The paradox is in the pudding (or Why Are Bloggers Such a Horror)

Have you noticed how, since the military-blogger shenanigans started in March, the mainstream media have demonstrated an aversion to blogs and bloggers?

They hardly knew what blogs were before Intelligentsiya went live in January. Even today, radio, TV and newspapers all think that the word blog is interchangeable with Blogspot and that “blogsites” is also a term to describe it. Could it be an aversion to technology the journalists barely knew existed before the December putsh?

The aversion could also stem from the fact that most of the media have just gotten their heads around the whole business of the World Wide Web. The grand old FijiVillage is still there – emphasis on the old. And FijiLive, whose design is definitely past its used-by date, is trying to hold on to its reputation of online breaking news reporting

Then there’s the site that’s desperate for a top ranking of country sites, FijiTimesOnline.

FijiDailyPost went online last year, with its self-proclaimed “independent” reporting. There’s also Fiji TV whose newly redesigned site has an irritating urge for users to log in before seeing content that is much touted on the evening news bulletins.

Don’t forget Fiji Sun’s online edition. The underdog of all the Fiji news sites which looks like staying like that for a while. The site’s usability became worse after some reconfiguration a while back. It’s never updated during the day, and navigation is a nightmare.

The point is, bloggers have been a threat to the online presence of the established media. We’re taking eyeballs away from their websites, to quote Patrick Craddock of the USP journalism school, and they don’t like it. Internationally it’s becoming acceptable for staff writers, reporters, announcers, photographers - most media people - to blog as part of their work. But I think there was some horror (expressed by a journalist being interviewed on TV) that blogs should be mentioned in the same word as journalism.

Hence, the underlying hostility when the media reports on bloggers.

However, the paradox it created for bloggers was that while the media attention was focused on what the military were threatening to do to us, free speech became a tangled metaphor and some of the real issues that needed to be raised were pushed off the news agenda.

We definitely appreciated the media attention because it contributed to the military seeming to back down from censorship of cyberspace. But even bloggers were caught up in the coverage of ourselves.

Propaganda, fuels counter-propaganda, fuels counter-counter propaganda… An endless cycle of talking heads and back-chat while the country goes to hell in a handbasket.

For a good rundown of how every junta leader and his dog jumped on the blogger bandwagon last week and what we should not lose sight of, read FijianBlack’s assessment here.

Another day in this blogging paradise

It’s been another day in paradise. Or has it?

Today Fiji’s bloggers have been given a reprieve. The army says it’s not bothered with trying to find us anymore. They shouldn’t have tried to in the first place, but that’s the military mindset at work: we order, you minions follow; if you’re not with us, you’re against us.

But despite the pretence of not minding our incessant blogging, the military really is itching to get its hands on us.

Fiji Times spoke to Colonel Pita Driti and reported,

“However, he did say that if bloggers were eventually found they would be taken to the camp to be questioned.”

So we’re not letting our guard down, because we know at least a bit about how the army mind works.

Already they’ve mistakenly taken in people accusing them of being bloggers. Yes we know business Ulaiasi Taoi was not the only one. There was at least one other person the military hauled up to QEB for “questioning” after being wrongly linked to the Freedom Blogs, and it was not SDL parliamentarian Ted Young.

It’s almost daily that the military junta make outrageous statements that seem to be its hallmark.

Self-proclaimed prime minister Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama made two today in one brief interview.

Asked by Fiji TV reporter Sainimili Finiasi outside his office this afternoon about interim finance minister Mahendra Chaudhry’s comments in India that Fiji would hold elections in 2010, Bainimarama almost snorted.

He said it “doesn’t make sense” for the military to have overthrown the government in December only to have elections several months later because “this would make us the laughing stock of the whole world”. (Ahem, we already are!) Now for those of you who were not convinced earlier that Bainimarama is an autocrat in the making, then this is proof from the horse’s mouth.

Bainimarama then used the familiar line that Fiji should be left to sort out its own problems (but thanks very much for the EU cash) before going to elections. This implies the junta will then think about elections when it feels like it.

He was also asked about human rights violations reported by people who were arbitrarily detained at various military installations and assaulted.

“Aha,” Bainimarama said, wagging his finger and smiling, “that’s where the problem is. They claim it (human rights abuses) and you report it as true.”

I thought I’d heard wrong, but it was there in colour on our TV screen.

So Ted Young’s black-eye must have been the result of walking into the cell door at QEB. And Ulaiasi Taoi’s account must have been a bad dream he had while naked in the cell.

Interim attorney-general Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum said today (again on Fiji TV) the interim government isn’t breaking the promises it made regarding arbitrary arrests. “It’s only when necessary,” he told Fiji TV, that people are detained by soldiers. It looks like military detentions have become a necessity then. Take the hint from a post on WFC – we should just be declared a “military state” (This theme was echoed by the Fiji Times editorial today titled 'Who is in control')

We really shouldn’t be surprised but then again… It’s a case of one arm saying something and the other saying something else, hardly the sign of a cohesive “government” leading this country to eternal bliss.

The irony keeps on coming. After unleashing their heavily armed selves on a coup-weary population, the junta is now persuading all and sundry that the “Bula Spirit” is well and truly alive. Of course, the hotel worker who lost her job or the casual labourer working on a construction site who was laid off, are all expected to be cheery and welcoming to the visitor, despite not being able to put food on the table.

While she’s part of an illegal regime, you have to give it to interim tourism minister Bernadette Rounds-Ganilau for telling it like it is.

On Fiji TV’s “Have Your Say” program tonight she all but admitted the dire state of the tourism industry, while in the same breath gushing about how tourists who do visit find that paradise never went anywhere when booking in at the four and five-star resort in the Western division.

“We don’t even have attachments that don’t pay,” she said in response to a question from a tourism graduate that he has been searching fruitlessly for a job in the industry for quite some time.

So while it may be another day in paradise for the tourists this country is so hard-up for, the ordinary people of Fiji are confronted daily with bread-and-butter issues, most of which were forced on them by the actions of the military leadership in their misguided belief that staging a coup would set things right for this country once and for all.

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.

Blogging the military silly

FINTEL put out a statement today confirming they were working with the “Home Affairs Ministry”, in reality the military, to ‘study the most effective way’ of blocking certain blogs.

From Fijivillage.com: FINTEL assist military to block anti military sites

“FINTEL Chief Executive Sakaraia Tuilakepa confirms that they are assisting the Ministry to examine the most effective way in addressing their concerns in relation to the blog sites.
Tuilakepa said they have advised the Ministry of alternative options that they could explore to address these concerns without compromising the national access to the entire internet network and without breaching the conditions of FINTEL's license as the international gateway service provider.
RFMF's Land Force Commander, Colonel Pita Driti revealed earlier that the military has identified about 20 people who are behind anti-military internet blog sites.
Colonel Driti said the blog sites are now becoming a concern and the people behind the publication of the materials will be questioned.
Army spokesperson, Major Neumi Leweni also revealed that the RFMF's IT personnel had talks with FINTEL to block the blog sites.”

Here’s something about the blog shenanigans on Fijilive. (No Fijilive, we haven’t gone anywhere!)

But look who’s back! RFC have popped up on the internet again under another name – Why Fiji’s Crying. They are here.

Now for the online security of those within Fiji who are able to read us:

If you use Gmail log in through Googles secure server at https://mail.google.com/mail to prevent somebody intercepting and reading the messages you send and receive.

Also to get around those FINTEL blocks you could download Torpark, a highly modified version of the Firefox browser including a built-in Tor router to disguise your IP address. You can keep it on your USB and run it on any computer you use. Once you close the program it erases all your surfing information. A bit slow but safe. Find it here.