May 22, 2007

Bumbling in the junta jungle…

From Cassandra’s Desk

As a child, your correspondent was a huge fan of Rudyard Kipling's magnificent and unmatched work of pure fantasy, "The Jungle Book".

Among other things, Kipling's detailed life in an orderly and moral jungle, is a far cry from the disorderly and dangerous jungle into which Fiji has been drawn by its bumbling military rulers.

It’s the fantastical nature, not to mention magnitude, of that bumbling that has sparked this Kipling/jungle analogy.

For example, let’s take the futile and self-defeating push by the Fiji junta leadership against freedom bloggers. As events unfolded over the past week or so, the junta's antics started to assume the same exquisitely surreal quality of Kipling's most fantastical imaginings.

On the one hand, the junta's appalling lack of decency or sophistication, demonstrated so graphically and gruesomely by repeated acts of violence towards their fellow citizens. On the other hand, witness the bizarre spectacle of the same strongmen - with the entire civilized world watching - applying the same methods to gain mastery over cyberspace!

It’s a paradox of truly surreal proportions. To “secure” Fiji’s national security, the Fiji Military Forces has decided to launch a war against unknown enemies in unknown (to them) territory - cyberspace. Hurrah! Wow! Gosh! It’s breathtaking.

Yes, one needs to keep one's sense of humour because in the junta jungle, where it can be eerily dark and gloomy, there's naught to laugh about. Like the illumination of a full moon on a cloudless night, the only light to penetrate its dark sinister depths, is the one shone by our Freedom Bloggers. Long may they stay free to blog!

Which evokes more jungle analogies: Fiji's military rulers bark fiercely as they run around in ever-decreasing circles, as happens when a pack of feral dogs in full hunting frenzy suddenly realises that it has lost the scent.

The ruckus continues and only dies down around midnight when our junta hounds succumb to that most basic of all canine (and human) instincts - self-preservation. They suddenly, and in unison, they start baying long and loud at the moon.

For some reason, and beginning with their primitive ancestors, the revealing glow of a full moon, beaming benignly from space, has always instilled fear and panic in feral dogs.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well put Cassandra.

Blog on Intelly and the lotta youse.

Anonymous said...

Ha..ha..ha,..aptly put witty Cassandra.

Anonymous said...

Vinaka Cassandra - keep it going

Anonymous said...

Despite the recent gloom in the economy, signs of investor confidence still remain with the opening of the Mid City Plaza in Suva today.

The brand new shopping complex is the brain child of Satish and Subhash Parshotam who formed Candle Investment as a parent company to build the multi-million dollar Mid City Plaza.

Satish Parshotam said their decision to invest in a structure of this magnitude shows the potential that Fiji holds

Anonymous said...

Appreciate your analogy Cassandra. Suggest a change to vampires rather than dogs. Canine creatures are not nocturnal,display some sense of loyalty and more civil.

Anonymous said...

You sound terribly famiiar cassandra...witty indeed....indeed! I have three people in mind...

Anonymous said...

Cassandra, that was a great piece, I always enjoy your wacky sense of humour, but I got a double shot this morning - had just finished having a good chuckle at the way you likened Driti and his dogs of of war to the real thing before clicking onto the Fiji Times website and saw the main story about Driti calling off the hunt for the bloggers. NOw, I calculate it was just under eight hours from the time Chief Intelligentsiya posted your blog to the time (8.34am) that the FijiTimes published the story. Could it be mere conincidence or was it "your correspondent" who called these feral dogs to heel?....LOL!

ANONYMOUS

Anonymous said...

Bravo Cas...&
...here comes 'Bera Na Liva' (Phantom) looking for none other but Vore Bhaini & his 'kadi(s)'.

Just reminding them that the little pigmies of the Jungle are waiting with their poison arrows!!!