PrernaLal.com

Interview on Pacific Beat – Radio Australia

// November 8th, 2009 // Fiji Coup Coverage

I finally broke my silence and spoke out in the media against the repressive Fijian regime. And now I probably cannot come back home. Who would want to go back to Fiji in this state?

People are not too happy, but as an academic, I do need to stand up and make a statement against this. In Germany, the intellectuals did not speak till it was too late. This poem penned by Pastor Martin Niemöller was targeted at German intellectuals during Hitler’s rise to power and is apt for what is happening in Fiji:

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Look at it this way: First they came for the ‘racists’ like Qarase. Now he is called a ‘terrorist’–a conveniently borrowed term from the Western world, which uses it sparingly to label and target dissidents. Then they came for the judiciary. Then they went after the media, bloggers and journalists. Finally, now the target is academics. Who is next? Is there any freedom of speech left in my beautiful country? The government-controlled media did not even publish anything about this latest atrocity.

Everyone has to speak up. No one is free when some are oppressed.

There is one thing that I do need to clarify. I oppose a hard diplomatic stance to Fiji. Sanctions or encouraging military invasion in Fiji from the ANZ South Pacific hegemony only makes the regime turn inwards and become more oppressive, making the path to reforms increasingly difficult.

I liked doing Pacific Beat. It isn’t the American soundbites that I detest but have grown so accustomed to. I also need to learn to speak more slowly for radio and television interviews–always the one to talk too fast. The announcer also noted that I had lost part of my Fijian accent, the ‘eh’ and gotten a laid-back California slang. I clarified that I never spoke with an ‘eh’ but I wouldn’t deny the Californian bit. A friend says that immigrant accents are considered American accents elsewhere, although here I am told that I sound like I am from Boston or New Jersey. You just can’t help it after a decade here. That doesn’t mean I don’t know what I am talking about.

I have lived in Fiji for most of my life, studied Fijian politics and history, crafted my graduate thesis on Fiji. That’s more than what most people parroting for Bainimarama can say right now. Besides Dr. Lal, some of the best scholars in Fijian history and politics are John D Kelly and  Martha Kaplan, who live in the United States. In an ever-globalizing world with new media and communications, it doesn’t matter where one lives as much as how one peruses technology to keep informed about the ongoings in other places.

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