Last week, we moved our focus to the racial chasm that divides people and keeps them away from forging mutually enriching cross-cultural bonds.
The focus moved to the issue of racism from the perspective of cognitive structures, interpretations of behaviours and experiences and the impact of misconceptions on the wider community and further down the line, society.
In other words, we are now revisiting the ever-perplexing and ever-exciting inter-cultural relations conundrum once again.
Studies in this area have clearly highlighted that a key pre-requisite for cross-cultural understanding, accommodation and acceptance is the presence of mutual respect across the cultural divide.
We briefly itemised the difficulties encountered in identifying structures that would be considered worthy across the ethno-cultural divide in Fiji.
The historical arrival of Indians as indentured labourers was discussed to highlight the challenges encountered in engendering respect across the divide.
The significance of a “free” people secure in their own surroundings looking across at an alien people subservient to the point of groveling in the face of a third party (the colonials) lay at the center of developing initial perceptions across the ethnic divide.
After all, the Fijian had different customs and traditions, lived differently from the Indian, had a different religion, valued different things, spoke different languages, had very different types of music, ate different foods, dressed differently, etc.
A FURTHER point on crosscultural relations especially during the colonial era remains inadequately highlighted in the records. The Fijian was treated as special by the colonials while the “coolies” were simply considered as a factor of production that was meant to be exploited to the fullest so that the aims of empire could be fulfilled better. This would have bred a resentment towards the “protected” Fijians at some stage in the development phases of crosscultural perceptions.
On the other hand, the legislative barriers that were placed between the two communities to keep them separated and therefore, unable to share the necessary conditions of existence that are so critical in forging lasting cross-cultural bonds was a another key factor that kept mutual understandings from developing and evolving towards trust.
Another critical factor within this equation was the fact that it was the colonial administration and the planter population who held the reins of power and therefore, the keys to unlocking, making
available and distributing opportunities and resources at that point in time. This created a situation where the Fijian did not feel any need for the Indian and vice versa.
It was the colonials who needed both and managed both. Some would even say that they manipulated both sides and played them against each other whenever needed.
But that is neither here nor there because the argument being developed here is focused on the fact that the divide between the two communities persisted because of lack of respect based on ignorance, fear and distrust between the two communities.
Cross-Cultural Experiences at Schools
There is no disputing that Indian initiative, effort and persistence led to the setting up of numerous schools in the colonial era.
Their focus on education was linked to their search for a secure existence in a foreign and often unaccommodating surrounding.
They were also more familiar with the link between education and success in life from their gurukul background in India.
What is important for this series is that these girmitiya set-up schools brought together members of the two communities as school children and teachers.
These schools acted as melting pots in forging cross-cultural understandings through mandated undertakings as school children.
I wrote in an earlier article that the first Girmitiya school, Wairuku Indian School, was set up in 1898 by the late Badri Maharaj in Rakiraki.
One of its most prominent students was Ratu Sir Lala Vanayaliyali Sukuna. Fiji’s greatest statesman and leader was a pupil of Wairuku Indian School.
From the cross-cultural perspective, we know that awareness of cross-cultural differences leads to differing levels of understanding of the “whys and hows” of these differences.
Here we had Ratu Sukuna, who would go on to become a key architect of post-independence Fiji, inter-mingling with Indian children on a daily basis. He would have been conversing with them, playing with them, eating with them and observing their idiosyncrasies.
He was seeing their difficulties, triumphs and sorrows. And he was learning from it. Remember he was a standout when it came to intelligence. Ratu Sukuna was not only intelligent, but keen on learning much more than was available in Fiji.
These sorts of inter-mingling were not limited to Wairuku and Ratu Sukuna.
Other schools followed and played a key role in fostering cross-cultural understandings and bonds through their nurturing of students from across the cultural divide.
Many have asked me about my background and why I seem to have a view of life that is “different” from what they usually expect from an Indo-Fijian. The answer is very simple.
I was born in a Fijian village – Vuna in Taveuni. I grew up amongst Fijians and was brought up in my early days by a grandmother who happened to be Fijian.
The first language I spoke was Hindi, but Fijian was not too far behind because of this setup.
I went for pre-school to Vuna District School. This was because of a close friendship between the headmaster (Master Pai) and my father.
Later I did the first five years of my primary education at South Taveuni Indian School (now South Taveuni Primary School).
This school was populated largely by Indo-Fijian students from the labourer communities working in the copra plantations around southern Taveuni.
There were, however, a healthy smattering of Fijian and other children from the same plantations.
The land on which the school still stands was donated by Mr. JV Tarte, a prominent planter landowner at the time.
He was married to Adi Vuki, a local of chiefly heritage. This provided the school’s link with the Fijian community and to this day that link remains.
South Taveuni Primary School is now a very multi-cultural school.
Its linked South Taveuni Secondary School is also very multicultural.
The teachers during my five years at South Taveuni Primary School were largely Indo-Fijian and predominantly from Labasa.
Those were the days when the Lambasia phenomenon was largely unfelt and unknown.
This new variable only entered the ambit of race relations after the reactive non-renewal of land leases in the aftermath of the 1987 and to a lesser extent 2000
coups. I will dwell on this at some later stage.
Let’s move back to schools acting as cauldrons for forging cross-cultural understandings.
After South Taveuni Primary School, I moved to Wairiki Catholic Mission School and graduated to Wairiki Junior Secondary, then secondary school.
This is where we had direct access to non-local teachers (nuns and volunteers), Fijian teachers and the Catholic faith.
This moved understanding beyond what I had picked up in Vuna Village (na koro ko Vuna). As you read this, I will be participating at reunions in both these schools in Taveuni.
I will share how these schools forged my thinking next week. Sa moce toka mada va’lekaleka.
DR. SUBHASH APPANNA is a USP academic who has been writing on issues of historical and national significance.
The views expressed here are his alone and not necessarily shared by this newspaper or his employers subhash.appana@ usp.ac.fj
