Discretion needed in moral entrepreneurship

Outrages abound for anyone who is forced to live in a military dictatorship. For a journalist, the natural instinct is to do everything possible to help by shining a light on the outrages.  A similar duty applies to an academic, especially if an outrage falls within a scholar’s area of expertise. The response from an academic, however, should be more measured and contemplative. Making expert comment in the media, for example, would be one way of expressing one’s informed opinions. Issuing denunciatory press releases . . . not so much.

Patrick Craddock

The situation becomes more complicated if the person is both a journalist and an academic. In which capacity – and in which manner – should the person speak out? It gets even more complicated if the person is a foreigner. To be teaching on a work permit in Fiji imposes some constraints on engaging in domestic politics. The fact that the country is gearing up for its first elections in more than eight years makes the situation even more sensitive. Making expert comment on issues within one’s area of academic expertise is risky enough, as I began finding out two years ago. I was careful not to comment on Fiji politics or culture and to stick to matters of media and media policy, on which I felt I had not just a right  but a duty to comment. As media policy is determined by the government, however, any criticism I made of measures such as the TV Decree or the State Proceedings Amendment Decree was taken as political meddling and a government complaint was inevitably made to my employer. As a guest in Fiji, I would never have considered criticising matters such as military torture or police brutality, however odious. There are others, such as Amnesty International, whose job that is.

All of which renders mystifying recent media statements made by Patrick Craddock and, to a lesser extent, Matt Thompson. The pair, who are journalism lecturers at a certain regional university, took the unusual step a week ago of issuing a press release saying they were “appalled that one of Fiji’s top journalists was denied accreditation to the Pacific Islands Development Forum and [that] police allegedly harassed another.” They might have been able to get away with that, as these are matters pertaining to the media and thus are arguably under their purview. Scholars don’t usually issue press releases, however. Press releases are usually issued by the institutions that employ them. The real problem, however, started when they criticised Brigadier-General Mosese Tikoitoga, the head of Fiji’s military, for apparently having justified torturing Fijian citizens. Thicko had told the Sydney Morning Herald he “wouldn’t deny” that Fijians have been beaten and tortured by the military regime, claiming it was necessary to stave off civil disorder. “But a lot of these people were actually trying to instigate violence by creating anti-government movements or militant groups,” he said. “They were talking on the radio and so on.… If you let them continue to have a voice, you create a potentially dangerous environment. So it was the lesser of two devils.” That apparently outraged Craddock and Thompson. “Do Fijian soldiers beat and torture people they see as troublemakers while on peacekeeping missions or do they reserve that treatment for Fijian citizens?” asked Thompson in their press release. “The military don’t seem to have a clue about democracy. The media have all kinds of absurd restrictions on them but the armed forces can seemingly do what they want. What a sad state of affairs in which to enter an election period.” 

That brought the predictable reaction. First, Thicko backtracked on his statement. “I did not admit to anything, let's get that clear,” he told the Fiji Times. “What I told the journalist at the time was that I would not deny that some people were taken to task. I said I would not deny it because there were so many reports done and there were so many investigations carried out on that issue.” Then Ashwin Raj took umbrage with the allegations of both journalistic intimidation and military torture. “These reckless academics are trying to instill fear in the citizens of Fiji,” the gnome-like Chair of the Media Industry Development Authority told FBC. “It’s another feeble attempt to keep us in a perpetual state of crisis.” He told the Fiji Times that the pair should have contacted MIDA and the Ministry of Information to check the facts before making such statements. “Any responsible academic as a necessary measure would have first ascertained and corroborated the facts before making a series of gnomic pronouncements about freedom.”

Exactly what business this was of MIDA is not clear, as it is charged with regulating the media, not with regulating people who make statements to the media. Raj was doubtless enraged, however, by the personal attack that Craddock made on him in the press release. “Where was the loud-mouthed MIDA when this [intimidation of journalists] happened?” asked Craddock. “It was silent and still is. The Chairman, Aswhin Raj talks about robust journalism. It is all mouth water talk. What an insult to freedom of speech.” Raj responded by calling the duo “ill-informed, self aggrandizing, self-selected moral entrepreneurs.” The stoush has now caught the attention of international media, including the UK newspaper The Guardian.

Raj is also a mid-level administrator at the same institution where Craddock and Thompson teach, so it wasn’t long before they were called on the carpet and asked to repudiate their press release and promise not to issue such statements again. They were then each issued a written demand to sign a letter agreeing to restrictions on their rights to freedom of speech and academic freedom or suffer the consequences. A deadline of Friday passed. A second press release was issued on Sunday, this time under Craddock’s name alone. “The letter implies that there were inaccuracies in the Media Release,” it noted. “There were none. The army has admitted that they have tortured and beaten people.” As if that wasn’t defiance enough, the release unusually included excerpts from a recording of Craddock’s meeting with university administration, in which a senior administrator is heard saying “All of us understand that we don’t live in a normal democratic government situation. . . . whatever we put out in the news media we are very careful.”

This effectively seals Craddock’s fate, as he can now expect to be dismissed for insubordination. The only question is whether Thompson will follow suit or knuckle under to muzzling by his employer. Unfortunately the real losers in this spat will be the students whose education has already been disrupted twice in the past 18 months, first by my departure, then by that of my successor. Craddock and Thompson were brought in on short notice under emergency conditions to keep the ship from sinking. Unfortunately, they may end up being the ones to send it to the bottom.

Dictator inadvertently endorses Fiji Times

The bumbling dictator has done it again. Frank Bainimarama has begun his campaign for the September election, but his rhetoric is so over the top as to literally defeat its purpose. The oldest propaganda trick in the book is the Big Lie, under the theory that if you tell a lie big enough, people simply have to believe it. Bainimarama is apparently intent on testing the limits of this theory, but the outrageousness of his latest pronouncements could serve to pull back the curtain enough to reveal his grand deception.

Wrapping himself in the flag

“Our intentions are pure,” he insisted at the official launch of his FijiFirst party this past week. “Judge for yourself what we have been able to achieve for you so far, judge for yourself how much life has improved under my government, judge for yourself the true and genuinely inclusive intentions I have for the betterment of all Fijians.” Given both the dire state of the Fijian economy and the brutal repression of political participation seen in the country of late, such an invitation risked audience members falling down laughing, if such disrespect would not ensure a quick trip to the Queen Elizabeth Barracks. The recent fiasco over the withdrawal of a scholarship from a university student whose only crime was to campaign for an opposition party is just one example of the stranglehold the government has placed on political participation. The government-mandated exclusion from the political process of union officials, academics, NGOs and other intellectuals, not to mention the “old” politicians Bainimarama so reviles, is further testament to his grip. The uber-authoritarian regime that has ruled Fiji since 2006 has so repressed freedom of expression and controlled public discourse through its MINFO and Qorvis spin doctors that apparently no lie is too big for the dictator to feel confident in trotting out. In his Biggest Lie of all, the military dictatorship has brought Fijians not only prosperity but intellectual freedom as well.

[Fijians] have also yearned for a more liberal society where people can question, ask and think outside the box, without being told not to do so, because of culture, tradition or religion. All of this has been made possible under my government. And the work we started 7 years ago, must now continue for the sake of all Fijians.

But Bainimarama’s biggest bugaboo, of course, is the news media, most of which he has been able to either control or co-opt, except for a couple of pesky outlets such as the Fiji Times and Fiji TV, which try to tell the truth whenever possible. Thus he just couldn’t resist taking a shot at one of his favorite targets. “Beware of media organisations such as Fiji Times whose journalistic standards are not only unprofessional but are blatantly biased,” he told the captive audience at FijiFirst’s launch. “They seek to distort facts, manipulate figures and blatantly print misleading headlines and stories. If they have a political bias they need to declare it.”

In the meantime I urge all Fijians to get other sources of information other than the distorted views of Fiji Times. . . . Many of their senior journalists and associates through social media and other forums spread misinformation and are anti-government. Therefore how can we expect them to be professional and give you the right information?

Questioning any of the junta’s many missteps and even misdeeds, of course, is not allowed in Fiji. Bainimarama much prefers the sycophants at CFL, FBC, and the Fiji Sun who will slavishly promote his party line. Luckily, a few brave others aren’t afraid to speak up about the charade. “We normally have coverage towards the back of the paper,” Social Democratic Liberal Party leader Ro Teimumu Kepa told ABC reporter Liam Fox while he was in the country recently. “[It comes] after Bainimarama’s photo and whatever he has to say on the front page, and then after all the supermarket ads and the sports and film and television ads.” Ro Teimumu added that when her party has campaigned in some communities, police have turned up afterwards to question people about what was said. Fox also interviewed National Federation Party leader Dr Biman Prasad, who was forced to resign his long-held professorship at a regional university in order to contest the election because of its proscription against political participation. “We’re telling the whole world we’re holding an election, yet the world must also see there are all these restrictions that are in place which do not allow political parties to engage freely,” he said. “People who are opinion makers, academics, NGOs, trade union officials, they’ve all been barred from taking part in political activities and actually talking about issues.”

NFP candidate and former Fiji Law Society president Dorsami Naidu was even more blunt in answering Bainimarama’s charges of media of bias against him. “I think he’s got to look at himself in the mirror and hear his own voice played back to him because he has suppressed the media for so long that he doesn't know what a free media is and what criticism is,” Naidu told Radio New Zealand International. “I mean, he thinks he’s above criticism. And if he thinks he’s done the right thing then let the people be the judge.”

The blogs, which have served as the underground press in Fiji ever since the 2006 coup, are more than happy to shine a light on the regime’s deceptions. “The Bainimarama government has a lot of faith in propaganda,” observed Fiji Today recently. “They’re convinced if they repeat a lie often enough and stop any political rivals from having access to the media to refute their lies, the lies will win.”

Sometimes I think they could almost succeed. They pump out publicity and the Fiji Sun laps it up. Every day Sun readers are treated to stories of success and optimism under the ‘popular’ dictator. Inevitably, some people will think good things are happening somewhere even if they can’t see it in their own neighbourhood. But there is a problem the propaganda machine can’t deal with – the truth. When they tell us how much they’ve improved water supply and health the suspicion grows that we are being fed on a diet of lies. The truth about water supply and hospitals can’t be hidden from people whose taps are dry or sick people turning up to clinics that don’t have the bandages or medicines they need.

Of course, the campaign has only just begun, and we can expect much more fun and games in the coming months. The latest outrage has yet to build steam, which is the admonition the press received the other day from the Fijian Elections Office, which has apparently taken the media-bashing baton from MIDA, whose masters are indisposed at the moment, what with Ashwin Raj being on the sick list and Matai Akauola reportedly resigning to contest the election himself. Members of the press were summoned to a pre-election talking to this past week from communications director Josua Tuwere, who was appointed straight from the ranks of the Fiji Sun. According to the Fiji Times, Tuwere admonished media organisations “to impart the right information to members of the public about voting.” Stand by for the fallout on that one.

Young journos speak out against media repression

As if to prove that not all  Fiji journalists have been browbeaten into submission, a few brave young reporters have begun speaking out against the junta's machinery of press repression, which even as it bullies and intimidates media organisations insists with a straight face that the country's press is free. Yet the sourcing for these daring reports leaves much to be desired, which in turn leaves the writers open to recrimination from the regime. As far as the Ministry of Truth is concerned, after all, the press in Fiji is now officially free.

Primal scream as apt metaphor

The student newspaper Wansolwara devoted most of its latest edition to press freedom issues following World Press Freedom Day earlier this month. The issue's editor, Tevita Vuibau, stuck his neck out with a front-page story on the recent termination of Fiji TV reporter Anish Chand, and an editorial which called for the press in Fiji to play its proper role in the promised return of democracy there with September elections. The problem is that his story did nothing to cast light on what actually happened to Chand, who was cashiered  in what Vuibau described as “shadowy” circumstances. “It is understood company policies restrict Fiji TV management and Chand from commenting on his departure,” wrote Vuibau. “Allegations that Chand was sent home following a phone call from a high government office to Fiji TV also remain unsubstantiated. Attempts to acquire comments from the Ministry of Information on these allegations have proved futile.” The story included not even an anonymous source testifying  to what actually happened. What we are left with, in other words, is conjecture and innuendo. As has been well established, this is what the Fiji media are best at. Facts . . . not so much.

Vuibau, who is also a reporter for the Fiji Times, led his story off by writing that "former and working journalists maintain that an element of fear exists among reporters" as a result of whatever happened to Chand. A climate of fear has existed for years among Fiji journalists, however, so that is not news. It may well have been amped up by Chand's departure and rumours which have been circulating about what led to it. The problem is that Vuibau's story establishes only what is NOT known. His editorial inside the issue made a heartfelt plea for the basic standards that anyone who appreciates good journalism hopes to some day see in Fiji's media. “We want journalism to rise again, and to see an end to the era of the ‘churnalist’ – press release writers and other reporters in too much of a hurry or too anxious to ask real questions.” Yet while lamenting a truly lamentable state of affairs, it couched the situation in layers of qualification. “Fear, timidness and meekness – whether real or imagined – are assumed to be the rule by many media practitioners and observers in and out of Fiji, yet exceptions do exist.”

At about the same time that Vuibau was going to press with his non-exposé, Ricardo Morris was taking to the air to provide at least a bit of information, however unsourced. “It has been confirmed by various sources what transpired that led to Anish Chand’s departure from Fiji Television,” Morris told Radio New Zealand International's Alex Perrottet. “Fiji Television are piloting a new political show in the lead-up to the general election, and there were vox pops that were brought in for the pilot show. The majority of the vox pops had people supporting Bainimarama, supporting the government, and supporting his proposed party.”

So what we understand is that the suggestion from Anish Chand was that some attempt should be made to try and get alternative views, try and find people who hold different views and would go on camera with those views. And it is understood somebody at that meeting, or who heard about that meeting, then passed the message on and then a phone call was made from the Attorney General to the management of Fiji TV. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Ricardo Morris

Morris, who has been RNZI's correspondent in Suva for some time now, also told Perrottet that he recently resigned under pressure as coordinator of the Cook Islands-based press advocacy group Pacific Freedom Forum. "I have become ineffective in the role of coordinator because of the pressures that have been brought to bear.” He did not identify who exerted the pressure, but told Perrottet that such pressures are brought to bear regularly on media outlets that are not pro-regime. “Probably the bigger media organisations like Fiji Television and Fiji TV, they come under inordinate pressure every day in all kinds of ways. And, you know, if there's any kind of complaint about broadcast, pressure comes to bear on them from the management. And I think that's the circumstances they're operating under every day.” While not providing any concrete examples, Morris nonetheless bravely called out the regime for bullying Fiji journalists. “I think it's got to be said that there are clear restrictions. Even if people don't call out the emperor as having no clothes, I think it should be said, everyone knows that there are restrictions and that there are things that you can and cannot say.” Morris is also publisher of Repúblika magazine, which similarly focused on press freedom in its May issue. “There exists much frustration, hate and a sense of being victimised for journalists to do their work without fear despite the strong stand by the Fiji Media Industry Development Authority (MIDA) that those in the profession were free to report without any pressure,” wrote Kelvin Anthony.

The Masters of MIDA will doubtless not take kindly to Vuibau and Morris coming out and saying what everybody knows anyway. Their job is to create an image in the world's mind that the media in Fiji have now been officially freed. Behind the scenes, on the other hand, they are wont to send out barbs to media whenever one dares to criticise the lack of press freedom in the country. Witness the memo that reportedly went out after the Pacific Freedom Forum protested MIDA's clampdown on freelance journalists last October. “Media outlets, especially the editors, must explain the reasons for using the PFF article,” wrote MIDA Director Matai Akauola. “It does not mean that when you get both sides, you run the story. You have to check whether it's accurate.” This effectively sets up MIDA as a virtual Ministry of Truth, deciding what may and may not be reported by the nation's press. Also witness how MIDA Chair Ashwin Raj went off on ABC reporter Sean Dorney for merely telling an interviewer in February that some delegates to the Pacific Islands News Association conference in Noumea felt the press in Fiji “wasn’t as free and open . . . as it should be.”

Unfortunately, the lack of sourcing for Vuibau's article and Morris' interview that call out the regime's deception leave them wide open to retaliation, either under the Media Decree or otherwise. But perhaps the Masters of MIDA would be wiser to just let it alone, as to clamp down again now would be to prove the very point of critics.

Ashwin Raj on the “(Im)possibilities of Democracy”

The military dictatorship which seized power in Fiji at the point of a gun in 2006 now promises not just to hold elections in September. It actually assures the world that what will result will be nothing less than “genuine” or “deep” democracy. This is ensured, the dictator told the United Nations General Assembly in September, by the constitution his regime imposed on the country earlier last year.

Birds of a feather flock together

“This Constitution introduces the first genuine democracy Fiji will enjoy since we gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1970,” Frank Bainimarama told the UN. “We finally have a Constitution that is worthy of the Fijian people.” Bainimarama told the world that his constitution “enshrines principles that are at the heart of all the world’s great liberal democracies – an independent judiciary, a secular state and a wide range of civil, political and socio-economic rights.” By all accounts, he actually said this with a straight face, which would be no small feat given not only the captive nature of the nation’s judiciary, but also the limitations that his constitution imposes on human rights in Fiji, especially on press freedom. Hopefully it was not lost on delegates that the regime not only dismissed out of hand a constitution it had invited an independent commission to draft after it dared to urge the restoration of human rights limited by innumerable junta decrees. It then went so far as to railroad its own version into law without even bothering to put it up for discussion at the “constituent assembly” it had promised to appoint.

This is supposed to ensure “genuine” or “deep” democracy? Of course not. It’s a charade, a farce. The whole world can see right through it. The only question is whether the junta can get Fijians to believe it, which is actually probable given the control the regime exercises over the country’s domestic media and hence the worldview of its populace. It is unlikely, however, that outside observers will deem the coming elections free and fair given the ever-increasing level of intimidation exerted against the nation’s press by the regime’s new media commissar, Ashwin Raj. As chronicled in the first part of this look at the background and qualifications of the new Chairman of the Media Industry Development Authority, Raj is a failed academic who once railed against the regime. Now he has conveniently come around to enthusiastically support its aims, perhaps as a result of his own peculiar notions of democracy, or as he put it in the title of his only known academic publication, its “(im)possibilities.” 

As a graduate student at the University of Hawai’i in 2004, Raj published an article in the peer-reviewed academic journal Fijian Studies: A Journal of Contemporary Fiji which was titled “Spectres of the Neo-liberal State and the (Im)possibilities of Democracy.” The article provides a telling glimpse into Raj’s ideas about how things should work in Fiji. I highly recommend it to your reading, and it will cost you only AUS$1.98 to download. Keep in mind, of course, that the article is now a decade old, and not only have Raj’s ideas doubtless evolved over the past decade, but events have also altered the political landscape in Fiji. Bainimara’s coup, for example, was still two years in the offing. Neo-liberalism had yet to be discredited by the economic crisis that gripped the world starting in 2008 and is only just now loosening. (In Fiji, where received wisdom seems to arrive late, if ever, neo-liberalism is still in vogue, judging by government policies of income tax cuts and an apparent consensus in favor of slashing the VAT.)

Just as it would be in an ironic 2007 letter to the Fiji Times, the bee in Raj’s bonnet in his 2004 article was the proverbial monkey of good governance. “Good governance and democracy are identified not with the empowerment of the many, such as those working in the Fiji garment industry for low wages,” he wrote, “but with constitutionality, free elections and a deregulated market.” The implementation of neo-liberal economic policies posed an inherent contradiction in Fiji, according to Raj, due to their withdrawal of entitlement programmes. “One of the colonial legacies of Fiji is that the political imaginary of the nation is that of entitlements,” he wrote. “It has never been a nation of rights.” Government insisted that neo-liberal policies would bring economic growth, noted Raj, which would have a trickle down effect on the country’s social and political development that was necessary to rescue the economy from the severe downturn that followed the 1987 coup. The structural adjustment reforms, however, were implemented while Parliament had been suspended, which had “a serious bearing on the notion of democracy as unpopular reforms were implemented by a group of people who were not democratically elected.”

While the postcoup state had promised to ensure indigenous Fijian advancement in the realm of the economic, it now had to address the tension between pursuing economic liberalization on the one hand and economic affirmative action programmes as part of its nationalist agenda on the other. The reform measures pursued had an adverse effect on the indigenous Fijians as the market did not discriminate between Indians and Fijians. The burden of public sector reform fell largely on ethnic Fijians since much of the public sector was dominated by indigenous Fijians. 

The displacements following the 2000 coup served as justification for Australia to intervene and seek the restoration of democracy, noted Raj. Through their insistence on good governance, Western governments such as Australia and institutions such as the World Bank “create a regime of ‘truth’ as they decide whether a particular regime of governance is good or bad and as such become the arbiter of ethical good.” Raj even utilized the exclamation point, which is rarely seen in academic writing, in making his argument. “It thus constitutes a shift in the burden and responsibility from developed countries to developing countries whereby the latter have to ‘clean up their own mess’ so that it no longer appears to be an external imposition but owned and implemented by governments that have been legitimated through the national democratic process of free and fair elections!”

The World Bank’s apocalyptic scenario for the Pacific called “the Pacific Paradox” and Ben Reilly’s “Africanization of the South Pacific” thesis, which is characterized by soaring corruption, dismiss the role of international power differentials that inform notions of governance and development, argued Raj. “It is here that one needs to examine the complicity of the intellectual in the production of particular regimes of truth or reality.” The notion of a public sphere in which anyone can participate in political debates regardless of their social status was “indeed advocating freedom of thought as the true condition for enlightenment.”

However, when one thinks of the cacophony of the margins, one is reminded of the rise of experts and specialists on the one hand and the consistent call for unrestricted education sanitized of any social prejudice on the other. Certain modes of knowledge have been privileged over time so that the public sphere becomes a collective of selective individuals qualified enough to speak for the subaltern.

The powerless classes, or subaltern, suffer as a result of the calls for good governance by international civil society, he argued, which are fuelled by liberal individualism. “‘Normalcy’ and stability have been privileged over democracy,” he wrote. “Governance needs to examine the predicament of the ‘new subaltern.’ Otherwise, any yearnings for democracy will remain a fiction, an incomplete project of modernity reserved for an enlightened elite engaged with the pedagogical mission of speaking on behalf of the subaltern.” He poignantly illustrated his point with an anecdote from his own field research.

Who decides what are free and fair elections? To date, I am still haunted by an interview which I carried out with a subaltern woman during the 1999 general elections in Fiji. I asked her if she felt her rights were secured under the 1997 Constitution to which she replied acerbically: “and what am I supposed to eat in the evening? The Constitution?”

Raj’s article shows some insight into the dilemma that accompanies the twin goals of development and democracy. Can an impoverished nation such as Fiji have both? If not, which is more important? It is fairly obvious which one the junta has chosen, as its moves toward democracy become increasingly unconvincing. Given his apparent conversion as an apostle of the regime and his new role in advancing its goals through controlling the news that Fijians get, two sentences from his 2004 article ring louder than the rest. Not only is it “here that one needs to examine the complicity of the intellectual in the production of particular regimes of truth or reality.” Ironically it is now Raj who is helping to “create a regime of ‘truth,’” and decide whether governance is good or bad. He has himself become “the arbiter of ethical good.”

But wait, it gets even better . . . er, weirder. In the intervening decade since the article’s publication, Ashwin Raj has been transformed in more ways than one. His coming out of the closet a few years ago and his advocacy for gay rights provide us with further insights into his ideas about democracy. In a talk that Raj gave two years ago at an event to mark International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHOT), he mused that democracy has much to learn from sexuality. According to a press release,  Raj noted that “entering the protocols of others will play a critical role in compelling law to engage with our material conditions.”

USP academic and activist Ashwin Raj, spoke about the future of democracy. While reminding us that those who espouse to sexual values other then compulsory heterosexuality constitute the world’s largest and oldest diaspora, he said that democracy has much to learn from sexuality. They are both at home and in exile. Since sexual identities can never be reduced to sexual acts, so should democracy strive to be more than free and fair elections and the performative conventions of constitutionalism.

In other words, the people always get screwed in the end. It’s only a matter of who’s doing the screwing. Ashwin Raj has obviously done his best to ensure he will be at the front of that line.

Who on earth is Ashwin Raj? Part I

The new Chairman of Fiji’s Media Industry Development Authority, Ashwin Raj, has been cracking the whip on the nation’s press – and even on overseas journalists – ever since his appointment last year. His stridency is in sharp contrast to the style of his predecessor, FNU literature scholar Professor Subramani, who kept a low profile and seemed reluctant to carry out the regime’s media diktats. 

Ashwin Raj lays down the law to Fiji's media

Raj apparently suffers no similar compunction about playing the role of media commissar, and his assault on the press, both foreign and domestic, over the past six months has been dizzying. Basking in his new-found limelight, the previously obscure Raj has unleashed a vocabulary that would drive even the most erudite faculty member to a dictionary. By attempting to impress with polysyllabic prowess, however, the diminutive failed academic displays an intellectual inferiority complex that is as enormous as it is obvious.

Raj first moved against Fiji's media last October, when he announced that MIDA would set up a media monitoring unit to ensure that coverage of the coming election campaign will be balanced and unbiased. He also announced that freelancers, public relations operatives, and foreign journalists in Fiji would henceforth have to register with MIDA and follow the regime’s restrictive Media Decree. The Cook Islands-based Pacific Freedom Forum spoke out against the added restrictions as “another layer of scrutiny in what is already a tightly regulated media environment.” Some Fiji media actually dared to report on that story, which apparently led to a sharp private rebuke from Raj.

At the annual Attorney-General’s conference in December, Raj lashed out against those who saw the Media Decree as an attempt to gag the press.

Alarmingly, little effort has been made to actually enter the protocols of the Decree and read through its provisions, which provides a nuanced framework for the enforcement of media standards. If media holds the State accountable, the question then is ‘who guards the guard?’ What legal recourse does the public have in the event that the media has wronged them?

But these were merely appetizers for Raj’s showdown with journalists in the New Year. At the Pacific Islands News Association conference in Noumea in February, he took umbrage with ABC journalist Sean Dorney telling an interviewer that some there felt the press in Fiji “wasn’t as free and open . . . as it should be.” At a social function that evening, Raj reportedly went off on Dorney, who had also privately urged that PINA should stand up more for press freedom, calling him a two-faced “Janus” and promising that he would never be allowed back into Fiji. He followed that up with a letter of protest to the ABC’s Managing Director that threw around howlers like “asseverated,” and “epistemic,” as if to show the Australians how intelligent he was. “Mr Dorney’s lucubration’s [sic.] are mired in generalisations without any substantiation,” railed Raj, who simultaneously deemed MIDA a rousing success with regional governments. “Five months into my appointment, MIDA is beginning to enjoy the trust and confidence of the international community.”

The silliness continued in what can only be described as MIDA’s own version of March Madness. Unable to extract retribution against Dorney, Raj dragged into his feud the Pacific Media Assistance Scheme, which is funded by the ABC administered by ABC International, forcing it to cancel a planned workshop for journalists in Fiji. Raj then demanded that PACMAS distance itself from the ABC and Dorney. In outlining his independent media monitoring unit of "people who have a wealth of experience in the media industry," Raj then announced that he would also require all media outlets to disclose their editorial policies. “I need to know why certain letters get published at the exclusion of others.” The craziness recently culminated, of course, when Raj could simply stand no more of the Fiji media’s insolence and insubordination. After Fiji TV reported a speech by a chief in the prime minister’s home province that pointed to ethnic divisions in Fiji society, Raj deemed it hateful and summoned the press for a stern tongue lashing, even admonishing assembled journalists for discussing such issues on social media like Facebook. 

All of which begs the question, who on earth is Ashwin Raj? He has absolutely no media experience in his background, from what I can tell, and as such he would be highly unlikely to enjoy even a scintilla of confidence among members of the industry he regulates. His most extensive media experience, it seems, comes from reading newspapers and authoring the occasional response. “I would engage with the media as a bystander,” he has explained. “I’d write letters to the editor.” His lack of expertise on media issues is painfully obvious, and his independence is highly suspect. “I’ve got a six member board that keeps me accountable,” he has said, yet the membership of MIDA – which is supposed to include representatives of women, children, and consumers, in addition to the Solicitor-General and someone with media experience – is apparently a closely-guarded state secret.

He is also not a lawyer, as he freely admits, which you would think might come in handy for someone tasked with administering a regulatory act. “I’ve always read law from the perspective of society,” he reasoned for journalists.

It’s one thing to have pure, legal interpretation of the law and another to say, well what does it mean for society and how does society think through legal instruments? Law means nothing unless and until it materializes in the lives of people.

So what do we know about Ashwin Raj and his actual accomplishments? Does he have any to his credit? It is highly unlikely that any journalist in Fiji would dare investigate, much less report on his background, or lack thereof, under the current reign of media terror over which Raj presides. That leaves it to this blog to find out what is known about him and publicize it in order to put the current media climate in Fiji into context. In his day job, Raj is a mid-level administrator at a regional university. He comes from an extremely modest background, being born to a Muslim seamstress and a Hindu gardener (at Marist Brothers school) and raised in a Vatuwaqa shack. His parents' elopement apparently caused his mother to become estranged from her family, which objected to the mixed union, and this caused no small amount of distress for young Ashwin. He came out as gay a few years ago and was active in the Drodrolagi movement which advocates for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer rights in Fiji until quitting the group a couple of years ago. He then began to ingratiate himself with the regime and has been advancing within it rapidly. He delivered the opening address to the 2012 Attorney General's conference (at about the same time that I was being hounded out of Fiji), at which he declared his admiration for the regime's "surgical strike" in 2006. Within a few months, he had been elevated as the Master of MIDA.

Ashwin Raj in Hawai'i

Ashwin Avinesh Raj holds a Master’s degree in Political Science from the University of Hawai’i, which he attended from 2002-05 on a United States-South Pacific Islands scholarship to the East-West Center. He then enrolled in doctoral studies at Australian National University’s program in Pacific and Asian History, where he began work on his dissertation topic: “Allegories of the Human: Rights of Indentured and ‘Free’ Indians and the Production of Humanity, 1879-1937.” That is where his academic career went off the rails, however. Despite spending a year doing research in the Fiji Archives, Raj proved to be all talk and no action, failing to submit even one chapter of his doctoral thesis. He was eventually required to leave Australia on the expiration of his student visa in 2009. 

Raj did prove to be a prolific letter writer during his time in Canberra, however, and some of his submissions to the Fiji Times belie his current complicity in the regime. “Instead of channelling hundreds of thousands of dollars to investigate the media and institute meaningless commissions of inquiry that tell you the obvious,” he wrote in 2008 to criticise the Fiji Human Rights Commission, including its report on Fiji media by University of Hawai’i political scientist James Anthony, “that money would have been better spent feeding and clothing the poor and the homeless.” A letter published the previous year, however, provides an even more delicious irony given Raj’s current position in charge of the regime’s machinery of media repression. He began it in a manner eerily similar to his recent diatribe against the Fiji media, which began: “I’m quite perturbed by the level of public discourse in Fiji as we head towards the national elections.” His 2007 letter began: “I am perturbed by the mood of public discourse in relation to the political developments since the 2006 military takeover.

Rampant anti-intellectualism, purist and locationist jibes and the very curious rise of self selected moral entrepreneurs who give philanthropy without democracy now seem to be the dominant discourses of this particular strand of democracy propagated by the proverbial monkey of good governance called the “interim administration.”

Next: Ashwin Raj on the “(Im)possibilities of Democracy.”

MIDA takes on Facebook

Apparently it’s not enough for the Media Industry Development Authority to intimidate Fiji’s journalists into self-censorship and timidity. Now the new masters of MIDA want to also rein in discussion on social media like Facebook. There’s only one problem. As usual, they don’t seem to have the foggiest notion of what they’re talking about.

MIDA's Ashwin Raj (left) and Matai Akauola

MIDA Chair Ashwin Raj summoned the nation’s press to a “mandatory” press conference the other day, the metaphorical equivalent of a misbehaving child being summoned to the headmaster's office for a scolding. The nominal subject was “hate speech,” of which Raj had found Fiji TV guilty (without the need for a hearing, of course) for broadcasting rather mild comments by a chief in the prime minister’s home province who pointed to ethnic divisions in Fiji society. As ethnic divisions aren’t allowed to exist in Frank Bainimarma’s multiracial paradise, the regime went off the deep end. Its media authoritarians were immediately tasked by the prime minister with bringing to heel not only Fiji TV, but the rest of Fiji’s press corps as well, lest reporting of the upcoming election campaign get out of hand and actually include criticism of the dictator.

The omnipotent Raj dutifully complied with remarkable alacrity, quickly finding Ratu Timoci Vesikula to have violated hate speech provisions of both the 2009 Crimes Decree and the recent regime-imposed constitution and referring the matter to Fiji’s Solicitor-General for disposition. He also found Fiji TV guilty of violating the 2010 Media Decree and ordered it to broadcast an apology and retraction, as if the speech never happened.

As a result of this finding, Fiji TV’s licence can now be summarily revoked by the government under the 2012 TV decree, with no possibility of appeal. Its licence inconveniently came up for renewal two years ago at the same time that it made the mistake of airing interviews with two former prime ministers who questioned the need for yet another constitution. It has been renewed for only six months at a time ever since in what has been described as less a licence than a “good behavior bond.”  FijiTV, which trades on the South Pacific Stock Exchange, promptly issued a statement to shareholders last week that promised to comply with MIDA’s order. 

This set the scene for Thursday’s remarkable press conference, an audio recording of which has been uploaded to YouTube. “I’m quite perturbed by the level of public discourse in Fiji as we head towards the national elections,” Raj began, reading from a five-page letter to FijiTV which was also released to the press. 

What is even more disconcerting is the complicity of select Fijian journalists and media either wittingly or those that remain oblivious to the laws of Fiji despite several awareness workshops on the Crimes Decree, the Media Industry Development Decree and the Constitution.

Raj was just getting warmed up. In addition to finding the chief’s statement unconstitutional and in contravention of the Crimes Decree, and FijiTV in breach of the Media Decree (all without the need for a hearing or apparently even legal submissions), the non-lawyer and failed academic personally absolved himself of muzzling the press.

My decision this morning cannot be misconstrued (emphasis in the original) as an impingement on the freedom of expression or dismissed as yet another instance of gagging media freedom by MIDA as has been insinuated by some who are posturing as the praetorian guard of human rights but sadly very quiet over the issue of hate speech.

He then ran through the possible punishments for Ratu Timoci – imprisonment for 10 years – and FijiTV – a fine of up to $100,000 and imprisonment of up to two years for its senior managers. Raj then announced that he would take further legal advice on FijiTV’s punishment and ordered retraction as a preliminary measure. In reading his decision, Raj took the opportunity to put the entire Fiji news media on notice and to impose further restrictions and threats of sanction on them. MIDA will be “closely monitoring the tone of public discourse,” he said, through its recently-established “independent” media monitoring unit. 

Not only that, Raj told the assembled media throng, but henceforth he would require, “in the interests of transparency,” translations to be provided of speeches given in Fijian and Hindi at political rallies. “It is incumbent on the media in Fiji to ensure that there is no dissonance in the content of speeches and texts presented in either the vernacular or English in their various modes of delivery.” As further punishment, freelance journalists in Fiji will also now have to register with MIDA and provide "a full declaration of the organisations that they serve."

As he ran through his seven-point decision which imposed sanctions not only on the offending parties but by now on all Fijian media, Raj often deviated from his prepared text to further excoriate the assembled journalists. So it was when he finally reached his seventh and last point, which was obviously one of some vexation for the regime. Not only had Fijian journalists been derelict in their duty to report the news to the satisfaction of the regime, but they had been guilty of *shock horror* discussing it among themselves.

The conduct of a number of journalists on blogsites leaves much to be desired. One just has to see their contribution on Friends of the Fiji Media blogsite. I’m now asking all editors to address this issue as a matter of urgency.

Here is where he deviated from his text and proceeded to scold the nation’s press. “This is a question of professionalism,” he told them. “This is a question of ethical journalism.”

Be very careful what you write on these blogsites, because you’ve got an important responsibility. This is not to suffuse [sic.] the fact that you have, you know, certain political proclivities. We all have subjectivity. But that should not come in the way of your work.

He then singled out, although not by name, two members of the Facebook group Friends of Media Fiji, of which I am a member. “I’ve seen a very senior person from DFAT [Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade] who I’ve had several meetings with,” he said, obviously referring to public affairs officer Dennis Rounds, “fully engaging in Friends of the Fiji Media.” He then took a run at freelance journalist Samisoni Pareti. 

I know of an ABC correspondent who’s also with Islands Business, writes all kinds of statements, I mean absolutely callous remarks, you know, unsubstantiated. That’s not the way journalists should be conducting themselves in this country.

Raj insisted that he was not embarking on a “vendetta against select media outlets” and claimed he was independent. “People are saying that I’m a lackey of the regime,” he noted. “I’ve got no dog in the fight, except for the fact that I've got to judiciously undertake this responsibility.” But  his message to journalists was clear. “Don’t resort to blogsites where you just trash people, because that is not a sign of democracy,” he told them. “That is not a sign of freedom of expression.”

That MIDA is unfamiliar with social media is painfully obvious from its conflating of blogs with the social network Facebook, where the group Friends of Fiji Media conducts its online discussions. Blogs have bedeviled the regime for years, ever since it imposed martial law in 2009 and censored the press. Free online blogging sites such as Blogger and Wordpress, which had recently become popular, allowed users to set up sites on which to post their online ramblings. The result was the Fiji Freedom Blogs, which served as a kind of underground press in reaction to the regime’s clampdown on the mainstream media. The survivors, which are still active five years later, can be found listed on this blog, which I started in mid-2012 to chronicle some of Fiji’s media craziness. That misdeed got me run out of the country by the regime’s propaganda machinery more than a year ago. The junta has been unsuccessful in rooting out other Fiji Freedom Bloggers because most of them are already located safely offshore and aren’t so foolish as to put their name and picture on their blog, although the identities of several are well known.

Social media such as Facebook and Twitter, on the other hand, are networks and groups of friends who select each other. As a result, their discussions are not available for anyone to read, as blogs are, but only to selected "friends." These groups are self-policing on multiple levels. At the group level, administrators can delete posts deemed to be abusive and banish group members who are malicious. This has recently happened in the Friends of Fiji Media group, whose administrators have become increasingly concerned with the problem of vitriol hurled between group members. New Zealand journalist Michael Field and myself, being foreigners, are lightning rods for abuse from regime cheerleaders who have infiltrated the group. The group has also recently been faced with the problem of rooting out fake members who have obviously (to me, at least) been set up by one particular regime cheerleader for the purpose of attacking myself and other regime critics. Without revealing the content of our discussions, which are supposed to be confidential, group members have recently been mulling its very existence in light of the fact that the regime has obviously been monitoring it. Apparently not all group members abide by the ethic of confidentiality, because the regime seems to be privy to our every word.

But MIDA’s complaint about abuse – “absolutely callous remarks” in Raj’s words – could be resolved easily enough by simply complaining to Facebook, which is quite willing to delete abusive posts or pages. It did so when I complained about this page set up by my bête noire regime cheerleader. It also deleted an illustration by a regime critic after a Fiji Sun reporter complained that it used her picture without permission. Of course, that doesn’t prevent the Sun from reprinting Facebook discussions if that serves its purpose of discrediting regime critics. It did so with a recent exchange between political hopeful Roshika Deo and regime hitman Graham Davis, without Deo’s consent. She promises that a complaint to MIDA will be forthcoming as a result. (How do you like her chances?) Grubby recently quit the blogging business and went underground as a Facebook troll after I outed him as a regime propagandist. He actually inhabited the Friends of Fiji Media group briefly last year after the Sun complained that we were talking about him behind his back. He tried to give me the business there, but I gave it back to him in spades and he thought the better of continuing. It seems that MIDA has other proxies there, although I have been trying to shine a spotlight on them, too.

Social media, especially Facebook, promises to be a key battleground in the upcoming election campaign (it hasn’t started yet, has it?), as Radio New Zealand recently pointed out. You would think that the regime would have the upper hand there, as social media smear campaigns are a specialty of its Washington-based spin doctors, Qorvis Communications. You’d also think that the $1 million a year Fijian taxpayers pay Qorvis would entitle MIDA’s masters to some tutoring on the subject of social media. It is badly needed.

Grubsheet website not available

Hilarity courtesy of Truth for Fiji