FROM THE ARCHIVES: More from 'Nurturing Justice'

We share with readers, insights and commentary from FDP special contrtibutor, Dr Bruce Wearne, on the 2006 coup - its causes and consequences - written at the time, and featured in the FDP. They should help us to frame our own understanding of the deep structural political problems faced by Fiji then and now:

TO STIR WITH LOVE... FOR JUSTICE

Nurturing Justice 8 November 2006

This edition continues the discussion we started previously. Caroline Moorehead's provocative article "Amnesia in Australia" in The New York Review of Books (Nov 16, 2006) identifies a persistent Australian habit- of-mind, a "willful amnesia" she calls it, and its depth and subtlety is well illustrated by her review of some recent Australian novels in a "post 9/11" context.

Australia, she suggests, is characterised by a peculiar activism that would achieve its short-term goals as it distracts itself from its "dark stain". Put in another way, Australian society, at least since the 1840s according to Moorehead's historical account, has been shaped by immigrants caught up in their immediate short-term need to settle in the new country. This immigrant activism with immediate short-term results, with making a living for oneself in a somewhat forbidding environment, has been deeply ingrained, generation by generation, so that it is clearly evident in the Australian political psyché. And so it began when the convict past, and any difficult relationships with the prior occupants of the land, were given lower and then even lower places on the list of public priorities. Concern about history, or worrying about the plight of aboriginals, can come later. So, first things first.

Already we can begin to perceive the emergence of what we now identify as typical Australian "values" - a way of life geared to a mutual respect for each individual who is assumed to be making sure he or she has "something to fall back on" (in retirement or when the hard times hit). This utilitarian emphasis upon the "good life" shared by all "dinkum Aussies" is not only a private matter; it embraces all of life. And at various times it has shown that it is willing to doff its cap or "tug the forelock" to religion. After all, religion has an important part to play in private life by shaping the moral conscience of "dinkum Aussies" who are the ones who will then create the important political and economic institutions (and sporting achievements) that we are all so proud of. Religion is needed if we are to maintain our way of life and have "something to fall back on" ... later. Those other things can also be given their due ... later.

Caroline Moorhead's review provokes us to think about the kind of "willful amnesia" that is characteristic of the dominant religious viewpoint in Australia's past and present. And we need to better understand the dominance of this religion that takes up residence in the utilitarian private realm. Why? Because it is this dominance that puts genuine Christian profession in public life on the back foot, if it hasn't rendered it problematic. It is this religion that expects that Christians will spend their time waiting for the moment when "spiritual things" can be relevantly inserted into an otherwise secular context.

But then think about the basic tenets of this "Aussie religion" in the light of scriptural passages like Hebrews 10:23-25 or Colossians 1:15-20 or Matthew 28:18-20. Are we to accept Australia's privatization of religion? Is this "Aussie system of values" compatible with the rule of Jesus Christ?

We will need to develop this discussion further particularly since we seek insight into our Christian political responsibilities.

ESTABLISHIUNG A CAREER / DENYING ONE’S OFFICE

Nurturing Justice 9 December 2006

Sometime on Sunday afternoon, the Commander of Fiji's Military Forces, Commodore Vorege Bainimarama made a slip which involved an important admission, the significance of which the international media has thus far failed to note. He as good as admitted to the entire Fiji people that he is making up his "coup" as he goes along.

Why do I say this? During his nation-wide television interview on Sunday afternoon, the Commander refuted a report in the Sunday Post newspaper, which claimed military action would begin early Monday. "That is not true. We don't announce our intentions," he said in the Fijian language interview. During that interview he is also reported to have said: "We have a plan, my officers are now meeting to polish that plan, but we had it six to 12 months ago."

Now ask yourself: what is the Commander trying to say? To try and understand the Commander's erratic pronouncements, I would like to put forward a statement that I think can help us understand what he is wanting not to say:

To all my fellow Fijians, of all races, tribes, and families, of all our institutions, organisations, corporations. I am glad that the Government has gone as far as it possibly can under the constitution and according to legal process to accept the matters that have been put to it by myself on behalf of the Fijian military. We have done what we have done out of loyalty to our nation, to our constitution, to our system of government. And so I acknowledge that my failure in the past few days to be gracious and accept the Prime Minister's concession has been due to my initial inability to face up to the gravity of the situation. The PM has tried from his side. But I have refused to desist from the position that has taken this country to the brink of disaster. In fact, having rejected his concessions, I put myself in a position where for a few days I no longer knew how to carry on in my military tasks under the constitution. But now I have seen the errors of my ways, and I am calling off this "clean up" campaign. I am asking for the people's forgiveness and I am ordering all officers in the Fiji military to return to barracks. We will continue to work with the Government, now that concessions have been made, to ensure that any future military does not get into the no-man's land in which I have been in the last few days. Please forgive me. Now I know I should have been more conciliatory. My fellow Fijians, I ask your forgiveness. I ask God's forgiveness. Let us all work for justice and peace in our country...

But that clearly in not what the Commander is wanting to say, at least not at this point. Let us pray that it become so sooner rather than later. This is the miracle that we need to pray for. And let us be forgiving and forbearing just as God in Heaven is patient with us and all people.

When the Commander says, "We don't announce our intentions!" he assumes that he is in control or that he should be in control. This amounts to the same thing, the same problem. "We don't announce our intentions!" Really? He's been announcing his intentions for months. And now he says he doesn't announce his intentions. Over the last week it has become clear that he has one plan in mind. That plan is clearly that the PM, Laisenia Qarase, must concede totally. That is his intention whether he puts it into words or not. Hiding behind ambiguous "clean up" phrases, he must also be wondering whether the military circle promoting his "clean up" has leaked his plans. But then what plan? What kind of plan is it if after "6 to twelve months" he claims that his intentions are still un-announced?

The interview was in Fijian, and clearly was an important message from the Commander. One thing seems to have become clearer by it and the events of the last few days. The Commander's modus operandi, his way of describing his "coup", is not all that different from the way other powerful holders of public office around the world have described their actions at critical times in their own careers as public servants. I think here of the explanations that have been given by President Bush and Prime Minister Howard for the invasion of Iraq. The goals keep changing in order that these leaders maintain the appearance of being in control. Still, in the present case in Fiji there is an important difference - unlike these other "career politicians", Commander Bainimarama is a military officer, head of Fiji's military and he has actually been making his political threats to the Fiji government for "6 to 12 months". His political threats bind his own (military) career to an unjust political threat of military force against his own country's government. His unconstitutional action is now well and truly indistinguishable from his own personal career aspirations, his own career path. And so his plans and intentions are in tatters. But that is precisely why the situation is so dangerous. The comparison between the Fijian military leader and political leaders from near and far is not all that outrageous or ridiculous. Such world leaders are not engaged in a threat of a military takeover of their own country, but they have challenged their own nation's respective constitutions by assuming that justice is a consequence of mere goal-seeking, in which political action becomes too tightly bound to political career aspirations.

So how does a person find one's calling in one's office? The way to do so is first to ask a simple, but also difficult-to-answer, question: From whom do we humans gain the authority to be human and to do the tasks that have been asked of us?

We can only answer this question in faith. Every office holder must answer it. It is unavoidable. That is the way that God asks us to come to Him. Remember. Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to God must believe that He is the One who made the path on which we approach Him? But we don't approach God at the end of our goal-seeking, at the end of our path when things get out of control. Faith to be faith is at the beginning of our office-bearing. It underlies everything we do. The authority to be human, and hence the authority to do all the various tasks we are called to do, does not come from within, or from our own goal-setting, or our own self-control. Appearing cool at the rugby is not the God-given way to relieve a nation's fears when you've gone beyond the bounds of office. But repentance will begin the process of what is needed to get ourselves out of a jam of our own making when we have assumed that it our goal- setting that will bring justice.

Go back now and read the newspaper reports of the tension between the Fijian Prime Minister and the Military Commander. Read the minutes of the Wellington meeting http://www.fijitimes.com/ including the letter of PM Qarase to the Commander. Consider the above quotes again. From whom does the Commander take orders? What is driving him? It is clear that the Commander is seeking to present himself as a man on a mission, a man in control of himself, the military and his nation. But who has sent him on this "clean up" mission? His problem is that his goals cannot be reached without the total capitulation of the lawfully elected Fiji Government. And so rather than the PM being in a corner, it is actually the Commander who has nowhere else to turn. When the PM acceded to his demands he wasn't able to say: "Enough. Yes. Good. I now retreat." But he hasn't faced up to the fact yet. He must. He must repent.

He demanded total capitulation. To whom? The answer is, whether he likes it or not, his words and deeds demand a total capitulation of the PM to himself. This is to ignore the PM's office. This is to ignore the authority of the PM and ultimately to ignore the One who has given that authority. And so the Commander is left trying to find out why he and his country are now in this strange nether-world. He is now trying to discover the limits of his office having ignored his office, having stepped outside the limits defined by the Fijian constitution. And that is why he is unable to keep his word; this is why he no longer knows the capacity in which he is acting. This is man who cannot now take "Yes" for an answer because to do so will require that he step back, and turn around and admit that he has overstepped his office.

So in brief it is now a matter of open conciliatory negotiations on the one side and implacable demands that simply ignore the fact that the Prime Minister would be violating his oath of office under the constitution if he now were to capitulate.

This is not to suggest that Mr Qarase has not erred in the past. Nor is it to suggest that he has never deceived the military commander. Nor that the Fiji Constitution doesn't ongoing careful reform. But the Prime Minister would be going outside his office if he were to capitulate if he were to publicly capitulate on his own authority, and meet all of the Commander's untenable demands. That he cannot do without denying his own office.

In other words, the Government has said "Yes" and will agree with the military should the police and the Public Prosecutor and other statutory bodies and committees be willing to recommend the military's line of action. And so the Commander is stymied and does not now know how to retreat. But more basically, he doesn't know how to repent. He doesn't know how to "clean up" his violation of his own military office. And so the threats continue. The "clean up" will go ahead. And the Commander's bottom line is now clear.

That is why I am suggesting at this point in time (11.45am AEST Monday 4th December) that the Commander has left the path of public service to relentlessly resolve his own career goals. Sad but true. And it sad but true that this could lead Fiji into deeper confusion and injustice.

FORGIVENESS, FRANK! ....

Nurturing Justice 10 December 7

Frank:

The time has come.

Lay down your arms.

Sit in black with the rest of your country and mourn.

Mourn the failures of your country.

Mourn the corruption. Mourn the deep hurts that do not seem to go away .

The time has come for Australia, New Zealand, and all the South Pacific to mourn with you, Frank.

Not against you, but with you.

We mourn and don't not even dare to try to prove our sincerity by a pre- emptive strike against ourselves.

Our corruption goes that deep. And we must mourn.

We have heard Dr Senilagkali's "butt out and leave us be" to the Australian and New Zealand Governments, and we also listen to his concerns about Iraq.

And we are hurt to the bone to hear him say Fiji will go elsewhere for support and aid. We support Fiji because Fiji is also part of what we are in this sector of the globe. You are us. We are you.

And that's so whether you like it or not, Frank, and no rifle is going to change that reality. No dismissive appeal to "national interest" or "necessity" is going to make a scrap of difference to this reality.

Consider Frank your "necessary" investigation into corruption. Who is corrupt, really? Isn't it the one who says he has authority from himself to ... be himself?

It's not true Frank. It's not true.

But you are just like all of us, Frank. You are like all of us who pretend we have the authority to be human, that we can if we have the guns make ourselves president by our own words. That is corruption of the first order Frank and deep-down you must know it or else you wouldn't have dared to wear your uniform in the first place.

You know it not only from your army training. You know from your family. You know it because that was the corruption you opposed in previous times. You know because you didn't create yourself Frank.

Even if there were a measure of right on your side, which I doubt, it would still be time to forgive.

It would still be still to stop this rebellion against rebellion. Lay down your arms. Coup your coup and sit with your country again, sit with your fellows around the yaqona bowl and admit it Frank, stop this terror. Forgive and find the forgiveness you push away.

And we will, as your country invites us, join in - not as an outer circle, but as part of who we are together being willing to work through this together - for peace and justice for Fiji yes but also for the entire region.

We will sit with you through this night until a new day, a new day when the sun of forgiveness rises in the region, in our hearts.

That is the other thing that you have forgotten here. Forgiveness, Frank. Forgiveness.

You know what is really sad about your conduct Frank over the last weeks?

It's this. When the Prime Minister conceded, when he said that he was unable to stop all police investigations into the military and those concerning yourself, he still conceded. You have wanted to dress that up and say that he was corrupt, that he consorts with cronies who are not "coming back". Your shouted cry is of one who has wrongly sent his brother away and doesn't have the strength of courage to face his deepest fears.

Of course so often we act and do not even know our own hearts so how can we say what lies in the heart of another?

But ask yourself this Frank.

You have acted as if you know what is in the heart of Laisenia Qarase. You brushed aside something that was present in his statements because you have since then acted as if you know, as if you are God and know, his deep down intentions. You have doubted his good faith toward you.

Was he simply playing to the gallery by saying he would accept advice "in the national interest" that charges be dropped? If he were then, in principle, he has overturned his own stated position - he has couped himself. But you don't know that although your actions say that that is the case.

You have simply said that you know and you not only ruthlessly brushed aside his last effort at national reconciliation, you have also been unkind, Frank.

Unkind Frank. You have shown an unfriendly side and have ignored the possibility that he was trying to find a way to forgive you man to man, person to person in the midst of the tension between your two official positions.

You have responded with your gun to his outstretched hand and it is time to lay down that gun and finally reach out to the man who should still be forgiving toward you as you should be to him.

You have used your office to avoid forgiveness, and that is the wrong way and the time has come for you to wear black with all other mourners at Fiji's constitutional funeral and with all other South Pacific seekers after peace and justice take a different path.

That path is still available even at this late stage. It's almost Christmas and the greatest and most difficult miracle in the word is nothing less than forgiveness.

Governments can be overthrown - that apparently is not so difficult - the baby boys of Bethlehem can be massacred and yet Christmas is still on our and your horizon. To fail to forgive, to fail to accept another's forgiveness, is to coup Christmas. The arming world around us says it is impossible, but forgiveness, reconciliation, saying sorry, that is the miracle. And that is the miracle that you and we must experience too, now.

May God grant it Frank.

THE "CLEAN-UP" COUP'S INTELLECTUAL ANCESTORS

Nurturing Justice 11 December 2006

We have rubbed our eyes and got another cotton bud to clean out our ears. Is it really happening? The Fiji military is now telling law-abiding, justice-seeking citizens to "watch your mouth or we'll close it for you!" Such threats take us into a reality we never thought possible.

And so now those Fijians who have demanded an immediate return to democracy ask themselves: "Could it be possible that we have been living in the wrong reality these past few years? Could it be that reality is really on the side of Commodore Vorege Bainimarama after all and that his outrageous threats against the elected government were simply the wake-up call we refused to accept?" Frank the prophet? Could it be so? Was last year's election merely a part of our misinterpretation? Were we just giving the military further reason to "clean up"? Is that it?

Military "emergencies" have now been announced with the presumption that they will be accepted by all ... or ..... A "clean-up" is underway. It is as if the Commodore is now saying, "If you don't see it our way, we're going to stay until you accept that we are the reality. We define totally and even your inability to see it our way is going to be changed by the way we change Fijian reality."

But isn't that like saying Fiji is going to rid itself of disease by allowing leaking sewerage containers to be paraded through Suva's streets for the next while?

With some justification many say (quietly lest he hears) that the Commodore is holding on to his illegally-acquired power simply because he doesn't know how to let go, he no longer knows the pathway back to his barracks. He's now told us that he is El Presidente. If he lets go now before he has uncovered the reason for the coup he will hijack himself. So he holds on. And the nation is required to hold on with him. Give your salute; keep your gob shut.

But for all its apparent madness, what is happening in Fiji today is completely embedded in Western military history since Leonardo da Vinci. At first, such a statement sounds preposterous, as crazy as the two-years of threats by the Commodore before he proceeded with his "clean up". But don't consign this to the waste paper basket just yet. Consider the fact that military campaigns, like everything else in our lives, can't avoid an underlying basis, a view of the meaning and purpose of life.

And since the 16th century, our entire globe, including social life ordered by the military dimension of nation states, has been completely absorbed with an ongoing titanic struggle between two paths which lead in different directions. The struggle is over which direction should be taken for human life in its totality. It is not too much to suggest that now all people around the entire globe are drawn into this struggle whether they welcome it or not; it demands that a choice be made, a choice that has also been unfolding for centuries. My point is that this current crisis brings Fiji right into the midst of current global tensions with a vengeance.

With these two spiritual forces wrestling for control comes two distinct pathways - the first is to renew our commitment to walk in God- given ways, to live justly, to love all our neighbours, and to take care of all of God's creation as good stewards. On this path, goals are determined by the path we take, the path of obedience, self-limitation and service of God and others. The second path is quite different. It assumes that the path is what we make it to be - the path is determined by the goals we devise.

And so, we have witnessed recently the well-intentioned, but tragically mistaken, interim Prime Minister, trying to walk on both paths at the same time - and in any one life, it must said, one or other path will come to dominate. Either the God-given standards and rules for life will define how our feet tread - "thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light to my path" says the Psalmist. Or, our path will always be redefined so that we make our feet walk toward the goals we have devised, which we have defined. Then we may not even refer to our autonomy when we make our appeal and prayers to God. In our own autonomy we will assume that it is not necessary to tell God about our faith because our faith is our own creature. We are our own law. Our goals will determine what freedom and justice are. And God, God help Him, will just have to get in behind. We justify our behaviour by our behaviour - it is our goals which hang in the balance. We show that right is on our side.

And so it is in these terms that we discern the two major spiritual forces in our lives - Christianity following Jesus Christ in which He tells us what it is to be human and the religion of humankind (humanism) in which we continue the process of defining who it is we are to be.

I mentioned Leonardo, the great artist and scientist, the epitomé of "renaissance man." He is famous for designing ingenious military weapons including the submarine and helicopter. War's renaissance meant that henceforth it would be a new "art", an expression of the human ability to make and shape reality.

Let us say that the Commodore's "clean up" shows the marks of the creative artist in the line of Leonardo da Vinci. Vorege Bainimarama as Fiji's own renaissance man. Would this be taken as a compliment? I suspect so. His actions as military commander - over the last two years at least - certainly have all the hallmarks of a renaissance appeal to human ingenuity and autonomy. But we take care. If we were concede this, we might just take an extra step in the historical sense and link the actions of this self-appointed president with Machiavelli, and that might well incur his wrath - after all, the author of The Art of War has given his name to a mode of politics which evokes wide-spread suspicion these days. But as we identify the Commodore with Leonardo, we note that he is well on the way to re-writing his book The Chief, (he says the Great Council can now only meet on his say so) and so we see him seeking to capture "renaissance" goals by his clean-up - public rectitude, peace, order, economic prosperity are now to be the creations, the end products, the justification, of the military's ingenuous accomplishment by improving governance by overthrowing the military's subjection to the law and the constitution.

Unlike former coups this one has been executed with the rational circumspection of the laboratory scientist's "experiment". It has the concerted objectivity of one who wishes to exclude chance and uncertainty from his "clean up" labours. And it is the rationality based upon a monopoly of fire-power that means that this scientific operation can indeed maintain objectivity by shutting people's mouths without any blood being shed. That is its genius. The goal of this experiment is to bring an end to coup-culture. This is the coup to end all coups.

And immediately we are back in a reality where we realise that what we have just said might put ourselves in danger. A coup to end all coups? Wasn't that what they said about the first world war - the world to end all wars? And look where that got the combined renaissance ingenuity of Europe? A coup to end all coups? Well think it, whisper it perhaps but by no means say it out loud. You don't know who is listening. Ypou don't know how your listener is going to interpret your words. This coup is a coup of genius, renaissance genius.

A coup to end all coups? Is Frank off his trolley? No, not exactly.

Before we endorse such extravagant questions we need to properly understand the connection between what we are facing here and now in Fiji in the early 21st century and its connection with the 20th century, two bloody European civil wars and their aftermath. But to do that we need to take note of transitions in military thinking after the French Revolution which superseded the confidence conquering chivalry that had emerged since the 16th century. Since the time Fiji was colonised, European war was no longer a last resort in an overall international campaign of employing diplomats to negotiate boundaries so that governments could develop their policies on compliant populations. Since the time Fiji was colonised, war has pretty much been policy. And now in pacific isolation, Fiji confusedly confirms the coup policy as the means to ensure good governance.

It was after Napoleon, coinciding with increasing industrialisation, that war became just another policy. War is just another way of talking. "War is the business of the people!" And it is that view of Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831) - known as "total war" - that has defined military thinking ever since. Its most recent formulation is the "shock and awe" that was so certain of itself that it would clean up Baghdad and the entire fabric of Iraqi life in a very short space of time. (And what now that Donald Rumsfeld is no longer in office?)

The assumption is that in military campaigns the goal will be reached by a campaign that is "sufficiently intimidating and compelling ... to force or otherwise convince an adversary to accept our will ... such that the strategic aims and military objectives of the campaign will achieve a political end" (Harlan Ullman in Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance National Defense University 1996).

And so we now can see how Fiji's current "clean up" is completely dominated by the underlying logic that accompanies contemporary military thinking dominating the world today. The notion that military action was a last resort, a kind of repentant governmental action, preventative and seeking to avoid undue harm, strictly limited by laws that protected the rights of non-combatants, is almost completely lost. And Fiji's military commander, with his taciturn spokesman Major Leweni, show themselves to be on the same page as military commanders elsewhere. What is dominant is an urge to dominate, to over-power, an urge in which the military power demands that it expose the potential adversary. And so for the good of the country the military has taken over, has taken control, has assumed the power of life and death over all who wish to stay. Those who criticise, those who shrink back from this domineering aspiration are now in danger - just as the ilitary says there are - they can too easily become enemies if their mouths are opened to say the wrong thing.

And that is also why the interim-PM, for all his Methodist piety, is completely wrong when he suggests that Fiji is now on a completely different path to democracy. It is not true. The "clean-up" of Commodore Bainimarama is not only comparable with Shock and Awe in Iraq (the monstrous ends-justifies-the-means pre-emptive war of Bush, Blair and Howard) it is also striking in its consistency with the underlying self-worshipping assumptions that dominate western military theory and implementation when "shock and awe" are given full sway. These assumptions have their roots in a humanistic world-view that puts its faith in human autonomy. To that extent the "clean up" cuts itself off from the just-war criteria that for centuries Christians have sought to follow when they have engaged in military action.

WHY RESPECT ETHNICITY AND RACE ALL ALONG THE LINE?

Nurturing Justice 7 (2007) 26 June

Nurturing Justice seeks to promote a principled Christian involvement in democratic politics in this part of the world. This may be an election year in Australia, and Nurturing Justice will certainly seek to examine what is at stake in our viting responsibilities. But for the moment I must leave election matters to one side and focus attention on assisting our reflection on the Federal Government's recent Northern Territory initiative aimed at ensuring public justice in remote aboriginal communities.

So, finding appropriate material is always a challenge. As i noted last time, the manner in which these matters are brought into public debate are sometime more contentious that the issues themselves. And so that does not only mean we are critical of the media and journalists, but it demands a heghtened level of scrupulous self-criticism. I was relieved to find an editorial which can significantly advance our efforts to respect to the indispensable part the indigenous people of this land in an Australian "economy of care". This editorial is written by Dr Robert Wolfgramm of the Fiji Daily Post, a long-term advocate of racial and ethnic justice in Australia, in West Papua, in Timor and also in Fiji. His sharp insights can help us view our national situation with renewed compassion and commitment as we follow Jesus, Our Lord, in public political life.

A WISE WORD FROM ACROSS THE WAY

Fiji Daily Post Editorial, 26-Jun-2007

Fiji’s problems pale into the background when set against the human disaster that dogs the Australian political scene. After 200 years and millions of white settlement dollars, Australian Aboriginals are no closer to achieving the same life chances and life expectancy as their colonial and post-colonial landlords. They remain in the socio-economic doldrums. Socio- economic statistics tell the familiar story of getting nowhere in terms of parity with white Australia. In recent days, Australian PM, John Howard, has been confronted with more doom and gloom accounts of Aboriginal living conditions – this time of rampant child abuse in the Northern Territory. According to one of the latest reports, 95 per cent of Aboriginal girls sampled by some health professionals were found to have semen in their urine. Some of the Aboriginal girls were as young as seven years of age.

But now, the findings of a larger research and report (by Wild and Anderson) have been made public and are the subject of heated public debate in Australia. The central findings of that inquiry are, that: Aboriginal child sexual abuse ‘is serious, widespread and often unreported’; that Aboriginal people ‘are not the only victims and not the only perpetrators of sexual abuse’; that ‘much of the violence and sexual abuse occurring in Territory communities is a reflection of past, current and continuing social problems which have developed over many decades’; and that the ‘combined effects of poor health, alcohol and drug abuse, unemployment, gambling, pornography, poor education and housing, and a general loss of identity and control have contributed to violence and to sexual abuse in many forms’.

The research also more positively concluded that ‘most Aboriginal people are willing and committed to solving problems and helping their children’ and ‘eager to better educate themselves’; and that ‘existing government programmes to help Aboriginal people break the cycle of poverty and violence need to work better’. The report noted that ‘there is not enough coordination and communication between government departments and agencies, and this is causing a breakdown in services and poor crisis intervention’ such that ‘improvements in health and social services are desperately needed’.

To properly address and solve the problem, the report predictably recommended micro-structural and as well as macro-political lines of attack. These include educational programmes and educational re-orientation to bring Aboriginal children into a safe learning environment; recognition of alcohol and pornography consumption as associated with abuse and a call for its reduction and control; the need for greater integration of families with police and social services; and also what the report authors called the ‘empowerment of Aboriginal communities’ through ‘the introduction of community justice groups and better dialogue between mainstream society and Aboriginal communities’ as well as the establishment of a ‘Commissioner for Children and Young People’ to ‘focus on the interests and wellbeing of children and young people, review issues and report to Parliament’.

Most importantly in our regard, Wild and Anderson’s findings underscored ‘the common view’ (in their words), ‘that sexual abuse of Aboriginal children is happening largely because of the breakdown of Aboriginal culture and society’. Alarm bells should be ringing in the ears of all in the Pacific, and especially Fiji, who would call for de-racialising of our societies. As noted in this column recently, deracialisation of the political sphere has cultural and personal consequences. It is not something that can be operationalised at one level without affecting the whole person and society on every other level – religious, economic, cultural and psychological.

The plight of the Australian Aboriginal ought to be a glaring red flag to any who would pursue de-racialising, or de- ethnifying policies. What you get at the end of them will likely be the same genocidal effects which have decimated every other indigenous people around the world and not just our lamentable Aboriginal brothers and sisters across the Pacific from us. What is required to preserve that which is valuable in our respective racial communities, our children, is not deracialisation into nothingness (with its accompanying ills of alcoholism, pornography and child abuse), but ethnic pride in what we are and a trans-generational understanding of why they, our children, matter most.