Sunday, August 5, 2007

Deserving the Best

Ni Sa Bula,

After watching this evening's Close up , where the regime's Education (sic) Minister was pitted against the President of the Fijian Teachers Association, one of the striking unions, the idea of this post was born.

The Interim Minister, kept on rattling on about his "contingency plan" except when he detoured to rant about how he was an ex-officer (yeah..like that is something to be boast about) and how he always did thing to ensure success. Mr. Koroi ( the FTA President) was, however, calm, collected and evidently more intelligent, a fact borne out by the intellectual answers that he had for questions put to him by the show's host, and the regimes "head teacher".

The interesting point of all this (at least for me) was when Mr. Koroi was "accused" by the Interim Minister of "sabotaging the nation's education system". Now, the answer Mr. Koroi gave was the reason this post is here.

Mr. Koroi stated that his actions are not unequivocal, that he is carrying out the mandate of his members, a mandate that (if memory serves correctly) 79% of his members gave him by secret ballot. This makes him answerable to his members, who have the luxury (yes..in Fiji it is now a luxury) of voting him out if they don't agree with his modus operandi.

Now you have a twit, who along with the other twits in power now, are, to my immense chagrin, running the show. WHO ARE THEY RESPONSIBLE TO? WHO ARE THEY ANSWERABLE TO? If one was to believe Taniela Tabu, and it doesn't require a stretch of the imagination to do so, this government is answerable to the shadowy "Military Council" that is purportedly running this country.

Now, folks.....is this the best Fiji has to offer? Is this the best we can get, to manage the affairs of this nation? Are these people the smartest, the ablest, the wisest we have?

Not by a long shot.

How does being an officer qualify one to become a diplomat? A Commissioner of Police? A Prime Minister? Why should we suffer this outrage....of having substandard personnel running the affairs of this nation?

The difference between Mr. Koroi and Mr. Sukanaivalu brought home a real truth to me...that despite all it's faults, under a democratic system, the cream really does rise to the top. Granted people sometimes get it wrong, but not always, and seldom more than one. The current regime is an glaring example of this. We see their ineptitude in dealing with the strikes, with the sliding economy, with the dwindling tourist numbers, with the flailing sugar industry...the list just goes on and on.....

The real insult in this is that someone, somewhere, had the gall to think that they know what is best for us. The people best suited to choose who our leaders are, are we, the voters of this nation. We know what's best for us...and we know what we deserve. We do not need failed politicians, wannabee ministers, and in-it-for-the-money con artists telling us what we need.

Somebody once said " You can fool all the people some of the time, and you can fool some people all of the time, but you can't fool all the people all of the time!"

The time for being fools is over. This time, we need a better government. We deserve a better government. We deserve a government where our choices is reflected in the composition of our MPs. We deserve a chance to really shine. We can. And we will.........it's just a matter of when.

The FTA leadership is doing what it is supposed to do. It is standing up, and fighting for it's members, and protecting their interetst.

This government was not elected by any of us. Whose interests are they protecting?

God Bless Fiji,
Mawdsomething AKA Fijianblack