Random Play by Graham Reid

The Broken Heartbreakers are excellent, though I'm only seen them as a twosome. Apparently they're taking a break while one of them goes to Europe, but both their albums are excellent.

Thanks very much for this post. Thoughtful,balanced and first-hand. Very valuable. More power to you.

A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest, as Paul Simon once sang.

true enough, and as Anais Nin said:
We don't see things as they are,
we see them as we are...

It was good to hear your account. Thank you.

Zimbabwe was a bit like that in 02. You could do the tourist / traveller thing and it *appeared* no more fucked up than other African states. The government didn't hassle us - we were a source of dollars for their mates, after all.

Then it went rather more pear shaped.

Pleased you didn't run into trouble personally, Graham. I'd be interested to hear more about the Pacific Forum and the relationships with other Pacific nations. It's not just NZ/Australia or Asia nations with chequebooks who define Fiji's current external political situation, and there are others grappling with similar issues.

You put the contradictions in perspective.
Perhaps Mr McCulley will use his silver tongue to repair the Fiji-NZ differences?

I have never understood why people would want to shield themselves from the country they are in by staying in a self-contained resort – but each to their own.

I am one of those people, most of the time. I go on holidays to get sunshine and to do nothing. When my friend and I went to Fiji, we mostly stayed at our resort because when we went to Nadi every step along the way we were hassled to buy things, and told not to go into certain stores because they were run by Indians, not real Fijians, and it was exhausting when all we wanted was some warm weather and cocktails. Of course even at the resort the waiters kept trying to sell us pot and the security guard started stalking me after we decided we didn't want to go out clubbing with him and his friends, but that's another story.

Of course even at the resort the waiters kept trying to sell us pot

They make their money from tourism, they take it home and buy chicken.

Very interesting read, as per usual.

Considering the events in Fiji over the past 7 years - and yes you do need to take a long-term view of it - and the apathy toward the situation by most New Zealanders which generally only goes as far as "Oooh look! Cheap deals to Fiji!" I can't help but feel this post is a wasted opportunity.

You think that just because you don't see anything bad going on that it's been blown out of proportion? Or that maybe you were being shown what the country wanted you to see? To quote a friend "This is all totalitarian SOP."

As an island nation most of its revenue must surely come from tourist dollars - something we in NZ can relate to - so scaring away that mob would be counter-productive. If the regime and situation in Fiji is so fine and it's just NZ and Aus getting thir noses sticky, why have so many people lost their jobs [the latest instances: http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/concern-military-undermining-judiciary-20100718-10fnk.html], why have foreign journalists and commissioners been deported and why have relations among fellow Pacific nations stooped so low?

More than all the insane reporting that goes on - what about the psychological toll the restrictions placed on the citizens will be having? Maybe that some of those who were speaking positively about the regime were doing so for fear of what would happen if they didn't?

Radio NZ International is pretty much the only organisation that regularly goes to the country and reports critically on what's going on, here's one of their reports and one from a year ago - and of course their main Fiji page: http://www.rnzi.com/pages/fiji.php [bit of disclosure, the journalist is a personal friend]

We're so concerned about politics in China and North Korea, but when similar things are going on in our back yard we shrug and say "It can't be as bad as all that". Yes we place sanctions on Fiji and not on China but the Chinese system appears to be moving forward while the Commodore acts like a petulant child, any time a nation disagrees with him he threatens to delay elections.

I was definitely not reading Graham as saying everything was sweet in Fiji. Did he waste his opportunity to sink the knife in? I don't think so, that has been done amply already. Not just a diplomatic knife, but also an economic one.

I'm sure quite a deal of the perception gap between Fiji and NZ is being carefully managed by the regime there, but I also think you have to take account of the way people there feel about without getting all paternal and implying they don't know their own minds, or they're too scared or whatever. The incidences of outright oppression are wrong but they are extremely mild by comparison with what you'd expect from an unpopular totalitarian government. They're not rounding up dissidents, killing people, torturing the resistance, running show trials. Soldiers aren't randomly beating people up to get bribes etc.

To act like they are plays into the whole "they're misrepresenting us" line. The way everyone I've spoken to about it who actually comes from Fiji, is that the only real impact the coup had on them has been felt through the sanctions. This means that the only people they perceive as enemies are us. I don't see what good that can possibly do.