I WATCH with curiosity the argument in the papers and social media about the new flag.
As a Briton by birth, it interests me that people talk about history as if it started with the British.
The sad fact is that the colonists wrote the history including only the negative aspects of Fijian history. Let’s get things straight not just the Union Jack but all the symbols on the old flag are colonial.
The flag was the colonial flag with slight changes before independence.
The Union Jack, the George Cross, the British Lion are British symbols.
Even the agricultural products reinforce the policy that within the Empire and later Commonwealth, colonies grew food and traded freely with Britain who made manufactured goods. As there were a lot of colonies and only one coloniser, food was abundant and prices low while manufactured goods were scarce and prices high.
I believe that way Britain got rich and the colonies stayed poor and economically dependent.
After political independence the colonies remained economically dependent.
Shortly after Fiji’s independence Britain entered the EC and no longer needed the Commonwealth at all.
I believe this colonial unelected regime that people are getting so sentimental about left Fiji, after 100 years of British rule, with no universal secondary education, no universal health care, no welfare benefits, few sealed roads, little electricity, no TV.
All these were taken for granted in the UK in 1970.
If we want to celebrate history, rather than celebrate the colonial era surely we should be looking back to the time when this proud warrior people ruled the waves in the magnificent drua, the fastest and most agile craft of its day and still a model for sail racing today. Several of the short listed flags feature the drua.
I personally like those that show it speeding through the waves as if into an even more magnificent future!
