FIJI One Land - Two Peoples

Te Ao Hou, Summer 1953, Page 27

FIJI One Land - Two Peoples Some people think of Fiji as the place where sugar comes from, others as the last stop by plane, 1,140 miles out from Auckland—a place where there is an attractive airport on the route to North America; some think of Fiji as an important military link in the war strategy of the Pacific area, as a communications centre served by five air lines; some middle-aged people will think of Suva as the first port of call for trans-Pacific steamers from New Zealand; others, older than middle-aged, may think of Fiji as the islands where indentured labourers from India were brought to work: the younger men among us may think of the Fijian football team; the Government administrator thinks of Fiji as a place where New Zealand nurses may do a tour of duty; where New Zealanders sometimes teach school; perhaps as a far out-post of the New Zealand Education Department's Correspondence School, or even as the regional centre for the South Pacific Health Service, where men and women are trained for health work on other Pacific islands; some people think of Fiji as the place where there is a leprosy hospital (at Makogai); others merely think vaguely of it as a British colony, known a century ago as the Cannibal Isles of Fiji. These impressions of Fiji are all correct—and they are all important to an understanding of Fiji. And they suggest, but do not stress, the most important point—that the Fijians are people—a people with well-established traditions and an organisation of society well adapted to life in the South Seas, but having to live in a world which has different customs and strange ways. There is a story from Fiji which, to me, illustrates this problem and, at the same time, makes me feel very uncomfortable. It is the story of a Fijian boy who was awarded the Victoria Cross in the 1939–45 war—Corporal Sukanaivalu. He had rescued several wounded men while under intense fire from the Japanese, and was eventually severely wounded himself. Because he could not walk, he called out to his men not to try to rescue him—it was too dangerous. When they said they would come out and get him, he exposed himself to Japanese fire and was, of course, instantly killed. His name, Sukanaivalu, means ‘finished with war’. His father gave that name to the son born to him after he had returned from fighting in France in the 1914–18 war. In Suva, the Governor of Fiji presented Sukanaivalu's Victoria Cross to his grey-haired father and mother as they sat on the ground, Fiji fashion, in front of a great parade of people. The story of Fiji is similar to that of other places in the Pacific. The group covers over 300 islands, the total area being about twice the size of Taranaki. The islands were discovered by the West when Abel Tasman visited them in 1643. Captain Cook also touched there, as did Captain Bligh of the ‘Bounty’.