Wassup Blood!

If you grew up in Fiji during the 80s and 90s you would be familiar with the slang phrase “Blood” often touted among mostly adolescent males. The application of the term is to replace your conversation parties name with the term BLOOD e.g. "Io Blood", "Set Blood", "Va'cava/What's Up Blood?" etc.

Perhaps it was a lift-out from the LA gang “The Bloods” and the fight for young people to be emancipated from the struggles they had at the time. But for those who were audience to this term of almost-endearment being bounced around the streets of Suva, you knew that the term meant that even if you weren’t related, you were Blood or bonded somehow by a common belief or interest. That could include the area where you grew up, a common school, or cliques based on a common interest like break-dancing (THE craze at the time and now metamorphised as crunking).

There has been a resurgence of this term with our local young rappers. Perhaps it gives the music a romanticised “hood” flavour and makes it therefore marketable and edgy. Whatever the case, for those who gave birth to this term, it meant many real things for them and what they endured and overcame. It is a slang term however that is laden with philosophical wisdom.

Our bond with each other is that underneath it all we are all flesh, bone and blood. We are fallible. Even the IIG. Especially against mother nature and the higher power.

Blood, the liquid itself that sustains life by coursing through our veins, is the basic building block of life. It is the essence of humanity and what binds our commonness as mere mortals underneath our external and often superficial cloaks of ethnic, social, economic, political, historical and traditional differences.

The last 2 weeks of the opening of the heavens with the torrential rains, in the 3^rd week of the 3^rd year of the IIG rule, has seen the concept of Blood come to life for the people of and from Fiji. Wherever they are. The appeals and hand-raising to lend a hand, brings warmth to the heart. This is what humanity and the application of the Blood concept is all about.

Media reports heart-wrenchingly detail the loss of life and limb of many of our people. Disappointment's abound on the sloooow action of the IIG in getting out there to help the people. Some of the let-downs include laying the blame on people’s unpreparedness…um ok…like they had a crystal ball predicting their living rooms would become swimming pools two weeks ago.

The Commissioner Central Col Mosese Tikoitoga, an integral member of the DISMAC team, who through this role should have empathy as a key personality trait, is deluded enough to think that people who have lost all their earthly belongings are, despite being stranded, in possession of a few G’s under the soggy mattresses and therefore still able to rehabilitate themselves.

And don’t let us get started on the unavailability of the army to be out there on the front-lines either. Life for some must be getting soft and cushy up at QEB that they’re now afraid of getting wet. Sigh.

However one can whinge all week about this unelected lot but people are out there needing help ASAP and Padre James’ inspiring editorial today brings it all together for us. So much so, that we are reminded of the singer Shaggy’s initiative against AIDS in a project with friends by way of song titled “Save A Life”. The lyrics speak to the heart of what we’re facing here in Fiji right now:

I dare you to make a difference and I dare you take a stand
Let me dare you to think of someone else who's in need of a helping hand
But if I dare you to show our children what it really means to love
Well I dare you to just imagine there's nothing that we can't rise above
Can I dare you to be the person with the will to make it right
And I dare you to have the conscience to the cause and to join the fight
Well I dare you take a moment to imagine how it feels
To take a look at someone else's pain, and offer some relief

Take a stand, make it right
Lend a hand, save a life
Understand it's alright
Lend a hand, save a life

Stay strong, safe and apply the spirit of Blood wherever, however, whenever you can. Hold tight to the fact that there is always a rainbow after the storm.

We can only weather this together Blood – Yes We Can.