Churchman

Fiji's Future:

V. The Critics

By a Staff Reporter

An Australian Methodist evangelist, the Rev. Alan Walker, caused a minor

commotion in Fiji follow

ing statements he made in

Sydney in September.

MR. WALKER, who is superinten dent of Sydney’s Methodist Central Mission and well known to Australian TV audiences as a debater, had just completed a 12-day mission to Fiji. He estimated that more than 32,000 people attended his meetings.

At Sydney airport when he re turned on September 7, Mr. Walker told Pressmen that Australia had to play a far greater role in the South Seas. He added: “A glance at the map shows that Australia must inevitably become the dominant influence in the Pacific.

Australian leadership today should be expressed through financial assistance, encouraging greater trade links and aiding many more students to come to Australia.

“Fiji may be one of the last colonies to gain independence but independence cannot be long delayed.

Preparation of the people for self rule should be taking place far more rapidly in Fiji.

"Ostrich Attitude"

“The two major perils facing the country come from the Fijian-Indian division and the ‘ostrich-head-in-the sand’ attitude of many Europeans.

“Racial discriminiation is not as serious in Fiji as in some societies, but it is unfortunately all too ob vious. It is seen in the fatal attitude of assumed superiority of the Euro pean ruling class, and is creating serious reactions of hostility. The day must come when overseas companies will be largely owned and directed by the people of Fiji, and when the reins of empire will pass from the hands of Europeans to those of Fijians and Indians.”

Mr. Walker said the Methodist Church, which dominated the re ligious life of Fiji, was preparing for change. Although separate racial unions were being set up by the trade union movement the Methodist Church was uniting its Fijian and Indian synods into a single church.

By 1964 the Methodist Church of

Fiji would have complete indepen dence from the Australian Methodist Church,” he said.

The following Sunday Mr. Walker told a gathering in a Sydney theatre: “Fiji is stuffy with colonialism. Racial discrimination is less than in many societies, but it is all too obvious.

The white man cannot or will not learn. The fatal attitude of assumed superiority of the European ruling group is creating reactions of hos tility . . .

“The conversion of Fiji from canni balism to Christianity over the last 100 years is one of the great miracle stories of history. I believe the mis sion to Fiji will assist the Church, which brought to an end old heathen

ism, to overcome the new paganism which is invading the island people from the Western world.”

The Fiji Times received a spate of letters on Mr. Walker’s Sydney com ments. The Mayor of Suva, Mr. C.

A. Stinson, wrote that he had ap proached Mr. Walker while he was in Suva about a statement he had made at a meeting of Europeans and Islanders in Albert Park. He said Mr. Walker had told the audience the story of an old South African who had said to a European, “By the time youse gets round to a-loving us, we’ll be a-hating youse”, and he had complained to Mr. Walker that this was “a shocking statement” to make at that mixed meeting.

Mr. Stinson added: “His Sy statement about independence variance with the wishes of the F themselves, 85 per cent, of whon members of the Methodist Cl and whose leaders have openly s only recently that they do not independence.”

The Fiji Times in an editorial mented that Mr. Walker “had aj licity sense that is little shon phenomenal” and had repes bobbed up in Sydney newspapers views “not always profound or on an assembling of all the rel facts . . .

“Unfortunately,” the Times at “the meddling Mr, Walker has c: to conjure up and assail sitm which, as far as Fiji is concerned entirely of his own imagining.”

In support of Mr. Walker, correspondent, E. S. Dass, w “Rev. Alan Walker has left h in Fiji a challenge to all of i political, economic, social and i awakening.”

In Sydney, Mr. Walker re;; “People who are immersed situation often become condition! it and cannot see the total pir Some of the letters which haw peared in The Fiji Times show characteristic. Quite frankly, I amazed in the light of this which has overtaken colonial J sessions elsewhere to discover blindness of some Europeans in “To try to keep a place like as a colony is like picking up au leaves and putting them back tree. All colonial empires are dying or dead. To refuse to rec* this fact and to fail to prepan inevitable change is to be u irresponsible and to invite ultl confusion and commotion.”