of silence

Letters To The Editor

The sound of silence

Madam, I am writing with the aim of promot ing racial harmony and stability through public education. The immediate prompt for it is a recent article ( PIM , February, 1995) which reflects a common but shal low view about race relations in societies like Fiji and Guyana.

One day after I had arrived in Fiji to teach at the University of the South Pacific, one of my Fijian students invited me to visit his village. He was sitting in my office asking me about myself, where I had come from, and what I thought of Fiji.

It was, of course, too early to answer his last question definitely but this didn’t hamper the flow of conversation and it certainly didn’t prevent him from telling me what he himself thought about Indian-Fijian relations. “The Indians will always be ahead of us,” he said, “We can’t compete against them.”

I was taken aback that he should say so but he went on to tell me that they had always outshone him at school and it would continue to be that way.

Later, from reading the Press, I discov ered he was not alone in fearing compe

tition from Indians. Indeed, Sakeasi Butadroka, the Fijian politician who would “repatriate” the Indian community now resident for over a century in Fiji, has himself publicly claimed the Fijian is no match for the Indians - a view which, there are reasons to suspect, is widely shared.

Why countervailing evidence is shunt ed aside in favour of the dominant ideo logical tune of Indian invincibility, is intriguing. (One of my best students at the university who won gold medals was a Fijian).

The fact of insecurity is important for understanding race relations in a plural society like Fiji. Insecurity can exist in more than one form and, in the case of Fiji, it is definitely not confined to one group. It is, of course, commonly men tioned in relation to the Indian communi ty- I stress insecurity because it can be cultivated and, through it, racial con sciousness can be dangerously inflated. It is one of those remarkable oversights in Fiji that almost nowhere in public discus sion is this factor pf the cultivation of insecurity mentioned.

Linked to this oversight is a common pretence that the problem in Fiji is large ly a problem of the people, in particular their culture.

All of which reminds me of my native Guyana - how insecurity came into play in the disruption of that country, how fears were preyed upon by certain politi cians, backed by local and foreign inter ests, and how the tensions eventually exploded into physical conflict in the early sixties, leaving nearly 200 people dead. When it was all over, the politicians and the media piously began to inquire into what had happened.

It is of interest that few seriously asked what was wrong with the politi cians: whether, for instance, in a multira cial society, their conduct ought not to be bound by special ethical codes.

Instead, the favourite preoccupation amounted to one question: “What is wrong with the people?”

And prominent among the askers were some of the very people who had engineered and stirred up trouble in the first place! (May I mention that some nationalists in Guyana also valued, the image of the Indian as bogeyman: “De coolie gon tek over de country ’/”) Since something was supposed to be wrong with the people, that thing had to be located, and it was identified as racial disharmony. The solution for many lay in inter-racial marriage and the regime that came to power and held it for nearly three decades promoted the idea of racial integration, drawing upon a model of race relations forged in the crucible of the American experience. If the benefits of integration are reflected in voting pat terns, then the results of the 1992 elec tions, the first free elections since inde pendence in 1966, showed little evidence on this score. Voting was largely along racial lines.

Inter-racial marriage as a solution for racial problems is a simplistic formula advocated by those who, in place of the practice and teaching of tolerance in a beautifully diverse world, would abolish its variety. Its advocates, who are not overly eager to preach at home, may also be reflecting their traditional belief in “simple” people living in simple societies, where problems are best solved by sim ple means.

I see neither the presence nor the absence of miscegenation as a straightfor

non-whites subjected to apartheid, slav ery, indentureship and the varieties of the colonial condition, have always known thisbut “Special Correspondent” (PIM February, 1995 ) apparently doesn’t.

On the other hand, the absence of miscegenation is not necessarily an indictment against the culture and people not observing this practice. Ethnic bound aries can be maintained for reasons which have little or nothing to do with racism.

But if I cannot accuse the multitude of Fiji of cultural apartheid, then perhaps there is another form of the malady. Of this there was evidence enough in the political arena.

Were we to look at the system of pub lic education, we might chance upon one reason why a contradictory animosity of a certain type thrives and one way in which it is nurtured. Under public education I include all the informal modes of teach ing which, though they might escape the attention of the average educator, are sys tematically used to communicate values, norms and standards of acceptable con duct. Because these modes are employed by those who occupy sanctioned roles, they are extremely effective.

I emphasise, too, that teaching via public education need not be accom plished simply by what is said or done but also by their opposites. Silence and inaction can be just as effective in passing

on understandings.

A good example of what I have in mind was furnished at the beginning of 1993 by an incident following Cyclone Kina. Livestock owned by Indians of Nausori were carried off by nearby vil lagers and yet, even though the event was prominent in the news, no condem nation from any high official followed. It is just possible that such silence drove home the point that the violation of the rights of some people, including the theft of their property, is perfectly acceptable.

A similar reasoning applies to silence when a temple is desecrated, when an Indian taxi-driver is mauled and robbed, or worse happens.

These events are not the effects of tra ditional culture and may not be the doings of any substantial section of the population. But they reinforce, and take place against, a core background of racial understandings about what is right, just and acceptable. It is against this backdrop that silence derives its effectiveness.

And what is at the heart of this back ground against which lesser events are given meaning? It is the singular, domi nant fact of denying half the population of Fiji a voice in their government. And on what soil does it thrive? On the inse curity of ordinary people like my former student, an insecurity insidiously cultivat ed through the system of public educa tion. To this end, the nationalists do not contribute alone.

Racial insecurity in Fiji has deeper

roots. Insecurity is institutionalised in the structures of the state, its processes and rituals. Perhaps it is time to wake up to the realisation that there is little or noth ing radically wrong with the traditional cultures of the major groups but that, quite possibly, there is something seri ously flawed in the political praxis and culture superimposed on these traditions.

Perhaps what is needed is a political solu tion to what is basically a political prob lem, a solution which is multiracially just and addresses the insecurities of both groups, not just one. As matters currently stand, the lovelier side of the Pacific Way, is actively undermined by what obtains in the sphere of politics.

Madan Gopal, Toronto, Ontario, Canada