
Please read it just to learn from history, and how there are similarities but also contrasts, with what your movement faced thirty years ago. Unfortunately, Fiji is now so much more complex and difficult for FPSA and the labor movement to tackle. I will come back to that paper’s recommendation later. I don’t want to give you an academic speech, but just focus on issues which may be of use to you in your AGM deliberations later today:
A: What is the nature of the challenges you face
B: Your innermost union strengths that you must recognize and use.
C: The practical options that you have before you, and
D: The hard work that you as individual members, and as FPSA, if you are to overcome your challenges.
...Whatever your problems are, I believe that you can overcome them, as FPSA and committed individuals. In front of you is a piece of paper with a song (We Shall Overcome) that unions and protest movements have always sung at their gatherings. It is a Negro spiritual created in the deep American south, when slaves and former slaves used to sing together, to strengthen themselves, to face the terrible challenges in their lives. The verses of that song are all relevant to the battles that you FPSA Members are facing today. I will lead you with the melody on my harmonica, and you can sing the song with me and on your own..." Read Professor Narsey's full speech HERE