‘Go Back Where You Come From’
Jean Hatch, Nabua
I am alarmed by at least three incidents online and publically being told by a few cowardly men and women to “Go back where I came from”.
Each time, I was part of a sharing conversation about how each of us were staying safe from COVID-19 in Suva.
I simply shared that as an asthmatic, I had already had both AstraZeneca jabs as advised, and I take high daily doses of Vit C for ongoing lung health, after having pneumonia last June in a Suva hospital.
I’ve then advised twice online, to “put the vaccine up where the sun don’t shine” and “to go back where you come from too”.
I was wondering if that means go back to Kubuna, in Tailevu, to RKS, where I taught iTaukei boys in the 1990s, or tutored many Fijian students freely, “vaka vanua” from local settlements currently, right up until this current outbreak in 2021?
This kind of malice has no place anywhere, least of all in a multiracial Fiji.
The hit and run cowardice of virtual online comments is very ugly.
Surely the colour of our skin, or any obvious differences we might have, does not mean we are not a Fijian now: Does it?
Where is this ugly racist cowardice coming from?
The assumption that skin colour makes us somehow different with our needs from every other Fijian right now in a pandemic, or at anytime, is totally bizarre?
Sadly, such attitudes are probably worse than getting COVID-19, and just as deadly.
A despicable kind of bullying cowardice and racism comes from evil hearts.
Think about this please. And stop it.
How much longer
Wise Muavono, Lautoka
My definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again hoping for a different result.
Our plan of action isn’t achieving its goal yet we still persist in using the same strategy.
How much longer shall the Fijian people endure unemployment, financial hardship, hunger and families separated?
The numbers don’t lie. Our hospital is overwhelmed and the health-care workers are burnt up, to the extent that we are flying in overseas doctors and nurses to help out.