Confronting Fiji’s own cancel culture
OUR recent election threatens to become an extension of the ongoing battleground that distorts and damages our nation. The last months have provided ample evidence of who we are as a nation and what stirs within us.
Evidently, we have created and allowed a political landscape that desires a public settling of scores. A political landscape that has some unique and damaging traits that serve to defeat the very thing we aspire to become. One trait that can be identified is our need to triumph over and bring humiliation onto our political opponents. Considering just the last forty years of our political history, we can identify clear examples of this ongoing battle that make it Fiji’s blood sport and our cancel culture.
Good governance is about strengthening and upholding the institutions that keep us united, healthy, and functioning. Therefore, good governance can never be about revenge, payback, or humiliation. Good governance will bring justice to those who step over the line, exercise restraint on excess, and restore balance to disharmony to secure our future.
Following the same process, good leadership is about navigating the nation safely to keep us united, healthy, and functioning.
Therefore, good leadership can never be about revenge, payback, or the humiliation of others. Good leadership will inspire and carry us toward our best. It will not cheapen us but will demonstrate the highest qualities and virtues.
As we look back into our history, we see the victims of our battles; we seemingly ignore the damage and our grief to allow ourselves to maintain and protect this right of response. Rene Girard, the French philosopher, writes of this response and has labelled it ‘Mimetic Theory’. Mimetic theory is where we exchange the same behaviour but escalate it as we give it back to the other side. We see this in the playground where one child pushes another, and the return response is also a push but much harder, and this exchange continues till one becomes the victim, the other the victor.
At a national level, mimetic theory ultimately leads to a death spiral because the focus is on the internal battle of revenge responses, not the future. To return to our playground example, the pushing and shoving will continue until an adult intervenes, one of the opponents wins, or one of the opponents de-escalates the pushing.
How does Fiji de-escalate and begin a new play of exchange in our political landscape? Who is the adult in each political party that says enough? We have seen some early signs of hope in the apologies offered by our new leaders. A glimmer of hope in appointing two opposition MPs to the chair of a standing committee and hope in some, but not all, of the maiden speeches. Will these hopeful signs grow stronger or descend into another deeper cycle of national destruction? Are they true signs of hope or tactics used to achieve temporary political advantage?
We cannot expect something from our political leaders that we ourselves are not willing to embrace. A review of social media posts through the election and post-election period provides cause for national concern. Many social media posts called for revenge and urged our leaders to take revenge; if followed through, Fiji’s mimetic cycle would escalate and cause further national damage.
Jesus Christ exampled and taught what disrupts our desire for personal and national revenge when He said, ‘Love your enemies and do good to those who despise you.’ This throws the proverbial spanner in the works and halts the cycle of self-destruction. Have we got the courage and strength for this? Those tasked with nationbuilding must deeply consider the recent examples of Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi. Both men proposed bringing political enemies to the table and remained committed to breaking South Africa and India’s political revenge and vindictiveness cycles. This was only achieved by courageously charting a course of healing and cooperation.
There have been calls for a platform of national reconciliation and healing, and both opportunity and danger exist in this. The opportunity is for a place of true reconciliation that disrupts the last forty years and forges a new path. We have the language of working together and becoming united in our cakacaka vata (working together) and veivakaduavatataki (unification).
The danger is that while this is happening, we will stay as warriors on our keyboards, sending out social media posts that call for revenge on our brother and sister with different beliefs or political opinions.
If we are serious about turning the corner, then reconciliation, to be effective, must be invited to begin its work first within me. What new course do I need to chart in my responses to those different from me?
■ PETER SCHULTZ is a practitioner in rehabilitation and leadership, and a reader in the areas of rehabilitation, culture, theology, and philosophy. Peter is a Christian, a Fiji Citizen, a thought leader, founder of a non-profit organisation, and holds both local and regional roles. The views expressed are solely the personal opinions of the author and do not necessarily express the views of this newspaper.
Good governance is about strengthening and upholding the institutions that keep us united, healthy, and functioning. Therefore, good governance can never be about revenge, payback, or humiliation.
– Peter Schultz