Let’s talk about money…your’s and our’s.

OK we’ve had enough of this junta but our options are limited and we just have to go with the flow RIGHT? Wrong.

Himmat Lodhia's statements REQUESTING armed military check-points back really got us hopping mad. National security is the role ONLY for our police. There are no if’s and but’s about it.

However we were fortunate enough to come by the words of Boétie and that got us thinking:

“Even so tyrants…the more is given them, the more they are obeyed, so much the more do they fortify themselves, become stronger and more able to annihilate and destroy. If nothing be given them, if they be not obeyed, without fighting, without striking a blow, they remain naked, disarmed and are nothing—like as the root of a tree, receiving no moisture or nourishment, becomes dry and dead.”
Etienne de la Boétie, 1577

So we share our thoughts with you.

How badly do YOU want your civil liberties back?
How sick are you of the pathetic leadership being forced upon you?
Do you feel strongly about how this junta is taking our country backwards and not forward as is being constantly parroted (but not felt)?
Would you like to see an end to the human rights violations and the environment of uncertainty and fear?
Would you like to rattle this junta without the risk of being taken for the free exercise session up at Delainabua?

Then let’s talk about how we can make an impact.

Money makes the world go around. We know this. Month after month we part with money via taxes which this dictatorship is currently spending like there’s no tomorrow (did you believe the 4 full paged propaganda in a Saturday Fiji Times edition 14th April costing a pretty penny from our hard-earned taxes?) despite the reality that the economy is in the toilet.

All is not lost. With the few dollars left over from the sweat of our collective brows we still have full rights and full control over where we as consumers CHOOSE to purchase our required goods and services.

It’s time to make YOUR purchasing power come alive and work for you.

We know there are businesses in cahoots with this junta. We also know there are business interests of those within the ranks of this dictatorship. For whatever reasons they could ever think of to support an illegal take-over it’s time to hit them where it hurts i.e. in THEIR pockets using YOUR money.

As a measure of caution should we be falling into the trap of placing so much emphasis on the courts to decide whether the coup was illegal or not?? If one can read and has a conscience it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that what Frank did on 5/12 was clearly against the law. Let’s think carefully about growing the litigation culture (can you believe all the costly QC’s flocking to this country?) that you and I will inevitably pay for (we are the already cash-strapped innocent bystanders here folks!) and that a country like Fiji is not ready to sustain!

There can be NO excuses for Frank and cronies’ illegal acts that even Mosmi Bhim, Victor Lal, Thakurji, Kevin Barr, Shukhdev Shah etc etc could EVER hope to academically gloss over. As a by the way, we hope that the council meeting of the University of the South Pacific next month is taking notes about how insidious the cover of “academic freedom” is being used to academically justify illegal acts such as this coup (what next, lab sessions on how to construct a bomb in the interest of science?).

The USP Council and donors must be clear that USP academics have been entrusted and well paid to groom future leaders of the Pacific. As a regional CROP agency the University is bound by the firm stand (and definition) on democracy of Pacific Island Forum leaders who “own” this learning institution. Any alternate views on democracy are more appropriate in Russia and seeing as the Russians were just here to observe (and comment on) our recent budget announcement these types of academics are better off asking Mahend to broker teaching opportunities there.

Back to the blog topic. If you are interested in this initiative post up your comments to signal your thoughts about this strategy.

Our future as a country, as a generation (this and the futures) and as a citizenry depends on what we as a peoples put our minds towards achieving en masse.

We will move Fiji forward legally and safely on we the peoples terms. Not the junta’s.