Random Play by Graham Reid

The question is: given the opportunity, would you have been?

Nope. I won't travel to a dictatorship. And I especially won't travel to a dictatorship which uses tourism to prop itself up, both economically and politically.

If I had the opportunity, I would travel to Fiji, but I wouldn't squirrel myself away in a resort. My modus operandi for travel is to get out and about, to explore the streets, to find the detail in the ordinary.

I'd want to come away with a bit of understanding as to what it is to live in Fiji in 2010.

Its middle of cold raining winter with a recession on and someone offers a chance of a paying job that involves flying business class to a tropical island?

What do you pack?

Remember when Jon Gadsby visited Myanmar on an Intrepid Journey, and deliberately stayed in a private guest house, because the chain hotels were run by the junta?

What do you pack?

The phone number of a good lawyer. Y'know, just in case.

if there are still some lawyers left in Fiji...
the locals are very leery of getting a "barracking"...

I guess I can't complain, having been, inter alia, to Zimbabwe, Singapore, Nepal under Gyanendra and the US under Bush.

But this does sound like a Potemkin village outing. Really, NZ should be taking the lead in escalating sanctions that will hit the fat cats of Fiji (who presumablybenefit from tourism and enjoy the favour of the dictatorship).

The governments of Australia and New Zealand should suspend all flights to Fiji, and take away the landing rights of any airline that continues to fly there.

That would make this whole debate an academic exercise.

I no longer fly, so the question is a bit academic BUT
*I did a lot of travelling in the 1980s and 1990s
*I refused to attend anything that was in a country under shariah law
*I would not go to anything that was held in a country under what I would consider to be a dictatorship &
*that would certainly include Fiji now-

there was a bit of raruraru in the NZSA when the official newsletter included advertising for'writing workshops' held in Fiji. I know 3 people who resigned their memberships then. I didnt - because I reguard the NZSA as the writers' union, and other unions I've belonged to have taken advertising for things I strongly disagree with...

I seldom support boycotts, especially personal and symbolic.
When the pressure is on, and a system is creaking, then I would not give comfort, but otherwise ....
Isolated and possibly oppressed communities need dialogue and fresh information, which certainly includes full blooded protest, sneaky subversion and all in between.
For example I protested against SA rugby apartheid for 30 years including joining campaigns, demos, but always felt I would have played against them if chosen, and even bought a ticket to watch Mack Herewini play against them.
I travelled through much of South America in the late seventies starting with Chile, and including Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Guatemala. I never felt this was giving comfort to regimes I disapproved of, but it certainly increased my insight (and hostility) to military regimes.
At the time incidentally, I was at least in part in flight from Muldoonism, and never did I see visitors to New Zealand as giving support to Piggy.
Much better to go and see and talk and leave and tell honestly, than sit in a room alone, feeling pure.

Much better to go and see and talk and leave and tell honestly

I believe the point in the case of Fiji's military dictatorship is that you will be beaten, locked up or expelled if you try that while you are there. Especially if you are a journalist.

The amount of informed and honest talking in our media about this is far from impressive, so I guess there's an argument for more of it.

What's the current status of Fiji military participation in UN peacekeeping missions, a major source of income (and probably mana for the impotent little bullies)?

I guess I can't complain, having been, inter alia, to Zimbabwe, Singapore, Nepal under Gyanendra and the US under Bush.

Inter Alia is a terrible airline.

Mack Herewini - could really play rugby, really well.

In your shoes, I'd go. My gut feeling is that you'll come away rather surprised by what the Fijians think, if you are able to talk to a wide sample. I certainly am, every time I talk to Fijians, which is most weeks.

I don't really think sanctions are a good idea. The people they hurt are not the leadership. Instead, they actually rally support for the leadership, who are the only people that can now help the masses, the world having shunned them. And I don't think the hurt is trivial. It's actually pretty severe, what NZ has done, and it's only made the Commodore more powerful.

Yeah, releasing sanctions can be sold as a win by him. But so can basically anything that happens. And what difference does it make anyway - he's not going to get voted out, and he's not going to be overthrown. He'll still live in luxury surrounded by guns, even if Fiji is economically squeezed back to the stone age.

given the opportunity, would you have been?

Nope. But the only thing my presence in Fiji could achieve is transfer of my wealth to the dictatorship of Fiji, with some small fraction going to the Fijian people. That isn't worthwhile and any pleasure I might have on the holiday isn't worth the support it gives the dictators. there are other places I can go to have a holiday.

But you are a journalist. You have the opportunity and means to bring your observations back and pass them on to a wider audience. That is valuable even if it means some of your visit is used to benefit the dictators.

Everyone who holidays in Fiji provides some level of support for the dictatorship. For a journalist that can be balanced against bringing back information. Of course journalists who then write a puff piece about how nice their hotel was and how white the sand was ...

Sanctions have always been a symbolic gesture. But arms embargoes do seem to make a small difference - unless of course, military-industrial complexes are at stake.

Nope. But the only thing my presence in Fiji could achieve is transfer of my wealth to the dictatorship of Fiji, with some small fraction going to the Fijian people.

I'm curious as to how you figure that. Most of the money I spend on vacations goes directly to whoever is providing me with what I want. This is of direct benefit to those people. Are you talking about tax?

Sanctions have always been a symbolic gesture. But arms embargoes do seem to make a small difference - unless of course, military-industrial complexes are at stake.

They're more than a symbolic gesture when they impoverish an entire nation. I see them as pretty cruel.

I'm curious as to how you figure that.

I figure that in a dictatorship much if not all foreign exchange gets directed into the hands of those with the guns. I accept that some money may end up in other hands but my expectation is that little or none of my money benefits the people of Fiji.

While to some degree this is true of any holiday destination, at least for places that are not dictatorships the expectation that some of that money benefits the local population is not unreasonable. Overly hopeful perhaps but not unreasonable.

They're more than a symbolic gesture when they impoverish an entire nation.

Yeah this is the argument against boycotting Fiji as a holiday destination and I'm sensitive to it. But my cynical belief is that my money does not get to the impoverished in part because of the nature of the government.

What would be really neat is if someone could work out where the money goes rather than me just having to guess. And yes I admit it is simply a guess on my part.

Yeah this is the argument against boycotting Fiji as a holiday destination and I'm sensitive to it.

Tourism is only a small part of their economy. Every sanction hurts them, drives them deeper into poverty and misery. Every business that has to shut up shop due to sanctions is a whole bunch of workers laid off. Now instead of pittance they have nothing. That's not an improvement. Now they are forced to become clients of the same state the sanctions are meant to undermine.

But my cynical belief is that my money does not get to the impoverished in part because of the nature of the government.

It's in the nature of capitalism. It was very much true before the coup, too. But I can't see the solution to "the poor don't get enough money" is "so stop them getting any money". That will only increase the imbalance, because whatever scraps are left are sure to end up in the hands of those with the guns.

Selective trade boycotts can make a lot of sense, and certainly there are moral issues in selling weapons, but most tourism is pretty tacky from an ethical point of view.
I see no great harm in partaking of the scenery of other communities but once you get into receiving services from those with less economic opportunity, it all gets pretty slippery pretty fast.

Does NZ sell weapons?

I see no great harm in partaking of the scenery of other communities but once you get into receiving services from those with less economic opportunity, it all gets pretty slippery pretty fast.

That's pretty much 95% of the services I partake of right here in NZ. Should I stop eating out because waiting staff are paid less than me?

Having family in Fiji as I do makes the issue of travelling there problematic. It's never been a tourist destination for me - although I've visited the white sand beaches and been on the odd Captain Cook cruise.

A relative had to fly to India for cardiac treatment, as he was banned from entering NZ and Oz - as he'd previously been in the military. You worry.

Do I return to my father's home island to pay respects when some of the elders pass away?

Or do I adhere to a political ideal that the principle is the thing?

The actions of Banimarama frustrate and piss me off no end, as a person and someone who identifies in some small part as Fijian - but I don't see the current embargoes by NZ/Oz making much of a difference. They pay lip service to "doing something" - and allow us to hold to some moral high ground - but it's not helping make the place more democratic is it?

I understand the trade boycotts/sanctions in a theoretical and I can read the editorials kind of way. But at a personal and individual level - I'm pretty meh about them.

I would never travel to Fiji under the current regime

to start off with i wouldn't feel safe, it doesn't feel like a safe country any more. I'm concerned that one day i could be ok as a visitor and the next the powers that be decide to do something that makes me less safe.

Fiji was my vacation destination of choice for many years when i was working. I celebrated birthdays on one of the few island resorts owned and run by a tribe. I miss that place, I would feel safe there but not going to and from.

Do embargoes make a difference? I don't think so

we have a free trade agreement with china who are no angels when it comes to human rights and freedom of expression and association. But for some reason we ignore fiji where there are limits on freedom of expression and association.

But if you look at the histories of fiji and china both are super complex, and i doubt either country would work or fit the western idea of democracy. I don't have the answer but I won't be going back to fiji for a long time i suspect and that makes me sad.

I am going to Hong Kong for about 5 days later in the year, so yes i'm a bit of a hypocrite myself. I do feel safer there tho.

They're more than a symbolic gesture when they impoverish an entire nation. I see them as pretty cruel.

There's a counter-argument, if you believe that sanctions have a point. Better to bring about change quickly than be part of dragging it out longer via providing economic support for its current status.

I believe that's the theory of sanctions. I haven't really seen too many examples of successes of them though. Sanctions are the slowest most painful drawn out method for change ever invented in political history. What they really seem to do is just slow change down. They put the isolated society in a time capsule, with the clock set right about the time they started doing whatever it was that brought the sanctions about. They actually freeze the attitudes in place. If you stop the flow of goods and ideas into an area, then you basically arrest the development.