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FIJI AT 50: FLAGGING UP Aiyaz Khaiyum's plans to change Fiji's FLAG because of colonial symbols CANNOT wipe out Britain's colonial role in the inhumane and degrading treatment of indentured Indians, 1879-1920

10/10/2020

1 Comment

 
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LIKE BLACK LIVES MATTER, the descendants of Indian Indentured Labourers must never forget Britain's hideous role in the workings of the Indenture System - the New Form of Slavery-  and maybe demand COMPENSATION from BRITAIN. After all, when slavery was abolished in 1834, the British continued with maintaining the system through the Indian Indentured Labour System throughout the British Empire. The British institutions are removing plagues and statues of slave owners and their supporters, and yet Indo-Fijians, unaware of their indenture past to a large degree, are NOT demanding the same in Fiji. As for the hardcore nationalists in SODELPA, the new incarnations of SAKIASI BUTADROKA, the Indo-Fijians must ensure that they do not succeed, for in any future SODELPA led Government,  their policies against them will come perilously close to those of Sitiveni Rabuka and George Speight in 1987 and 2000. If SODELPA wants to win the 2022 general election, it must extend its bridgehead in the Indo-Fijian community. Not to drive a wedge with nationalistic pronouncements. Sadly, Indo-Fijians had not aggressively confronted and eliminated the 'Butadroka cancer' in Fiji politics. It is still not too late, if they want their children to celebrate next 50 years in Fiji. We say, as we have stated for 50 YEARS, the displacement of Indo-Fijians from BRITISH INDIA prevented the dispossession of the Fijians in colonial Fiji. Indeed, ironically, the indentured Indian was uprooted specifically to prevent the disintegration of the Fijian way of life following the Deed of Cession in 1874. Below, excerpted from Brij Lal and Michael Pretes,
Coup: Reflections from Political Crisis in Fiji, 2008:

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Speight leaving
for Nukulau
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Quarantine Station, Nukulai Island
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ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY ONE YEARS LATER: Speight's VICTIMS:

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1 Comment
Bahuki
11/10/2020 05:36:21 am

Of course it will always be there as a deep scar regardless of how much disdain Khaiyum has for the British. The last thing we need now is a radicalized BLM version of tearing down statues of colonial figures as a reminder of the indentured labor system.

Yes the British are to blame for their treatment of the girmitiyahs, but a petty flag change and removal of anything related to the colonizers won't erase the deep scar and legacy they left behind in 1970.

The iTaukei tends to be two-faced at not realizing that the British brought the Indians here because they themselves were left alone for labor after that blackbirding incident in the 19th-20th century. Its no wonder the indigenous Fijians themselves were paranoid and ultranationalistic prior to that coup dynasty that began in 1987 just because they felt that they would be overwhelmed by the Indians.

Probably a different story I guess, if the British taught the iTaukei on how to be more successful in business and commercial ventures earlier in my opinion.

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