with the needs of his people and lives his life at the cost to others, quite literally.
Why do the Australian and NZ governments not offer some appropriately credentialed expert to assist Fiji to work out a realistic solution? And maybe we can step back from the stand over tactics and threats in favour of agreeing on an acceptable timeframe to help them develop a solution.
But then I have been known to be called Pollyanna. And no I am not trying to find a reason to justify this year’s trip to Fiji.
*See six minutes into this interview http://tinyurl.com/crarhg
