The Editor's Mailbag

Tune From The Grave

Sir, —Now that corpses and the spirits of deceased persons have started to enter Fiji’s national con tests, people still alive may reckon time has come to take a disturbed look at this trend. Unhealthy, what?

Not the sort of thing, seriously, you’d expect. The music section of our national anthem contest was won by a dead man. Actually, he’s been dead for quite a while, the authorities explained helpfully. Such posthumous diligence is, surely, rather remarkable.

Were this the only anomaly at tached to Fiji’s so-called “new” anthem, the matter might be allowed to rest. But it is not the only anomaly. By an astounding coin cidence, all the judges seemed to come from the same place—Suva.

Amazingly, the various prizewinners all came from the same place—Suva.

TTie hidden equation is not too difficult to unscramble. Anthem-wise, Suva virtually equals Fiji. Therefore Suva’s anthem equals Fiji’s anthem, automatically. People were prodded frantically into producing their com positions: more than 100 entries of some sort were harvested. And then the odd thing was that only one tune ever seemed to be played. When are we to be allowed a chance to listen to some of the others?

Our good Minister for Commerce and Industry, the Hon. Mr. Vijay R. Singh, has started beefing about Fiji’s broadcasting services being “too anaemic”, as having no decent debates or discussions. All right. But wasn’t Mr. Singh himself being a bit anaemic allowing the anthem to shoot through as we’ve got it now? The scheme originally was that it should have some words in Hindi. What’s happened about these words in Hindi?

But for Mr. Singh’s seeming sudden mack of anaemia, a substantial chunk 3f Fiji’s populace might have had mthem-type material to chant in their )wn tongue.

His desire to have broadcasting nicked up is to be applauded.

Should he still be requiring juicy dis cussions, let him start wading into this )ne.

Though very ready to congratulate he prizewinning family which riumphed in the poetic field, and lot intending to be horrid at all, I juestion whether the winning words constitute a masterpiece of English vriting. For instance, we stand united

at one point, under “noble banner blue”. What have we here, exactly?

A noun, both preceded, and im mediately followed, by an adjective.

Good English? Some sort of English, possibly. But is that good English?

Maybe some learned person from the University of the South Pacific could kindly deliver an opinion on this point.

I beseech other archipelagos, likely to have to face in future years the task of finding an anthem, on no account to follow Fiji’s method; i.e. of having some small musical oligarchy, recruited all from the same spot, remembering some tune that they heard played the previous year, then pushing that forward for the anthem.

This practice of pinching dead men’s tunes—and without their per mission, I suspect—strikes me as being ethically a bit dubious—not to speak of the appalling bankruptcy of inspiration implied.

The Fiji judges should have been roped in, I reckon, from the largest expanse organisable. Possibly even Fiji’s public as a whole could have been trusted to do a little judging— instead of being treated the entire time, anthem-wise, like irresponsible kids. These days, with a wireless in pretty well every home, and a work ing tape-recorder in plenty of places, the idea is not quite so crazy as it may sound.

I hope that anyone sharing with me these few poor simple thoughts will not hesitate to air them and so help to lift youthful Fiji out of the dark, soul-deadening clutch of artistic totalitarianism.

M. E. Basden (Rev.)

Savusavu, Fiji.

Niue Fights Back

Sir, —I refer to the paragraph under the heading in the “Tropicalities” section of PlM’s November issue “The horror of a $1 million hand out!”

Firstly, Mr. Peren, as a very senior public servant in New Zealand and one whose knowledge of Niue’s affairs is packed into a few hours stopover with the touring New Zealand parliamentary delegation, should have known better than to discuss with any citizen, respected or otherwise, the whys and the where fores of New Zealand’s financial obligations to Niue. It seems to me that Mr. Peren took delight in telling reporters that a respected Suva citizen, “had expressed horror that 5,000 Niueans received a Si million a-year handout between them”. To cap it off, Mr. Peren volunteered to interpret the expression of horror as, “The suggestion was that this was immoral, that it was too much . . . that chaps ought to look after them selves”. As an after-thought Mr.

Peren hastened to add that New Zealand did indeed have a respon sibility to Niue. Mr. Peren’s next statement, implying that New Zealand aid would be distributed more equally throughout the region in future, was contradicted by no less an authority

than Mr. Lapwood, Senior Govern ment Whip of the New Zealand House of Parliament.

Secondly, the respected Suva citizen obviously knows nothing about Niue and Mr. Peren was naturally not in a position to enlighten him, otherwise I am sure the former would not have said what he did say.

As a full blooded Niuean (the name is an adoption—progress if you like), I deplore the implication that we Niueans are a pack-of-no-hopers who live like lords on handouts from the New Zealand taxpayer. Anybody would think that the $1 million (as if such a sum would go far nowa days!), is doled out among the 5,000 Niueans to spend as they wish! It’s not for me to say to what extent New Zealand is obliged to Niue.

Rather, suffice it for me to point out that we Niueans are New Zealand citizens who happen to live 1,500 miles away from the mainland.

I merely point this out because it’s a fact and the respected Suva citizen can draw his own conclusions on that count. It is also a fact that it is only in the last decade that New Zealand aid to Niue has reached a level worth arguing about—s2o,ooo in 1941/42 f‘20.000 in 1951/52, $475,000 in 1961/62 and $1 million in 1971/72 No one with a little sense of pride and responsibility wants handouts especially more so if other people take every opportunity to remind us of the fact. To be an aid-recipient is downright embarrassing at anytime, but to have one’s face rubbed in the

Letters

charity plate is bloody humiliating!

Even so, anyone who understands a little of the situation and the relation ship between New Zealand and Niue will quickly appreciate that there are some inescapable facts—for example, New Zealand aid, essential to the survival of Niue, is never a question of simply writing out a cheque. We have to convince New Zealand that we need the money and that we deserve some help—no easy task, I can assure you.

If our horrified friend in Suva can show me that Fiji would not jump at the opportunity to receive a $1 million handout from New Zealand, or if he can tell me that Fiji has never received any handouts from the UK, I’d be willing to go along with him. But if he can’t, then all I can say is that he is either envious or he does not know the meaning of the word immoral. Let’s face it—the prin ciple is the same whether New Zea land aid to Niue is $2OO per head or whether UK aid to Fiji is less than $2OO per head. If 5,000 Niueans get $1 million from New Zealand, it’s because we have helped ourselves first and deserve to be helped!

Finally, what’s so horrific about every Niuean being able to read and

write; being able to maintain one oc the highest standards of health ii this region; being able to hack ai international airport out of solic coral, the standard of which is secono only to those in Nadi and Tahiti coconut plantations intercropped witf cattle without the benefit of runninj water supplies; and, above all, maim tain an egalitarian society where no one goes hungry and probably, have the highest standard of living in thi; region!

If there’s a moral in this case, i can only be that New Zealand has seen fit to ensure that her subjects who live in Niue don’t lag too far behind their cousins who live on the mainland.

What’s immoral about that!

Terry M. Chapman.

, — JLX M.M. XJ. 1 • Niue. • See also the letter from a con federate on p. 121.

Stamp Design

Sir, —I wish to draw your attention! to (PIM, Oct., p. 72) regarding “A.

New Guinea sing-sing for Christmas”., These stamps were designed by Bette Hays and not Nancy. Would you be good enough to make mention of this error?

(Mrs.) Bonny Dun.

Strathfield, Sydney. • Sorry Bette, but the fault lies with the PNG Department of Posts and Telegraphs in its Press release 809/8/10.

There are more letters on p. 117.