What Scotland can learn from the ‘one Fiji’ approach

It’s not often that one has the opportunity to comment on an event that happened 50 years ago and which one personally witnessed.

From 1968 to 1970 I was a VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas) volunteer in Fiji and worked as a youth worker attached to the district commissioner’s office in the northern division based in Labasa, the main town on the island of Vanua Levu.

My job involved encouraging young Fijians, Indians, Chinese and other Pacific islanders to participate in sports and other activities that they could do together rather than separately, as was mainly the practice, with Fijians mainly playing rugby, for example.

I finished my two years of volunteering just before independence day but celebrated at a special dinner in London attended by the Fiji High Commissioner and a representative of the royal family.

What was fascinating about working with communities in Fiji at that time was that Indians lived in family units and had been brought to Fiji as indentured labourers with a choice of returning to India after a period. But most chose to stay as they had established themselves economically and culturally.

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The Fijians, by contrast, lived collectively mainly in villages (with the exception of some large towns like the capital Suva) practising Kerekere, which is a form of sharing time and resources with other family and friends.

So if one person earned a lot one day, they were obliged to share this with others – a disaster economically but a caring social practice.

Dr Bulmer emphasises the constitutional lessons for Scotland which include experience of not getting it right first time – to arrive at a voting system that is fair to all is not easy.

I would add, from my experience in Fiji and many other countries, that learning to live with and understand cultures which are not your own is an important lesson in rebuilding a nation.

I believe we should encourage all young people in Scotland to live and work in a developing country and then bring back all the lessons learned – not least that whatever the colour of a person’s skin or their origins, they all have an important contribution to make to society

So the “One Fiji” approach, on which the current Fijian constitution is based, should apply in Scotland and should focus on national concerns and not narrow party or ethnic concerns.

Fiji’s experience was also that it adopted the good parts of British experience, such as trades unions, credit unions and religious diversity, but left behind the paternalistic shackles of colonialism.

So, I agree with Dr Bulmer, based on my experience of Fiji and my Norwegian ancestry, that “a Scottish constitution must reflect Scotland’s values and meet Scotland’s needs”.

Tor Justad

Strathpeffer, Ross-shire

HOW happy I am that, nine months out from possibly our last Scottish Government election under Westminster’s oversight, the political situation is in turmoil and we have many ways forward to consider. What a strong position to be in so far ahead of the ultimate decisive battle.

We can sit down with Patrick Harvie and his Greens party and thrash out a deal where we can both recommend to our supporters SNP Vote 1, and Greens Vote 2. I am sure that to many this would put the ongoing situation to bed and we could look forward to having a total mastery of Scotland’s politics.

Not only that, but the pill would be easily swallowed as most of us love our country the way it is, and to protect it and get rid of the landowners and investors, who see Scotland as a bound-and-gagged dripping roast to make tax free money from, to their offshore tax havens!

Blucher’s arrival made the cone-wearing Wellington look good at Waterloo. But here at the moment, we appear to be poised for a much more comfortable victory, as long as we get the infighting done and move into 2021 as an irresistible and and unstoppable force.

This, of course, cannot mean that we are to demand a Section 30 Order from Boris Johnson’s Government (should he last that long). The whole world knows that “wee, feart Scotland” has done that already. We need to be much bolder in our approach and, being a hugely more powerful force than before, will no longer take admonitions or orders from an administration that we have determined that we will no longer recognise.

When we can all agree on this, then the real negotiations will begin.

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This little country of ours is run, owned, controlled and coveted by others. We must, for our children, stand up and claim it back. We are the envy of Europe, so rich in food, hydrocarbons, wind and wave power, and Hydro and whisky.

Alas, all of these things are also controlled by others. We are like the slaves in the cotton fields, in our own country.

We have the time to turn this around. Don’t squabble – look at the big picture!

Roddy Maclean

Annan

WE are up to four pro-indy parties contesting seats, plus the SNP. Five parties looking for the indy vote! Assuming not all voters will cast their vote for alternatives to the SNP, it seems to me these parties are unlikely to reach their goal of increasing the number of pro-indy MSPs. What is more likely to happen is the indy votes will be spread too thinly, parties will lose their deposit and the candidates and votes will be lost to indy. The Greens, being a sound recognised alternative, will suffer as a consequence of this division.

I remain to be convinced of this strategy. We already have a sound alternative in the Scottish Greens and maybe the enthusiasm for an alternative to the SNP for a second vote by those with an interest should go to supporting the Greens to stand more candidates.

Christine Smith

Troon

I FELT compelled to write a brief letter to your paper, with regard to the unequal Union and Scotland’s wish to regain our sovereign right to our independence and to make our own decisions for our country, Scotland.

Since it has become obvious that the need and wish for independence has grown (and will continue to do so), our “partner”(!!) has revved-up its sleekit shenanigans campaign (which has always existed throughout this unequal Union).

You would imagine that they would feel shame in trying to hold on to a supposedly subsidised Scotland, a “Union” for which the people of Scotland never voted, nor who ever relinquished their sovereign independence right. This “Union” was gained (I use that term very loosely) by treacherous means and has been held on to in the same way.

The English Government may think that they are very clever, but should remember that every sleekit, underhanded, deceitful (I could go on) action they carry out, will also be shown to the world. No longer will Scotland go unnoticed and mistakenly taken to be English.

Please have a look on the Wikipedia website at the Royal Coat of Arms (four or so versions) and pay particular attention to our Scottish unicorn. That says all you need to know about what England thinks of Scotland – shackled!

Remember, also, the words of the English Duke, or whatever he was, who headed up the English troops, waiting to hurry the signed declaration (by the traitors), back to England and put down any resistance from the people of Scotland: “We have ‘catched’ Scotland and we will never let her go.”

As a last thought, has anyone ever heard of a country which has broken free of England ever begging to “rejoin”?

We are Scotland and we will regain our independence. Nicola Sturgeon is “lining up the ducks”!

Helen Stewart

via email

THE cost of Covid will be considerable, and already there is talk of higher taxation to pay for it all.

This payment is owed to the private banking system that has – as always – been creating money from thin air to lend to the government at interest. Further money will also have to be borrowed during the economic and social recovery following Covid, and that will also come from thin air, and at interest, from the private banks.

It is this ludicrous situation that cripples us with interest charges on money that never existed.

Already we pay a billion pounds a week to the banks for interest on the national debt.

But if government itself issued its own money, to finance the assets of capital and social projects, including the NHS of course, all for the benefit of the nation, it could do so indefinitely, interest free, and in any quantity needed, merely by a computer keystroke. This money would not go into circulation, so would not cause inflation.

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So any nation with its own currency could therefore avoid the private banks, and finance what it wanted. Everything needed could be afforded. The advantage for an independent Scotland, with its own currency and central bank, is obvious.

Malcolm Parkin

Kinross

ACCORDING to Cabinet Secretary Fergus Ewing, “aquaculture, and through that Scottish farmed salmon and rainbow trout, are now synonymous with Scotland and (sic) the land of food and drink”.

I disagree and dislike Scotland being equated to an industry that subjects sentient “wild” animals to a life of perpetual enclosure, manufactured feed, medication and often premature death via viral, bacterial and fungal infections. This is a mean way to treat the “King of Fish”.

This industry has been subject of a number of Parliamentary inquiries arising from environmental and welfare concerns. One concluded in a report published in 2018 that “ … if the industry is to grow, the committee considers it to be essential that it addresses and identifies solutions to the environmental and fish health challenges it faces as a priority”.

Clearly, there is a long road ahead. The Ferret (Rob Edwards, July 13) reported that more than 25,770 tonnes of caged salmon died prematurely in 2019, higher than in any previous year. That equates to more than 10 million fish.

The PR side of the industry, the Scottish Salmon Producers Organisation, tries to put a brave face on the industry’s difficulties. According to them, Scottish salmon is indeed a natural food.

Many would say that is a fanciful description. This food is so natural, that Mowi (formerly Marine Harvest) had more than 500,000 fish die at one of its hatcheries due to oxygen supply failure (Sunday National, April 14, 2019, reporting Scottish Government figures).

Farmed fish is an industrial product, the marine equivalent of intensively reared chicken.

Where is the effective regulation of this industry that we have been promised so often? Where are the strategies to help remote areas become less reliant on this economic plaster?

Roddie Macpherson

Avoch