81ST THEN INDIA SANMARGA IKYA SANGAM CONVENTION

SPEECH BY HE MR JAMES BATLEY
HIGH COMMISSIONER OF AUSTRALIA
Nadi, 6 April 2007

President and leaders of Sangam, Honoured Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen:

Thank you for extending me the honour of speaking at your 81st annual convention. Let me begin by congratulating you on reaching this further milestone in your history.

Before I came to your country, in January this year, I confess that I did not know of the history and the work of the TISI Sangam.

More recently, however, in reading about the history of your organisation, I must say that I have been deeply impressed and inspired by your story.

I have learned of the origins of the Sangam in the 1920s in the selfless and dedicated efforts of Sadhu Swami and his early followers and supporters. I have learned that the Sangam is now one of the biggest socio-cultural and educational organisations in Fiji, and that it manages not only religious and cultural centres but also funds and manages 21 primary and five secondary schools, two vocational training centres and a Nursing School in different parts of the country.

And what is more impressive, if I may say so, is the fact that your educational institutions have been structured to cater, not just for Sangam members, but for students of all races, religious beliefs and ethnic backgrounds.

In reflecting on what I have learnt about this venerable organisation, I think there are some lessons to be drawn from its history.

To me, the first lesson is the power of self help, how much can be achieved when human beings set out with a common purpose and sense of vision. Not everything depends on the government! This is a lesson which all of us can benefit from. Unfortunately, we need to be reminded of it all too often.

Second, I think the history of the TISI Sangam reminds us of the persistence and vitality of culture in its broadest sense, of ways of life and of fundamental beliefs.

There can be no doubt of the importance of culture for people’s sense of identity and their sense of security and of well-being. Of course, cultures naturally influence each other when they live side by side. But they do not just blend into one another indistinguishably, except perhaps in the very, very long run.

Culture and nationhood can obviously be closely linked although by the same token they are not necessarily quite the same thing.

This is something my own country has learned over the last 200 plus years.

I come from a country where over 200 languages are spoken today, and where over one fifth of the population were born overseas, where no less than 43 percent of the population have one or both parents born overseas.

So, like Fiji, Australia has some experience and understands some of the challenges of developing a country where communities from different cultures and backgrounds live alongside against each other.

Like you, we understand that our societies are at risk when culture is suppressed, or when cultures become inward-looking, or even hostile towards each other. This process can produce mutant offspring and even violence. Sadly, we can see examples of this in many parts of the world today.

How do we guard against such risks? How do we promote respect between and among cultures?

Surely the first building block of respect for others is self-respect. No one individual, no one community can interact genuinely with others if they feel worthless or humiliated. Your own organisation is one that promotes a sense of worth to its members, and to all those who benefit from it. I think you should be congratulated on this achievement, an achievement which has been sustained not just over years but over decades.

The second strategy to guard against the risks of cultural isolation and to promote respect among communities is to provide hope and opportunities for young people. And the starting point here surely is education, and here too, the Sangam has played and continues to play a vital role. I congratulate you for that!

The importance of education is also acknowledged in the Australian Government’s aid program to Fiji. The budget for our current five-year program in education is some F$33.8 million – over one-fifth of our total program. Assistance in this important sector has continued following the coup in December.

Our Education program supports efforts to improve the quality of planning, managing and monitoring of education, especially to people in disadvantaged and remote areas. We think it has shown positive results.

In addition, Australia also provides around F$5 million a year to support scholarships for Fiji students in various fields.

To return to my main theme, it seems to me that a third way we can guard against the risks of cultural isolation and hostility is by building and nurturing common ground among cultures. There are no set rules here: sharing a common national language like English can be one element of this common ground. Experience around the region and around the world also suggests that one of the most important building blocks of common ground is respect for the rule of law. Many countries in our region, Fiji and Australia included, share the heritage of the British common law tradition: our legal systems, our judiciaries have played an essential role in maintaining our societies and in building our economies. This is an inheritance which we should all value and nurture.

There are other, less tangible things that help build common ground in our societies. One hypothesis put forward by the American scholar Francis Fukuyama is the importance of trust as a foundation of successful institutions and of prosperous societies. Although it might be the least tangible of those things that help society function, it is also perhaps the most easily damaged, and the hardest to repair and rebuild.

I have been speaking of a sense of common ground as one of the foundation stones of successful societies. Speaking frankly, it would appear that the common ground in Fiji – politically, communally, socially - has retreated. I would not claim that last year’s coup is solely responsible for that trend, but it does appear to have accentuated it dramatically.

In some ways, this helps to explain my country’s response to the events of December last year. Australia had no choice but to respond firmly to the coup in December – just as we did in 1987 and in 2000.

Along with Fiji’s neighbours in the Pacific Islands Forum, we condemned the removal of the government by the military as unconstitutional and unacceptable. We put measures in place as a response and those measures remain in place.

That said, we in Australia do want to look forward. We acknowledge that it’s not possible to turn the clock back to 4 December 2006. And we’re concerned – as I am sure many of you are – about the effects of the coup on the national economy.

So what is the way forward?

For our part, Australia strongly supports the consensus which was reached at the recent Pacific Islands Forum Foreign Ministers meeting in Vanuatu.

In one of the key outcomes of the meeting, Ministers agreed to set up a joint working group to engage with the interim government including on credible mechanisms for returning Fiji to democracy as soon as possible. I attended the first meeting of that group in Suva yesterday. It’s too early to say whether it will provide us with a way forward.

Australia is willing to assist Fiji move towards early elections. This offer of assistance, however, is conditional on respect for human rights and a credible roadmap for the restoration of democracy.

Of course, we understand that elections in themselves are not the be all and end all – there are issues in this country that will not be resolved by an election.

Nor does Australia or the region pretend to know all the answers to Fiji’s problems. Your country has a unique set of issues, and whatever arrangements the people of Fiji determine for themselves, they will be your arrangements.

It does seems to me, however, that Fiji is urgently in need of rebuilding a sense of common ground – cultural, political and social – of rebuilding trust in its broadest sense.

So even if elections are not sufficient in themselves, in our view they are a necessary part of this process.

Let me sum up by saying that Australia wants to continue playing a constructive role in your country’s development. The people of Australia continue to have a strong affection for this country. We have many common interests at stake. Many of you already have family members living in Australia, just as thousands of my countrymen and women live in or visit Fiji each year. I am sure that in the future our societies will be increasingly interpenetrated and our economies increasingly integrated.

It should be understood that we are not on anyone’s side. I would like to think that we’re on the side of those things that unite and bond communities and that help build trust – respect, opportunities for young people in a growing economy, and the rule of law.

I know that your organisation is not a political body. But I know that the Sangam is also working towards many of those same ends in a constructive and compassionate spirit. And in this day and age above all, at this critical time in the history of Fiji, I believe that the work of the Sangam is vitally important as your nation confronts and seeks to overcome the enormous challenges it faces. For that I salute you.

May the TISI Sangam continue its good work for many, many years to come.

Thank you.