REPORT ON THE SOUTH WEST PACIFIC: Public Justice and Regional Political Responsibility

This is a summary of a paper presented by the authors (Dr Bruce Wearne pictured above left and Dr Robert Wolfgramm right) at the 2nd Amsterdam Kuyper Seminar, held in The Netherlands, 23-24 January 2014. The major theme of the conference was "Christianity and World Affairs: Building Blocks for an International Order Where Justice and Peace Embrace".

The seminar gave us an opportunity to present the perspective that has emerged in our ongoing discussion about our region that we began in the early 1980s as post-graduate students. By applying concepts derived from reformational social philosophy, the paper documents some essential elements of a Christian democratic regional perspective for our region. Some of our "findings" are surprising; others are deeply disturbing. By examining three prominent regional problems, we assess their ongoing political significance and how they reflect tendencies that now dominate both international relations beyond within and beyond the South West Pacific. This also requires a clearer definition of what we mean by "region", a complex theoretical issue which cannot be avoided if we are to develop a normative view of just governance for extensive area of the globe. It has a relatively small population among widely dispersed "island states", making it a attractive location from which neo-colonial and neo-imperial powers can "pivot" their global interests by an influential presence across the region. This re-written paper refers to 2014 developments that have occurred after the seminar was held and documents our overall conclusions.

Three persistent regional issues of an international character are identified:

1. Fiji's persistent "coup culture". Since gaining its independence under its own constitution in 1970, Fiji has had 3 other post-independence constitutions. These have been promulgated to replace those revoked by military régimes in the wake of coups, the newly installed military régimes proceeding to commission new constitutions with the ever eager assistance of Fiji's judiciary in order to gain a measure of international legitimacy for the subsequent "interim regimes" until "democratic elections can be held. The community of legal professionals from the region and more recently from beyond (Sri Lanka) continue to wield significant behind-the-scenes power in the midst of the island state's political instability.[3] Fiji's post-colonial judiciary, and its de- and reconstructed successors has thus functioned as a crucial link in maintaining a semblance of regional and international legitimacy for successive Fijian governments. In September 2014 an election was held run under provisions laid down by the latest constitution imposed by the military in September 2013. The military commander who led the December 2006 coup stepped down to fight the election and unsurprisingly his party was elected with a parliamentary majority, with himself as Prime Minister.

2. Indonesia's neo-colonial domination of the Melanesian people of West Papua from 1962. This rule continues as a problem for Jakarta as for other regional governments and those further afield. In July, Indonesia elected a new president, Mr Joko Widodo. He has stated publicly that listening to the indigenous peoples of its Melanesian provinces is of top priority for the Indonesian government. There are ongoing calls for West Papuan independence from within Indonesia, from within its Melanesian provinces, and from further abroad, led by the the Organisasi Papua Merdeka (OPM, Free Papua Movement).[4]

3. From many places "boat people" continue to come into this extensive region seeking asylum. There has recently been a reduction in boats carrying asylum seekers leaving Indonesian waters heading for Australia, but Australian Government claims that border protection policies have foiled the business plans of people smugglers does not answer the political question about this country's obligation to asylum seekers. Besides, with rising seas, the likelihood of Pacific island peoples becoming "climate change refugees" increases. As well there continue to be some SWP claims for political asylum. This state of affairs is not emphasized in public debate across the region. The Australian Navy is commissioned to push back boats into Indonesian waters, but the humanitarian challenges persist. There remain millions of terrorised asylum seekers and displaced people seeking new places for themselves and their families. It is a pressing issue for the region's governments, peoples and NGOs.

Background to the Research

The background to this paper can be stated briefly as follows: the paper presupposes discussions between the two authors which intensified considerably after Robert Wolfgramm became General Editor of the Fiji Daily Post in 2004. This discussion continued through the difficult days of the December 2006 coup, even with 4,000 km between us. During this time Fiji military officers sought to impose a form of "shock and awe" upon the newspaper's offices by terrorising its employees. The Daily Post had developed an editorial policy which consistently advocated a political resolution of the issues which the military commander insisted could only be solved by yet another coup. The December 2006 coup may have been described by its perpetrators and supporters as "the coup to end all coups", but it was not the last coup. As it turned out, another coup occurred in April 2009 when the judiciary was sacked for bringing down an unfavourable judgment on the legality of 2006 coup and the 1997 constitution abrogated. Fiji has since functioned with a largely Sri Lankan contingent of judges.

This paper presupposes this longer-term discussion between us since the 1980s about the character, origins and maintaenace of Fiji's "coup culture". In this time we have also deepened our appreciation for how an Christian approach to politics might promote a Christian democratic political programme for Fiji and the South West Pacific region. Suffice to say, our perspective diverges significantly from the view that has emerged from the mouth of the former military commander and those supporting his régime. Support for his government is not only found within Fiji but can be detected in the less-than-decisive, even if muted, responses of ministers and advisors of the Australian and New Zealand governments. There are loud voices (political, legal, journalistic) from within the region and further afield that the election of the former military commander as the country's Prime Minister has finally buried Fiji's "coup culture". After the September 2014 election result was announced, the newly elected Prime Minister claimed that this was the republic's first truly democratic election. We are now expected to believe that that election under the 2013 constitution was the prime motive for his involvement in 3 coups since 2000.

As readers will appreciate, this paper has the character of a communication from "the field", the results of engagement in "fieldwork" rather than in solely writing up the results of painstaking analysis of the careful work of scholars and commentators. There is much research that remains unexamined in our account here. It will need to be part of any ongoing Christian democratic policy research initiative for the region.

Readers should not assume that by including discussion of 2014 developments we are suggesting we have adequately accounted for all, or even some, of the major forces that have long been, or have more recently lined up, in support of Fiji's "coup culture". Our attempt to keep readers "up to date", is simply to draw attention to what needs to be taken into account now by anyone researcher who would undertake serious political research about the current state of affairs with respect to Fiji's "coup culture". The recent developments indeed remind us that "international relations" are dynamic, constantly disclosing the "kaleidoscopic" and mutual inter-dependence of peoples and their governments, constantly calling forth from us a renewed commitment to humbly seek justice for all.

But let us frankly identify an important political implication of our interpretation of "coup culture". We are asserting that with these recent developments have confirmed the coupsters of 2006 as the democratically elected government of Fiji. This implies that, via their governments, the peoples of the region have become co-responsible for what we are claiming is the constitutionally endorsed institutionalisation of "coup culture" in Fiji. As citizens and regional citizens they are accountable for how they respond to this significant political development.

So, if this paper is part of our effort to promote a Christian democratic contribution to this region's vast mosaic of human responsibility, it is also to emphasize our conviction that the nurture of political judgment must have an indispensable part to play as a responsible political activity. This is needed within any region if its political identity is to be rightly respected so that the region's peoples can promote just governance of international relationships as they unfold within it. A Christian democratic political programme and perspective must not ignore this unavoidable political responsibility.

Our disagreement with this interpretation of Fiji's alleged return to democratic elections and a new form of parliamentary democracy is based upon our view that the new form of democracy has a constitution that effectively presupposes the necessity of the militarist view of government and hence of the “coup culture” from which it has arisen. It is to this basic "reform" of the constitution on the basis of this Grundnorm to which we object on point of principle.[5] Our alternative interpretation implies an alternative view of our membership in and responsibility for the South West Pacific. We also reject the populist supposition that "coup culture" can be viewed as an exclusively Fijian inability to engage in state-crafting. It is also the Governments of the region (most notably Australia and New Zealand), and the governance of the region’s international relations who are now set on a path that will have to accommodate Fiji’s military-based democracy within the region's relationships. We view the endorsement of Fiji's September 2014 election result as "free and fair" as a blatant (neo-liberal) capitulation to the view that might is right.

Now of course, political accommodation to might is right politics, militarism and the consequences thereof for civil society is not new. But we do suggest that this is a significant innovation for the political life of the SWP. The neo-colonial militarism that prevails in West Papua at one end of the Melanesian crescent under the Indonesian Government (and Kopassus) is now joined by a new constitutional formed of militarism at its southern Fijian end where Melanesia is said to intersect with Polynesia. And many in the region will be wondering about the extent to which it has been guaranteed by forces beyond the region, quite apart from the "free and fair" endorsement of election observers from traditional friends.

Reformational Political Philosophy Confronts Fiji's Politics

The archives of the Fiji Daily Post will reveal that regular articles appeared between 2004 and 2007 in which a perspective of a significantly different political philosophy, developed by various reformational writers, was presented to Daily Post readers in regular feature articles.[6] For us the significance of those articles is not to be found in the impact they had upon the political thinking of readers, of citizens or even Fijian and Indo-Fijian Christians. We cannot gauge the impact these articles made. Nevertheless, the biblically-directed philosophical and theoretical insights developed by the writers, academics and activists in these articles have helped us envisage how a Christian democratic political perspective might benefit statecrafting in Fiji and the wider region.

Robert Wolfgramm's 1994 doctoral dissertation - "Kai Viti - on being Fijian without being Fijian", is an exploration of the emergence of Fijian identity after the Rabuka coups of 1987. In it the traditional, modern, post-modern, religious and secular contradictions and ambiguities that are now part of "Fijian" identity are illustrated and discussed. From one angle, that work can be viewed as the beginnings of a comprehensive "institutional impact assessment"[7] of Fiji's emergent "coup culture"[8] and it is basic to our later modest efforts of political journalism. We return to this issue below.

To then move quickly to our seminar presentation of January 2014 and this article: we got involved in this very welcome seminar concerned with international relations in order to sharpen our own theoretical conceptualisation of the South West Pacific as a globally significant region in which international relationships of a political kind are worked out.

We have begun to see how a reformational political perspective can provide assistance to fellow citizens who, like ourselves, would publicly promote a Christian democratic view of citizenship. In conceptual terms, our aim is to develop a positive concept of regional citizenship as an integral part of Christian responsibility. How should it be understood? What is its inner connection to the citizenship that is universally associated with membership in a polity. Via journalism and the writing of papers for public officials and fellow citizens, we see ourselves "Taking Steps, even Baby Steps"[9]. But we are also aware that any understanding of how public justice should be promoted in regional terms stands in need of careful historical, cultural and sociological analysis with ongoing refinement of key theoretical concepts. International relationships as constituted by people's involvement in a region cannot stand still. And such deepening of theoretical insight into the way on which power-relationships are typically transformed[10] is necessary if we are to develop a comprehensive view of public justice for our region, that speaks to the daily lives of its peoples, institutions, associations and relationships.

Let us give an example of what it is we are seeking from the responses to this paper, from those sympathetic to Christian democratic politics, from those promoting international discussion that seeks "a new architectonic critique" (as the 2013 Kuyper seminar put it).[11] At the January 2014 seminar we indicated our considered view that "coup culture" had already been incorporated by the régime as a basic presupposition of Fiji's civil society it was in the process of transforming. This has been evident from the systematic removal of public officials and the employment of military personnel in these vacated senior public sector positions. Further, we then pointed out that if the September 2014 election went ahead it would do so under the strictures set out in a constitution designed by the military and its legal support team enshrining the "necessity" of the December 2006 coup for Fiji's future.[12] Now we, as citizens of the region, have to face not only the consequences of that election in the way in which the Fiji Government operates within the region, but of the subsequent endorsement of the international observer team that a "free and fair" election brought about a decisive victory for the party headed by those who orchestrated the 2006 coup. And so now, not only has "coup culture" been endorsed by a majority of Fijians, but also by the governments of Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, United States, India, China (and the UN). Their endorsement has given support to what is a constitutional democracy based upon militarism, a parliament elected upon the principle that might has to supersede right, and ongoing efforts by the régime to bring non-state organisations concerned with mass media and education under strict state control and surveillance. This process continues to this day with struggles in the media, sporting organisations, institutions of higher education and other public bodies over the replacement of former officials by those chosen by the Government.

So we do not apologise for saying that this is a report on a significant defeat for public justice. We are by no means simply lamenting the electoral defeat of parties and politicians and their supporters who stood for election in opposition to "coup culture".[13] Those who orchestrated their own electoral victory on the world stage, and those who assisted them, have now received from the international community permission to continue a statist transformation of public governance in Fiji.

The question is unavoidable: how could such an election result ever be deemed "free and fair"? Such a judgment shows a concerted effort by persons with international credentials, confirmed by their governments, to ignore questions that should be asked of any political system claiming a return to genuine democraticv principles. Read in the context of the military's constitution, those who perpetrated the 2006 coup and formed the FijiFirst Party were campaigning to gain public approval for that coup as well as an endorsement of the Good Friday 2009 revocation of the Fijian constitution when the judiciary was sacked for bringing down its judgment that the 2006 coup was illegal. The political opponents of the FijiFirst party not only had to campaign against the militarist constitution that laid out the rules by which they could campaign. They did not have access to the significant public resources available to FijiFirst because of their status as the "interim" government. Neither were the opposition parties in receipt of the kind of funding support from interested parties abroad who wanted the régime to maintain its grip on power. If now it is to be termed a democracy, it is one that constitutionally enshrines an underlying militarism as the preferred glue of Fijian civil society. It has all the moral integrity of a forced marriage of the victim to her rapist.

In keeping with our search for a concept of "region", there are immediate questions which cannot be avoided. They are vitally important for any political theory. A militarist view of civil government has effectively brought about an election victory for those who hold this view. It has been endorsed as a "free and fair" election by the major regional governments (Australia and New Zealand), as well as the international powers beyond the South West Pacific (Indonesia, China, Sri Lanka, India, USA, UK). Important questions follow which cannot be ignored.

We have suggested that a plank of public justice, and regional public justice, is to endorse the aspiration of people to give expression to their view of life in their variegated day-by-day responsibilities. So, have not the citizens of Fiji now indicated that they are happy to live a way that accommodates militarism and coup culture as their way of life?

Questions also arise as to how the régime's evident commitment to militarism will play itself out. It is also about the way a parliamentary opposition - in principle opposed to militarism and "coup culture" - should view itself in such a context. How are they to ever develop a comprehensive political program of constitutional reform that could conceivably attract significant electoral support?

Further, how now is the governance of the South West Pacific's international relations to accommodate Fiji's militarist view of democracy after it has received such international endorsement? Much more is at stake than the short-term consequences of those elected who are now part of a Fijian attempt to craft a new form of parliamentary democracy for their state. We are convinced that this is a significant retrograde political development for the region.

What we began in Fiji Daily Post articles and editorials that promoted a discussion of Christian democratic principles among that paper's readers, has now, for us, expanded to challenge "coup culture" militarism in terms of a comprehensive political philosophy. Formerly Christian democratic perspectives could be published to provoke readers to re-think their understanding of Christian politics. But now, without such a newspaper as the means of disseminating our discussion, our inquiry defaults to consider how a regional political movement might be mounted to challenge the trumping of right by might. How can this be done in a principled political way? What means do we now have in order to promote a Christian democratic political contribution to the region?

Regional Citizenship, Political Philosophy and Journalism

With such a series of difficult questions we return to a discussion of the concept of a region, as well reflecting upon ways in which regional citizenship can be positively formed. The concept of regional citizenship presupposes an ability to locate oneself on a map. But it must come to expression as a given set of responsibilities, which requires us as citizens of modern states to be active promoters of public justice for all and to fulfil our responsibility to love our neighbours wherever they are, from whatever polity their citizenship arises. This public responsibility to deal justly is a given, and we are called to contribute publicly, however small and insignificant our contribution may have to be. The marginality we experience as advocates of a Christian democratic view the the South West Pacific region may indicate our cumulative lack of understanding of what is politically required of us as disciples of Jesus Christ in this part of the world. If so, then that means repentance from a former way of life that ignored our God-given responsibility to serve our neighbours with justice. But repentance has always received the word of Jesus Christ: Go on your way and sin no more! And so we go on our way committed to be more alert to our responsibility to promote public justice for all.

But the descriptor public should also be read as carrying a sans frontiére implication. Any one polity is governed in the context of neighbouring polities and the relationships between them require some form of mutual accord, a set of agreements by which these relationships are governed. By reckoning with our "regionality" (or for that matter our "globality") we are faced with personal responsibilities that must be expressed in some location which can, with time, take on public legal, political, industrial and cultural expressions at home and also beyond our own borders.

In this examination of the region we have had to "dig deep" into how at least one important polity in the region has been significantly politically re-structured. The troubling suspicion is that there are more and more "regional issues" that should be on the horizon of our political responsibility but are not because of a cumulative generation-to-generation neglect. We may ignore some responsibilities, we may even ignore the fact that we have "regionality", at least until some "issue" arises (like a military coup, rising seas, or flooding brought about by a cyclone) which reminds us of the fact that we do have such extensive responsibility. We may be reminded that we have not been promoting justice as we should have been. Our lack may not be a direct causal link in allowing might to prevail over right, but we are implicated whether we like it or not. The question is now, having reckoned with our regional political responsibility, alongside of other local political responsibilities, what are we proposing to do about it?

In this paper we have been able to identify three seemingly intractable political problems. But our suggestion that "coup culture" is now, more than ever, a part of Fiji's political system does not (yet) gain traction in the media. In the mindset of most people across the region it would seem that Fiji's problem has, for the moment, been solved. Our view, on the contrary, is that the political problems we now face in our region have become more pronounced making it all the more difficult to ignore or avoid them.

Effectively, the neo-colonial militarism that has confirmed Jakarta's dominance over the Melanesian people since before 1962 has only intermittently become a prominent political "issue" within the region's polities or in the parliaments and congresses of its major powers. Vanuatu is exceptional in continuing to call for justice for the Papuan people under Indonesian rule. The cry for justice is joined by those displaced by violence and terror, asylum seekers the world over, crying out for justice.

So we are not just discussing how our "scholarly" or "philosophical" discussion of "regional issues" related to or arose from discussions that led to a brief effort in "investigative journalism" that commended Christian democratic perspectives. By seeking a "new architectonic critique" we are suggesting that any journalistic or "scholarly" attempt to raise public awareness of important issues will also have to be cognisant of what is not being disclosed, the critical questions that are not regularly asked, the items that do not get on the popular agenda.[14]

We have therefore begun to identify, maintaining a watching brief upon, what is to us, a glaring absence in ongoing and concerted "mainstream" journalism. Our critique suggests that what we call "coup culture" is fact a substantial definition of the broad parameters of regional political responsibility for the South West Pacific. That must be of concern to any Christian evaluation of international relations in this or any other region or polity. This needs further considered discussion, based upon informed journalism and extensive scholarly inquiry.[15] We are also very conscious that we are here in the contested domain of an ongoing debate that has raged, and never been resolved in social science since the early decades of the 20th century. Of course, in a world "made safe for democracy" by an imperial power committed to eliminate all imperial and colonial rule, the protocols for contributions to scientific journals can stipulate that "political" criticism should be left to parliaments, op-ed pieces in newspapers and blog sites where such "value-laden" analysis is appropriate. However, such a viewpoint not only lapses into an idealistic misrepresentation of science, it also has assumed that an idealised goal can replace our day-by-day cultural reality, as experience is not only denied but is effectively replaced by abstracted idealistic expectations.[16]

How, for instance, should scholarly articles report upon public policy matters? How should scholarly articles in a Christian philosophical journal disclose policies promoting militarism, neo-colonialism and the effective closing of borders to asylum seekers? Much is at stake and conventional distinctions between investigative journalism and scholarly reflection seem somewhat removed from the life and death situation faced by those who, with their children, having made it into Australian maritime waters are then consigned to detention centres contracted "off shore" to Pacific Island states that can scarcely cater for their own citizens who are suffering internal displacement?[17]

The major question for us, therefore, as we write and refine this paper arises from our conviction that we have become involved in explicitly advocating a view of regional citizenship not only as an integral component of a Christian democratic perspective, but as an unavoidable part of 21st century Christian discipleship. Our political responsibility for the region in which we reside does not go away by our ignoring it. As we have worked away seeking to understand these (three) regional issues, we have grown in the conviction that any Christian analysis of the earth's geo-political regions and their political relationships must go hand-in-hand with a concerted political effort to promote and maintain public justice the whole wide world around. Hence our "Macedonian call" to the other members of the seminar and to Philosophia Reformata's readers. This is to assure them that we, in our regional citizenship, have our "ears open" to their calls from all other regions, near and far, to "come over … and help …."[18] And this, we reiterate, is also part of what we believe it means to be Christian scholars. Such a call suggests the formation of a "Christian international"[19] but at this point in our discussion we are simply appealing to other Christian scholars in other parts of the world to contribute to a Christian philosophical concept of "regionality" should be an indispensable part of any ongoing research effort to support a Christian democratic perspective.[20]

The SWP as a Political Region

To view the SWP as a political region implies that the globe can rightly be divided in similar terms. Then the SWP's neighbouring region would be that covered by the Association of South East-Asian (ASEAN) nations - Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Viet Nam with 670 million people, 9% of the world's total population (Europe with 750 million is a comparable size). The largest political community within ASEAN is Indonesia with its 18,307 islands and 250 million people.

The SWP with 1/7th of the world's surface (from Easter Island in the east to the Cocos Islands in the west, from the equator in the North to the south of the south Island of New Zealand constitutes about 14% of the earth's surface) is home to a mere half of 1% of the world's population with approximately 38 million people. And so it seems almost superfluous to add that our promotion of a Christian democratic regional view cannot, at this point, be anything more than initial "baby steps".

This "project" aims to gain a detailed regional perspective. In January and February 2014 alone the world's population grew by more than half of the total population of this region. Of the 38 million, Australia (22), Papua New Guinea (6.3), New Zealand (4.5), Fiji (.9) and the Solomon Islands (.6) together account for 95% of the region's population.

The members of the Pacific Islands Forum include: Australia, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kirabati, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Republic of Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu. There is organised within the Forum a further sub-grouping: the Smaller Island States (SIS i.e. Cooks, Kiribati, Marshalls, Nauru, Niue, Palau, and Tuvalu). Outside of the Forum other significant groups include the Polynesian Leaders Group (i.e. Samoa, Tonga, and Tuvalu) and the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG i.e. Fiji, Vanuatu, Solomons and PNG). And there are also the islands of French Polynesia.

The SWP is the region that reaches from Easter Island in the east to the Cocos Island in the Indian Ocean in the west. For the sake of this discussion this means Polynesia and Melanesia as well as Australia and New Zealand. As any map of the region indicates, the island of New Guinea is Melanesian, and that is why we include it in our designated region even if West New Guinea is administered as the Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Papua.[21] We consider the SWP to "overlap" with the Indonesian Government's political presumption that Papua is its rightful possession. The Indonesian claim is that it is entitled to international respect as the "sovereign state" that has inherited the Dutch East Indies. Since its own independence its military has blatantly colonised what was, under Dutch rule, respected as a region that would in time take on self-government. Indonesia is the nearest and most populated neighbour of the region and is part of what is called the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN).[22]

The SWP though covering a very large portion of the globe's surface while being relatively small in population, is actually an emerging, growing and dynamic region. As we have insisted, we do not believe its character can be sufficiently comprehended by simply focusing upon the results of a detailed examination of sovereign-state to sovereign-state relations, or relations of an inter-institutional and political character. Of course the SWP lives with the historical bequests of traditional and more modern forms of imperialism, nationalism, and colonialism, as well as an ever growing desire of the peoples of the region for authentic economic development to meet their day-to-day needs. Like anywhere else around the world, the peoples of the SWP aspire for security as they attend to everyday responsibilities. The impacts of such historical bequests also need to be understood in the context of the confrontations and clashes between different cultures and a variety of religious adherence and basic spiritual motives. Nevertheless, the region’s mix of international relations present a mix of “modern” and “post-modern”, secularised materialism along with other the "western" or "American" ways of life which have all cut deeply into the spiritual and the Christian fibres that are strongly in evidence across the region.

So our research "conundrum" comes down to this: How are we to clarify the regional reality in order to account for how the region’s peoples give expression to the ways of life in their variegated day-by-day responsibilities? Without such clarity, philosophical analysis of the international relations of the SWP region will not get much further than reflecting upon the way a map can represent its area in geo-political terms by reference to its colour-coded legend, and by the lines drawn on it which may draw attention to sea-currents, geological features, coastlines and national boundaries.

We recognize that this article receives its momentum from our focusing upon Fiji's "coup culture" and raising the question of how its perpetuation functions across the SWP region. The remainder of this article will briefly touch on the "issues" of West Papuan independence and asylum seekers in a way that indicates how they function in relation to unavoidable political characteristics of the SWP region.

Three Regional "Issues" and a Christian Democratic Perspective

We have also suggested that Fiji has recently endorsed, via a democratic vote, what is a militarist (if not a neo-pagan) way of life. A Christian democratic approach to the region's political life is going to have to consider how now a Christian way of "doing politics" is to be promoted among the Christian people of Fiji. We have to keep in mind that many of them will have voted for FijiFirst which we suggest means an endorsement of its militarist agenda. It cannot be our task to condemn anyone for voting in the way they have. But there is a significant problem here in figuring out how to actually capture the attention of Fiji's Christians and then maintaining a discussion that explains the Christian democratic political path. It is not as if we can point to an active programme of Christian political action. Nor can we assume that a coherent Christian view of citizenship and public justice has been vigorously and boldy promoted across the region, even if does retain a significant Christian character in many respects. We have already noted that the only way forward is a repentant effort to take up the task of seeking justice for all our neighbours.

As noted, in developing a political picture of the region we are faced with the SWP's spatial immensity and its comparative smallness in demographic terms. This region of 38 million people sits at the tail end of its ASEAN neighbouring region of 670 million. One way to encourage political reflection about this region is to continue to draw attention to how these three intensely contentious political "issues" together indicate something of the political deficit we have to overcome as regional people, and in particular as Christian people of our region. This is also a procedure that challenges conventional political analysis and reportage that tends to analyse political reality in "one issue at a time" terms of sovereign-state to sovereign-state relations.

So this attempt to begin to think in a comprehensive political way about the SWP, may also indicate differences with conventional "Northern" and "Western" attitudes about this region which yet carries the cultural imprints of 18th century colonisation and 19th century imperialism. But such presumption is not a failing only of Western colonising powers. Arrogant voices within Indonesian elites have, from time to time, sought to justify the neo-colonial rule of the former Dutch West New Guinea by a specious Indonesian claim to be "father of all nesias".[23] A Christian democratic contribution from the SWP to West Papuan independence must strive to formulate policies that take seriously its contribution to Indonesian statecrafting. The peoples of Indonesia are also our neighbours, important and valued neighbours of the SWP peoples. And those in the SWP with Christian democratic aspirations need to keep in mind that we are also engaged, however remote and removed we may be from Jakarta, that our political efforts should have a bearing upon assisting Indonesian "state-crafting" with its 250 million people and its 18,407 islands. And there is a considerable population of Christians in Indonesia with whom we must seek to co-operate in developing a Christian democratic vision for the entire Western Pacific.

Australia is in a somewhat strange position in the SWP. We have just made a point of emphasizing how small the SWP, including Australia, is in comparison with Indonesia (pop: 250 million) and further afield with ASEAN (670 million), China (1.35bn) and India (1.27bn). But Australia's "place" in the SWP and wider region is not merely a function of its population which is very small when compared with its more populous northern neighbours, and rather enormous when compared to the island states of its eastern SWP oceanic neighbourhood.

A recent confirmation of Australia's continental immensity and its strategic significance has arisen in the international search for a lost Malaysian Jetliner carrying 239 people, travelling from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia to Beijing. It disappeared two hours after take-off on March 8th 2014. At the time of writing this the search was still concentrated upon the Southern Indian Ocean, to Australia's south-west. This area of ocean is defined by international agreement to be, when necessary, the responsibility of Australia's "Search and Rescue Operations". This leadership derives from a series of international conventions that make Australia responsible for ensuring search and rescue over a vast area of the Indian, Pacific and Southern Oceans.[24] The size of the oceanic region covered, much greater than the area of the Australian mainland itself, is indicative of a value ascribed internationally to this modern and well-resourced political community of 23 million. It therefore carries significant international weight for it to be given this responsibility.

This fact confirms that a region of our globe, along with the political communities that comprise it, will always be defined in international terms. Such responsibilities are not merely a function of the legal boundaries of the political communities that are found within the region. Australia's "gravitational" pull across the Indian, Southern and Tasman oceans is considerable. This weight is felt across the SWP as the region's most populous and most powerful "political community". It is also by far the and most wealthy of SWP political communities.

Analysing International Relations; Avoiding Realism and Idealism

There is no doubt that from the 1950s the study of international relations within Australian and New Zealand universities had to come to terms with the ANZUS security alliance. It should be of no surprise that the theoretical debates between proponents of idealism and realism, with various versions of functionalism and theories of complex interdependence, have also been reflected in Australian and New Zealand contributions to the theory of international politics.

It seems to us however that our emphasis upon the South West Pacific as an integral feature of Australia's "foreign affairs" is somewhat at odds with the emphasis that is usually accorded to Melanesia and Polynesia in Australian political life and the resultant political analysis and public comment that arises from out of that. A notable and prominent example of this blindness in Australia's national self-definition can be found in the Australia 2020 - Final Summit Report (Glyn Davies 2008) - the summit was convened by the then newly elected Labor Government. Though the final report gives a cursory mention to the South West Pacific and New Zealand the final section of the Initial Report "Australia's Future Security and Prosperity in a Rapidly Changing Region and World" simply refers to the "Pacific" without any mention of Australia's role as a political neighbour to the South West Pacific, with no mention of New Zealand or any of the states of the Pacific Islands Forum. Fiji's coup of December 2006 simply did not register in either form of the document driven by what was evidently a neo-nationalist agenda.[25]

Since 1951 political science reflection upon international relations in Australia and New Zealand has had to take account of the ANZUS security alliance and has been dominated by analysis of relationships with the US. Since the 1970s Australian diplomacy has consistently been required to take the side of Kissengerian realpolitik over against any alternative which presumably was an appeal to justice based in a moral outlook that, at a crucial moment in recent history, was ambiguously dismissed as "Wilsonian". This was when the Australian Government took ambassadorial advice concerning its negotiations with Indonesia after East Timor was invaded in December 1975.[26]

There are other significant historical events that should be mentioned in this connection: the New Zealand naval frigate sailing into the French nuclear test site at Mururoa Atoll in 1973, the reputed expulsion of New Zealand from ANZUS in 1985 over that government's refusal to accede to the US demand that nuclear-powered ships be allowed to dock in New Zealand in ports, and then in that same year the sinking of the Greenpeace vessel the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbor by French Government agents.

The path we are following in our study "international relations" is not really compatible with either "realist" or "idealist" perspectives, neither in the direction of Woodrow Wilson's "keeping the world free for democracy"[27] nor of Henry Kissinger's version of "America first".[28] We would instead develop a new political vision of the South West Pacific. But to do that much work lies ahead.

But what we are also emphasizing here is that one outcome of the post-World War II security negotiations has been a confirmation of the dogmatic view that any regional analysis (and thus of the three issues we identify) must be set forth in some or other theoretical combination of realism and idealism as if that theoretical procedure is what is required by the normative principles governing political life and the scientific investigation thereof.. We concede that the "structure of our situation" has been generated by action presupposing realist and idealist views of international relations (see comment from ftn 26).

It is also conceded that such explanations have an ongoing political effect also upon political studies in the region, but to accommodate them as the unavoidable normative frame of reference for the study of the region is merely to lapse into uncritical dogmatism, and to impose an arbitrary limit upon our calling as citizens to seek to do and promote justice for all.

Indonesia Today and Kuyper's View of the Dutch East Indies

It may be well past the time when we could meaningfully suggest that the spiritual heirs of Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) should return to the political principle of "trusteeship" - the third principle as outlined in 1879 in Ons Program, his programmatic manifesto for the Antirevolutionary Party of which e was leader, as an important part of their political perspective. But in this paper we seek to do that by extending the view to a Christian democratic endorsement of co-responsibility for state-crafting in the polities of the peoples who are our regional neighbours. As it was there initially stated it was part of Kuyper's view of the Dutch people’s fulfilment of their historical obligation to lead the people of the East Indies, including those of West Papua, to independence. And in that Kuyperian perspective there is also the emphasis upon an architectonic critique that will continue to speak out and apply the principle of public justice in new situations, for instance against the untenability of the iron-fisted military dominance maintained by Kopassus within these (and other) Indonesian provinces. We arrive at a fork in the road. Philosophical silence on such political matters is not an option. It would be covered by Kuyper's view of untenability which he emphasized in his opening oration for the first Christian Social Congress (November 9, 1891). There is injustice that requires comprehensive remedy.

Only one thing is necessary if the social question is to exist for you: you must realize the untenability of the present state of affairs, and you must account for this untenability not by incidental causes, but by a fault in the very foundation of our society's organization. If you do not acknowledge this and think that social evil can be exorcised through an increase in piety, or through friendlier treatment or more generous charity, then you may believe that we face a religious question or possibly a philanthropic question, but you will not recognize the social question. This question does not exist for until you exercise an architectonic critique of human society, which leads to the desire for a different arrangement of the social order. [29]

When he encouraged his fellow conferees to face up to and do something about the international reality of poverty he noted:

… we find ourselves fighting a rearguard action.[30]

Our “rearguard action” is not exactly the same and we might well ask whether we can hope for much at all coming from our contribution to our region? But to begin to develop a Christian democratic political perspective is certainly not untenable. But as much as those who come forward to develop a Christian democratic political perspective for the SWP will need an elaborated account of the injustices meted out to the Papuan people following Jakarta's military annexation of this land of diverse Melanesian tribes from 1962-69,[31] they will also need a credible political programme that takes in the entire SWP region. What Kuyper wrote over 100 years ago with respect to the eventual independence of the Dutch East Indies, after Indonesia's "liberation" by the Japanese and its independence after WWII, tells us only what might have been. For now we need a better understanding of the entrenched international interests (including from the US and The Netherlands) that impede attempts to justly challenge Indonesia's UN endorsed neo-colonial annexation of the former Dutch possession from the late 1950s.

The Organisasi Papua Merdeka (OPM, Free Papua Movement) knows that the United Nations gave ambiguous assent to the results of the questionable "Act of Free Choice”, in July-August 1969, the coerced vote of 1,025 tribal leaders. The Indonesian Government has ever since claimed that this vote gives legitimacy to its effective annexation of the Melanesian territory, justifying its actions by asserting Dutch colonial pretensions with respect to its former territory.[32] And as we have noted there is a considerable Christian population in Indonesia.

But to understand the manner in which "national sovereignty" and "a people's right to self-determination" have been misunderstood and thereby confused and obscured the central empirical fact about these "inextricably interwoven" human responsibilities only brings us to the error we need to avoid. Instead we need to develop an ongoing alternative account of the ways in which regional international relations are, at root, mutually self-insufficient. Such responsibilities, each in their own "distinctive integrity" (sphere sovereignty), presuppose and are in turn presupposed by all the other human responsibilities. It is within various institutions, organisations and relationships that they come to concentrated expression.

At the outset of Herman Dooyeweerd's elaboration of his philosophical sociology, albeit as he set forth a philosophical exposition, he set out "Some Preliminary Transcendental Distinctions" with these words: "In the first place we have to pay attention to the structural distinction between communal and inter-individual or inter-communal relationships, inherent in every temporal human society as such, as its transcendental condition".[33]

Here we do little more than simply noting interpretative difficulties that always attend theoretical argument, and having done so we suggest that Dooyeweerd is here emphasizing something intensely important for the examination of "international relations" in any geo-political "region"[34]. The point is this: it is simply not possible to isolate any one relationship (or set of relationships of the same kind) from the other relationships (of similar or different kinds) from the complex inter-relationships that any identified relationship presupposes. The analysis of these other relationships will, in their turn, presuppose this other one. Or in Dooyeweerd's terms: when one is seeking to identify the characteristics of communal relationships (we might also say intra-communal relationships) we have to keep in mind that such a community is at the same time in various kinds of relationships with other communities of its own kind, as well as communities and relationships of other kinds. What family, for example, is there that lives entirely unto itself without its children (or its adults) making friends beyond its immediate family circle? By identifying the relationships that pertain between governments, we keep in mind that governments are in relations with other governments as well as the institutions and organisations and citizens of its own realm as those of other polities. Governments are never without such relatedness - it is in relation to these institutions, organisations and relationships that they are called to exercise their own distinctive tasks in ensuring and maintaining public justice.

Identification of specific responsibility is not an act of theoretical isolation. And when we are developing a theoretical view of human responsibility, the only "isolation" (if it be called that) that is developed is via an abstract concept about a kind of human responsibility that we have already assumed exists in a context nurturing and nurtured by other relationships and responsibilities. Identification of a relationship is a first step to reckoning with the normative complex in which it is bound to the other relationships that are simultaneously bound with it.

At this point we recall how this examination of "international relations" in our region already presupposes and is itself conditioned by an international relationship, namely the collegial friendship that has emerged over time between the two authors, and with which our report's discussion began. We have briefly explained how our collaboration came about. This is all the more pertinent because our discussion of "international relations" in the South West Pacific presupposes much that is to be found in the complex array of "international relations" that are already manifest in our respective "backgrounds". And as our project has developed the significance of these has also grown in importance. But this, as an aside, simply illustrates something of the mutual self-insufficiency we experience in all kinds of human relationships, including those in which we jointly engage in theoretical and scholarly analysis.

When the history of the independent island states of the South West Pacific is examined, as with the extensive research of Ron Crocombe,[35] it is clear that their independent status became the goal of post WWII security deliberations. And so, as elsewhere, a strategy was developed in order to ensure the establishment and recognition of these island states. That was the goal that eventually emerged from post-war discussion of world security. So under Australia's trusteeship and in the security context provided by ANZUS (from 1951), Papua New Guinea was brought to independence in 1975. So one Melanesian part of New Guinea was brought to independence while the other western part, the former Dutch territory, was incorporated into the Indonesian federation, an archipelago of 18,407 islands.

So there can be no doubt that Indonesian colonisation of West Papua has potentially divided all Melanesian people, and it remains an ongoing political "issue" for Australia, New Zealand and the wider South West Pacific region. We are now witnessing a situation where at the north-western "Papuan end" of the Melanesian crescent, Javanese militarism confronted by voices calling for Papuan independence, now heard across the region, in the assembly of United Nations and the European parliament.

West New Guinea (now ruled as the Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Papua) is Melanesian and the Melanesian islands reach from these eastern regions of Indonesia all the way down to Fiji. The "Special Forces Command" (Kopassus - Komando Pasukan Khusus[36]) of the Indonesian military has maintained its presence and iron-grip upon the Melanesian people even before 1969 when the alleged "vote of free choice" took place. The event was orchestrated to confirm the "presentational acceptability" of Indonesia's pre-emptive annexation of the former Dutch territory. The UN had required Indonesia to arrange a referendum for the Papuan people. "The act of free choice" (Penentuan Pendepat Rakyat) was held from July to August 1969, and when a unanimous affirmative vote was given by 1,026 leaders chosen by the military, the vote was eventually received by the UN as endorsement of Indonesia's rule. The policy change by the US administration under President Kennedy in Washington, in the face of Moscow's ongoing military assistance to the Soekarno regime, is said to have led to the endorsement of the Indonesian claim.[37]

Forty-five years on and a new kind of militarism has been endorsed in Melanesia's south-eastern "Fijian end". Our methodology also insists that such an egregious diplomatic mistake (whether we compare it with Chamberlain's Munich accord of 1938 or not) should not be viewed in isolation from what has happened and what is happening elsewhere in the region. The relationship between Indonesia and the Melanesian Spearhead Group[38] is growing in importance. And within the region the Prime Minister of Vanuatu has become a loan voice among Pacific islands governments, speaking out against Indonesian militarisam, informing the United Nations of the injustice the Papuan people suffer in Indonesia's west New Guinea provinces.[39]

When the well-respected Methodist elder and medical statesman, Dr Jona Senilagakali, stepped briefly into the office of Prime Minister in the immediate aftermath of the December 5th. 2006 coup, he spoke bitterly and told the governments of Australia and New Zealand that they had no business in interfering with something Fijians would now solve in their own way. In saying this he conveniently ignored the fact that the coup came immediately after an agreement had been negotiated by the New Zealand government's Minister of Foreign Affairs between the military commander and the lawfully elected Prime Minister of Fiji in Wellington. Senilagakali also ignored the fact that the (at that stage) three previous coups were all cases in which Fijians presumed to solve their problems in their own way. Now, however, we are told by the Fijian President, that Fiji was for such a long time unable to solve its problem on its own because its call for assistance had been ignored by its immediate neighbours. Thsnks to the Chinese Government and the Sri Lankan jurists, Fiji is finally able to take its place on the democratic path.

As a nation, China demonstrated that it was a true friend of Fiji when virtually the rest of the world shut its doors on us. China stood firm and supported us, demonstrating deep understanding of our situation and further showing utmost respect for Fiji as a sovereign nation trying to rebuild itself. It did not shut the door on us, nor did it just stand by and watched (sic!). China came to the fore and provided the much-needed support that any natiuon under the circumstances would strongly desire.[40]

Clearly solving a problem in a Fijian way cannot mean solving a problem without the help of neighbours near and far, from regional peoples and their governments. In these terms we conclude that it is because of the political myths of "sovereign independence" that "coup culture" is viewed across the SWP as Fiji's own problem. The aggressive and truculent way in which "national sovereignty" is defended by governments, as with the above quoted statement of Fiji's President, is often a smokescreen for a form of state-crafting that not only malforms government-to-government relationships but threatens the richly interwoven fabric of human responsibilities that are arise from international relations.

When international relations that have been carefully developed over generations confronts the kind of vandalism that is dressed up as state sovereignty we have to wonder how this relates to the dominent western liberal point of view that has accompanied the historical emergence of sovereign states. In the words of James Skillen: "From a classical liberal point of view, which dominates the mental picture held by most Americans, for example, sovereign states first established themselves as independent entities and then from out of their respective autonomies they developed ways and rules of relating to one another. This view is quite similar to the liberal view of the origin of domestic polities: free and sovereign individuals come first and then by free and mutual agreement they create social contracts and limited government".[41]

This mental picture is not just an insight about American or Australian folly. It has captivated those living in the islands states of the SWP as well. Among them, most notably, are the defenders of Fiji's December 5th 2006 coup like Dr Jona Senilagakali, the interim Attorney General, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, the commander of the RFMF Brigadier Mosese Tikoitoga, as well as the current Fijian President. These people tell us that the coup of 2006 will never be repudiated. The military's constitution with its extensive list of immunity provisions which can never be revoked[42] indicate the military's view that the Republic's autonomy has finally arrived. If that view prevails then Fiji is heading on a "power state" path, a state built on might. And that is what is at work behind the mask of the liberal humanistic view of democratic sovereign independence. Of course, Fiji's ambiguous political situation may still hold out some unanticipated consequences.

But the aggressive justification by appeal to a government's "sovereignty", is not simply a characteristic of self-appointed coupsters. It is also found from those who are elected "democratically" in “democratic” polities. Since 2001, Australia has responded to asylum seekers with a Border Protection Bill. The Australian Government, of "both sides", has continued in defiance of the letter and spirit of international conventions in implementing policies that are concerned with asylum seekers, migration zones and the law of the sea. Since May 2013 the entire Australian mainland has been excised from its migration zone. This means that the Australian Government has freed itself from an international obligation to consider the claims of asylum seekers who arrive on these shores. The aim is said to be about removing any incentive these people might have for arriving by sea. It has also been claimed that this is to deter "people smugglers" operating within the Indonesian archipelago by undermining their "business model". In this context, where UNHCR resources in neighbouring regions are stretched beyond limit, the people of Pacific island states - Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Tokelau, the Cook Islands, Tuvalu - consider their future with rising sea levels. SWP island peoples who assume regional interdependence with the peoples of Australia (and New Zealand) may wonder whether such closed borders are going to be part of their future as well.

Australia's recent "operation sovereign borders" has been a military campaign authorised to "push back" the boats of asylum seekers who would seek to land on Australian territory. But as much as the government might say that this is simply the outworking of what its own laws require it to do, it is also sending a message of much wider significance about the way newcomers are viewed from within the Australian political community. It is a message that has implications for all the peoples of the SWP as well.

The persistence of "coup culture", the ongoing military suppression of the Papuan people and Australia's redefinition of how its administers all forms of migration, are all international issues with an impact across for the SWP. We suggest they provide evidence of serious weaknesses in the way genuine international assistance (aid and development) is offered across the region.

Conclusion - Public Justice for a Region.

"International relations" are a feature of human life on this planet which disclose our many-sided responsibilities as the Creator's image-bearers. They are part of what He has created, the domain within which we are called to live out our love for God and giving concrete everyday expression to our love for our neighbour. These relations manifest themselves in an historically formed complex in which distinct human responsibilities all carry their own integrity; these are what we find take-for-granted as we live our lives. Part of our stewardship is to draw public attention to any, some or all of them, and we do so as accountable stewards of our generation. Commending some act or responsibility to our neighbours, writing letters to the editor, posting an analysis on a blog site, publishing a book of "Christian perspectives on …", singing about justice, love and care for the environment, are all valid human activities. But normative living is not just a matter of commending norms. It is much more than simply drawing public attention to something by our analysis and discourse. It means visiting the isolated, adopting the ophan, caring for the prisoner, healing the sick and much more. And let us wisely face the fact that any one of us can only be involved in a few of these vital activities to ensure that justice is done and we have been faithful in our calling.

Our contribution has been spurred by as much by Jim Skillen's view of the multiple responsibilities of human self-hood,[43] as by Bob Goudzwaard's view of simultaneous norm realisation.[44] Our paper attempts to begin to document a positive application of Kuyper's famous "souvereniteit in eigen kring" doctrine for international relations within our South West Pacific region. Our appreciation of the need for normative analysis is affirmed by Goudzwaard and van Baars in a conference over a quarter of a century ago in 1978, "Thinking from the perspective of norms creates the greatest certainty concerning the steps which ought to be made at the beginning: the thinking from the perspective of future goals renders uncertain precisely those first steps which ought to be taken".[45]

In developing this basic reformational insight about the "everyday" social complexity in which human responsibilities come to historical expression, our aim is to contribute to the further elaboration of a Christian theory of international relations. This same insight was strongly reiterated by Skillen’s response to the 1978 comment of Goudzwaard and van Baars. He called for ongoing co-operative international research project to confirm the importance of normative thinking in political theory, to serve students and those engaged in international affairs, and to assist those in diplomatic service of their countries. Such a project would aim to "… demonstrate the growth and the potential for further growth of international Christian wisdom and understanding. We Christians are also caught in our own nationalistic parochialisms, in our own self-interested attitudes, and we are not in the habit of thinking normatively about global justice. If we do not begin to study and think together about international problems from an international perspective, we will have nothing with which to confront [the dominant approaches of those] who are studying global affairs and shaping the minds of today's young scholars".[46]

And so it will be evident to anyone reading that 1978 exchange that the motivation for that research project and subsequently for our own is not only to develop an ongoing critique of "nationalistic parochialisms" but to develop an alternative view of political life in which the rich created complexity of international life is given due respect. We are convinced that this should be a permanent concern of Christian socio-political research.

There is another finding to conclude this paper: the three issues are not in fact separate and discrete. When they are viewed historically and in terms of the normative task of building just political communities they can be seen as related to each other inextricably. The Australian Government may claim to have solved the issue by "stopping the boats" but it remains to be seen whether Australia's contribution to Indonesian state-crafting has been facilitated by this action; nor does it suggest that there has been a change in direction away from pragmatic expediency in Australia's and the region's responsibility to assist asylum seekers.

___________________________________

References:

James D Bratt - 2013 Abraham Kuyper, Modern Calvinist, Christian Democrat Eerdmans, Grand Rapids

Govert J Buijs and Roel Jongeneel (eds) - 2013 "Economics, Christianity and the Crisis: Towards a New Architectonic Critique" Proceedings of the First Kuyper Seminar, 8-9 January 2013, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Philosophia Reformata Volume 78, No. 2.

Yong Joon Choi - 2000 Dialogue and Antithesis: a Philosophical Study of the Significance of Herman Dooyewerd's Transcendental Critique Dr.Phil Thesis Potchefstroom University of Christian Higher Education.

Kenneth J Conboy - 2003 Kopassus: Inside Indonesia's Special Forces Equinox, Jakarta

Ron Crocombe - 2007 Asia in the Pacific Islands: Replacing the West, Suva: IPS Publications, University of the South Pacific, Suva.

Glyn Davis - 2008 Australia 2020 Summit - Final Report Australian Government Publications Office, Canberra.

Jim DiEugenio - 2013 "JFK's Embrace of Third World Nationalists" November 25 Consortiumnews.com.

Herman Dooyeweerd - 1969 A New Critique of Theoretical Thought Volume III The Structures of Individuality of Temporal Reality, Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, Nutley N.J.

Bob Goudzwaard - 1979 Capitalism and Progress: a Diagnosis of Western Society Eerdmans, Grand Rapids.

Bob Goudzwaard and Johan van Baars - 1978 "Norms for the International economic order" in Nicholas Wolterstorff et. al 1980, 223-253.

Bob Goudzwaard - 2013 "Economics, Christianity and the Crisis: Towards a New Architectonic Critique" in Buijs and Jongeneel (eds) 2013 95-101.

Damien Kingsbury 2003 Power Politics and the Indonesian Military Routledge, London.

Abraham Kuyper - 1931 Lectures on Calvinism Eerdmans, Grand Rapids.

Abraham Kuyper - 1950 Christianity and the Class Struggle (CCS) trans. Dirk Jellema. Piet Hein, Grand Rapids.

Abraham Kuyper - 1991 The Problem of Poverty (PP) ed. James W Skillen, Center for Public Justice and Baker. Washington and Grand Rapids.

Abraham Kuyper - Guidance for Christian Engagement in Government, 2013 A translation and edited edition of Abraham Kuyper Ons Program 1879 by Harry Van Dyke, CLP Academic. Amsterdam.

Michael Leach and Damien Kingsbury (eds) - 2003 The Politics of Timor-Leste: Democratic Consolidation after Intervention Cornell University Press, South East Asia Program. Ithaca.

William Roger Louis - 1978 Imperialism at Bay: the United States and the decolonization of the British Empire, 1941-1945 Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Sander Luitweiler - 2014 "The distinct nature of the EU" presentation. Conference paper 2nd Amsterdam Kuyper Seminar, The Netherlands, 23-24 January.

Steven Lukes - 1974 Power: a Radical View MacMillan, London.

T B Millar - Australia in Peace and War - External Relations since 1788 ANU Press, Maxwell Macmiilan, Botany, Sydney 2nd Edition, 1991

Duncan Roper - 2005 "Wiremu Tamihana, Maori Christianity and Government Policy in 19th Century Aotearoa, New Zealand" Stimulus 13:5 August, 33-41.

James W Skillen - 1978 "Norms for the International Economic Order (A Response)", in Wolterstorff et al 1980, 268-271

James W Skillen - 1981 International Politics and the Demand for Global Justice G.R. Welch Co, Burlington.

James W Skillen - 2010 "Doing Justice to Entrepreneurial (and Other) Responsibilities" Markets and Morality 13:2, 319-344.

James W Skillen - 2014 "International Politics in an Era of Kaleidoscopic Change and Uncertainty" Conference paper 2nd Amsterdam Kuyper Seminar, The Netherlands, 23-24 January.

Alan Storkey - 1979 A Christian Social Perspective IVP Leicester

Alan Storkey - 2005 Jesus and Politics: Confronting the Powers Baker Grand Rapids

T P van der Kooy - 1975 "Methodologie der economie en christelijke wijsbegeerte" Philosophia Reformata 40 (1975), 1-32.

B J van der Walt (ed) - 1996 Christianity and Democracy in South Africa: Christian Responsibility for Political Reflection and Service Orientation Jan-Dec Nr. 79-82.

Hendrik van Reissen - 1997 The University and its Basis ACHEA. Melbourne.

Bruce C Wearne - 2014 "Digging Deep: Christian Journalism's Contribution to Public Justice" Pro Rege XLIII, 1 September 2014 pp. 19-30.

Max Weber - 1949 The Methodology of the Social Sciences Translated and Edited by Edward A. Shils and Henry A. Finch. The Free Press. New York

John Witte ed. - 1993 Christianity and Democracy in Global Context Westview. Boulder.

Robert Wolfgramm 1994 - Kai Viti - on being Fijian without being Fijian Doctoral Dissertation, La Trobe University, Australia.

Robert Wolfgramm 1987 - "Kava Coup", Privately circulated paper, Chisholm Institute of Technology, Melbourne.

Nicholas Wolterstorff et al - 1980 Justice in the International Economic Order Second International Conference of Reformed Institutions for Christian Higher Education, 13-19 August 1978. Calvin College, Grand Rapids.

Richard Woolcott - 2003 The Hot Seat: Reflections on Diplomacy from Stalin's Death to the Bali Bombings HarperCollins, Sydney.

Dennis Wrong - 1979 Power: Its Forms, Bases and Uses Blackwell. Oxford.

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* Bruce Wearne of Point Lonsdale, Australia, has a PhD in sociology, continues research in the history and philosophy of sociology. bcwearne51@bigpond.com. Robert Wolfgramm of Suva, Fiji and Boronia, Australia, has a PhD in sociology. In recent years he has been a daily newspaper editor, a general manager of AFLFiji, an editor and supervisor of the translation of the New Fijian Bible Nai Vola Tabu, as well as initiating the Christian Democratic Network Pacific www.facebook.com/CDNPacific. robert.wolfgramm@gmail.com

[1]. We are grateful to those across the South-West Pacific, especially in Fiji and the Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Papua, who have patiently worked for justice and democracy over many decades. They have often faced cruel exploitation, hardship and threats from governments. The continued political resistance of these fellow regional citizens points to a way of political service that advances public justice. They challenge us to take up our regional responsibilities with greater boldness. We also thank Wesley Wentworth (Seoul), Harry van der Veen and Bram Vander Jagt (both of Melbourne) for their practical support of this project.

[2]. Readers who would like a pdf copy of the fuller version of our paper are invited to request one from the authors.

[3] George Williams 2001 and Geoffrey Robertson et al 2001 provide background to the ambiguous place of the judiciary in relation to the Republic of Fiji Military Forces (RFMF) that began to unravel in the wake of the 2000 Speight and Bainimarama coups. These two documents strongly suggest that the problems faced by Fiji's polity and its "coup culture", cannot be properly evaluated without a critical examination of the conduct of the Fijian judiciary. Since this compromised judiciary is inextricably interwoven with the professional jurists who serve the SWP region, we have good grounds for saying that Fiji's "coup culture" is indeed a regional problem that prfoundly challenges the integrity of the legal profession.

[4] http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Papua_Movement

[5] It now has to be asked whether the Grundnorm or basic norm of Fiji's constitution is one that presumes that the only doctrine that is effective (i.e. for Fiji in its self-declared special character) is that of necessity. See the discussion George Williams 2002. Grundnorm is the term employed in the legal theory of Hans Kelsen (1881-1973) for the basic norm upon which a political constitution is based. In this instance the appeal to "necessity" is merely a terminological device to apologise for an approach to politics that might has to be right, or else. And that, as the saying goes, is now Fiji's history.

[6] These were Bob Goudzwaard, James W Skillen, Jonathan Chaplin, Paul Marshall, David Koyzis, Adolfo Garcia de La Sienra. The Fiji Daily Post featured reviews of books, interviews and articles by these Christian writers and activists. As well interviews with Anne van Loon of the Australian Faith Community Nursing Association and Professors Eiichi Yamamoto and Michiya Murata of Japan were also published. We are not suggesting that those articles provoked the perpetrators of the coup. They might have been irritated by an editorial reminding them and all readers of the Biblical teaching that mercy must triumph over judgement, even as their leader allowed innocent people to be targetted mercilessly, while he arranged for himself to be photographed sipping the cup of Holy Communion on the Sunday following the coup.

[7] The term was coined by Dr Luis Lugo when he was working with the Center for Public Justice, Washington, in the early 1990s, to suggest a way of evaluating policies both before and after their implementation.

[8] The term now is widely used by coupsters as much as by detractors of Fijian militarism. See for example, Fiji Times article 3/4/2014 "Call for end to coup culture" http://www.fijitimes.com/story.aspx?id=264528 . The term was popularised by Robert Wolfgramm in his regular Fiji Daily Post newspaper editorials 2005-2010. An earlier term he used in a paper circulated among colleagues was "The Kava Coup" (Robert Wolfgramm 1987).

[9] James W Skillen "International Politics in an Era of Kaleidoscopic Change and Uncertainty".

[10] This reminds us of the discussion of "tendential laws" as described by Dennis Wrong, the built-in tendency of a formal power relationships to metamorphose over time into a different form. See Dennis Wrong 1979 pp. 75-83.

[11]. Economics, Christianity and the Crisis: Towards a New Architectonic Critique Proceedings of the First Kuyper Seminar, 8-9 January 2013, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Philosophia Reformata Volume 78 (2013), No. 2.

[12] One wonders whether the constitution as re-written by the military and its team of legal advisors have had as their goal the enshrining of the "doctrine of necessity" in its provisions. This certainly seems to be the implied legal judgment that lies behind a public statement of the commander of the Republic of Fiji Defense Forces shortly after replacing Bainimarama who had to resign to fight the election. He said that the Military would abide by the constitution and also that it would always defend the necessity of the December 5th 2006 coup. Shortly after seizing power, Commodore Bainimarama appealed to the "doctrine of necessity" in his address to the nation. This questionable doctrine had already been examined on 23 August 2000 in relation to an action (the Prasad case) brought before Mr Justice Gates in the immediate aftermath of the 2000 (Speight) coup which involved the alleged revocation of the 1997 constitution. See Williams 2002 and Robertson et al 2002 pp. 169-175.

[13] We would even go so far as to suggest that the 40% vote against FijiFirst was a truly remarkable result.

[14] A classic statement of this is found in Steven Lukes (1974). The three levels by which the administration of power is effected 1. whoever wins the argument; 2. whoever sets the agenda; 3. whoever has the power to keepo questions off the agenda.

[15] Bruce C Wearne "Digging Deep: Christian Journalism's Contribution to Public Justice" Pro Rege XLIII, 1 September 2014 pp. 19-30.

[16] Herman Dooyeweerd's "transcendental critique of theoretical thought" lays bear the process by which this idealised misrepresentation allows "naïve experience" to be dismissed without it even being alowed into the witness box. This indeed is an outworking of the dogma of the pretended autonomy of theoretical thought which can be seen in the management of scientific journalism that would exclude the "promotion" of a particular philosophy or world-view on the grounds that such theories need to be argued not set forth in thetical terms.

[17] See especially the famous essays of Max Weber "The Meaning of Ethical Neutrality in Sociology and Economics" (pp. 1-47) and "Objectivity in Social Science and Social Policy" (pp. 49-112) in Max Weber 1949.

[18]. Acts 16:6-10. This is our attempt to keep alive a challenge thrown down by Jim Skillen in 1978 in response to the paper of Goudzwaard and baars: "Can we not respond … by initiating what could become … many international Christian academic projects?" See James W Skillen 1978 p. 271 and the essays by Bob Goudzwaard and Johan van Baars (1978) "Norms for the International economic order" in Wolterstorff et al 1980, pp. 223-253.

[19]. We here allude to the Inaugural meeting of the International Working Men's Association, convened by Karl Marx, in 1864. See also the programmatic research suggested by James W Skillen 1978.

[20] To cut a long story short, what in the early 1980s began as occasional discussion between us a Christian philosophy as we undertook our respective doctoral projects, had by December 2006 become a daily discussion of the Fiji military coup and its consequences. Alan Storkey's A Christian Social Perspective IVP 1979 was a stimulus to us to think "Christianly" about sociology as we began our university teaching careers, and his book Jesus and Politics: Confronting the Powers Baker 2005 confirmed the point for when we departed from the university to maintain our scholarly vocation in other ways.

[21] Indonesia is party to the Southeast Weapon Free Zone.

[22] ASEAN countries include: Burma, Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Vietnam. East Timor, with Indonesia as its sponsor, has applied to be the 11th ASEAN member.

[23] Ron Crocombe 2007 "Indonesia in Pacific Islands politics: Aiming to be 'Father of the Nesias'" pp. 301-306 and ftn 32 p. 311. A Christian democratic perspective should seek to develop a thoroughly self-critical dimension. The research we commend should not avoid exposing such neo-colonial pretensions, just as much as it will cast a critical eye upon the late 19th century view of British colonists in Australia that the South Pacific ocean needed to be preserved as a lake of the British Empire. See T B Millar 1991 p.10 "Tahiti, Fiji, the New hebrides and other islands were early seen as being strategically important to new South Wales and therefore, desirably, British, and to be administered at britain's expense…. The Australian settlers welcomed Britain's annexation of New Zealand, and saw the South pacific becoming a 'British lake'. They thus bitterly resent the french protectorate over Tahiti in 1844, and the annexation of New Caledonia nine years later. This resentment was directed less at Paris for its acquisitiveness than at London for its inaction."

[24] The work is administered by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority. www.amsa.gov.au

[25] www.pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/81461/20080610-0000/www.australia2020.gov.au/final_report/2020_summit_report_full.pdf

[26] See "Appendix" Richard Woolcott The Hot Seat: Reflections on Diplomacy from Stalin's Death to the Bali Bombings HarperCollins, Sydney 2003 pp. 306-317 at paragraph 35 page 313. see ftn. 23 below. The phrase is from an Department of Foreign Affairs secret cablegram of the Australian Ambassador in Jakarta to the then recently installed Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, 5th January 1976, relating to Indonesia's invasion of East Timor (7th December 1975). The full paragraph reads: "Indonesia will proceed to incorporate Timor. While President Soeharto will want incorporation to be achieved in as presentationally acceptable a manner as possible, Indonesia will not be deterred from this fundamental policy objective." This was Richard Woolcott's view of how the Indonesian Government wished to present itself to the world. The Ambassador's cable explicitly balances "Wilsonian idealism" with "Kissingerian realism" and the latter should prevail since Timor's incorporation is said, to this day, said to be in the long-term national interest of all regional countries.

[27] James D Bratt 2013 p. 368 suggests that Kuyper, the defender of the "little people" considered Wilson's "League of Nations" to be a "league of winners".

[28] James W Skillen 1981 Chapter 2 "America First" pp.27-38.

[29] Abraham Kuyper 1991, 50-51. This is a translation of Het sociale vraagstuk en de Christelijke religie Amsterdam, J A Wormser 1891. The corresponding quote in an earlier English translation by Dirk Jellema is found in Abraham Kuyper 1950, 39-40. This was quoted by Bob Goudzwaard in his contribution to the First Amsterdam Kuyper Seminar. See Bob Goudzwaard 2013 pp. 95-101.

[30] Abraham Kuyper 1991, 26. The 1950, 16 translation reads: "We have thus been placed in the rear guard".

[31] Kenneth J Conboy 2003 documents the Indonesian military’s successive attempts to infiltrate and destabilize the region from 1958 until 1961.

[32] The question of the future of the "dependent territories" of the European empires was under discussion in the aftermath of World War II. At a January 1945 meeting, members of the US State Department's Committee on Dependent Areas became irritated by questions exploring “dependency” in the US case. After all there were “fifteen million dependent peoples in the United States proper”, a reference to the American descendents of African slaves. William Roger Louis 1978, 428-429. (Thanks to Keith Sewell for this reference). Notworthy is the comment that the Dutch were planning to establish a “Commonwealth” between the mother country and its colonies, thus seeking to sidestep the colonisation issue.

The 1951 essay of the Free University's philosophy professor S.U. Zuidema, "Asia's Awakening and Our Christian Responsibility: Retrospect and Prospect" provides a 1951 reformational political perspective on the former Dutch New Guinea (the Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Papua).

[33] Herman Dooyeweerd 1969 Volume III is titled, The Structures of Individuality of Temporal Reality Part II Structures of Individuality of Temporal Human Society, Chapter 1 The Basic Problem in the Structural Principles of Temporal Human Society $3 Some Preliminary Transcendental Distinctions pp. 176-191 at page 177.

Dooyeweerd's attempt to critically confront the sociological labryinth as it had emerged in the 1920s is itself incredibly complex, and it may be this aspect of his exposition that has meant that his expositors have missed a key insight that is presupposed by this very complex complex statement. But we are indebted to our fellow seminar member Sander Luitweiler 2014, has helpfully brought this statement of Dooyeweerd forward when the structural character of the EU is under examination. Undoubtedly, there are complex theoretical issues to be resolved with respect to Dooyeweerd's formulation. What are we to understand by this being a "preliminary" distinction? Further, how is "between" to be linked to "and" and "or" in the phrase "the structural distinction between communal and inter-personal or inter-communal relationships"?

[34] Or in Luitweiler's case, "the temporal human society" is developed out of the project of European governments to respect, co-ordinate and build upon the international dimensions of each co-operating régime's state-crafting.

[35] Ron Crocombe 2007. The cover announces: "A spectacular transition is underway in the Pacific Islands, as a result of which all our lives will be radically different. While the original Pacific peoples came from Asia, for most of the past century and earlier, nearly all Pacific Islands nations were colonies of 'Western' powers. But in the last fifty years or so, Asia has begun to play a bigger and bigger role in all aspects of Islands life - migration, trade and investment, aid and development, politics, strategic relations, crime, education and employment, information and media, religion, culture and sports. It is replacing the West. The process is irreversible."

[36] Damien Kingsbury 2003; see also Kenneth J Conboy 2003 op cit.. See also Michael Leach and Damien Kingsbury (eds) 2003. This book analyzes the difficult task of state-crafting in the world’s newest political community, Timor Leste.

[37] The Kennedys betrayed the nationalist hopes of the indigenous West Papuans. They were not colonised until the President, with the assistance of his brother as US Attorney-General, handed them over to Indonesia in the interests of maintaining a firm grip over their mineral wealth that is to this day extracted by the US firm Freeport McMoran. Henry Kissinger has been a Director of this firm. The company pays tax to the Jakarta Government which according to some reports inordinately finances the Indonesian treasury. Jim DiEugenio 2013. The use of colonised territories as a "cash cow" is reminiscent of Dutch revenue raising in the East Indies which resolved The Netherlands mid-19th century finacial crisis, allowing the budget to be balanced in 1847 with 40% of all revenue in 1857! See Bratt op cit. 12, 65-66.

[38] http://www.msgsec.info

[39] www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/radio/program/pacific-beat/vanuatu-pm-launches-criticism-of-indonesia-treatment-of-papua-province/1275602

[40] These are the comments of the Fiji President, Ratu Epeli Nailatikau, conferring the award of Honourary officer of the order of Fiji up[on the outgoing Chinese Ambassador to Fiji, Mr Huang Yong. Fiji Sun 13th January 2015.

[41] James W Skillen "International Politics in an Era of Kaleidoscopic Change and Uncertainty"

[42] Daniel 6:15. "Know O King that it is a law of the Medes and Persians that no injunction or ordinance that the king establishes can be changed."

[43] James W Skillen 2010, 319-344.

[44] Bob Goudzwaard 1979, 65. The concept of "simultaneous norm realization" is credited to T P van der Kooy 1975.

[45] Bob Goudzwaard and Johan van Baars 1980 , pp. 223-253 and of the comment of James Skillen "Norms for the International Economic Order (A Response)" pp. 268-271.

[46] ibid. p.270.

[47] Hendrik van Reissen 1997.

[48] An account of the Fiji Daily Post is found at http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daily_Post_(Fiji). Special attention should be given to the final paragraph of the introduction where the military's attempt to say that the paper took a racist line is examined and found wanting.

[49] Abraham Kuyper 1931, 73.

[50] Proceedings of previous noteworthy conferences are: Nicholas Wolterstorff et al 1980, John Witte ed. 1993;

B J van der Walt (ed) 1996 and Govert J Buijs and Roel Jongeneel (eds) 2013.

[51] Abraham Kuyper 1991, 26. 1950, 16.

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