Off the Wall 31/12/14
Earlier this month I travelled to the island of Rabi. I
was accompanying the President-elect of the Methodist Church in Fiji, Rev.
Tevita Banivanua, his wife Bale, and had in tow a young production assistant
from our church department of communication and overseas mission. Rev.
Banivanua was stepping in for Interim Church President, Rev. Laisiasa
Ratabacaca to induct (install) the new Divisional Superintendent of the
Methodist Church’s Rabi Division.
The journey by boat to Rabi took twenty-four hours. As we
arrived at Rabi’s main jetty, we were greeted by a brass band. The band was
made up of young people from the village of Buakonikai, formerly known as
Vunisinu in the pre-settlement era. The Buakonikai Brass Band is in fact the
only brass band in the whole of the Northern Division of Fiji, and as such has
travelled the division for special events, including the Friendly North
Festival in Labasa. Despite being short on all the instruments and with the
instruments being used possibly older than me, the music was a rousing welcome
to our group, as well as those who also travelled on the ferry from Suva to
celebrate Rabi Day.
We were hosted at the residence of the Divisional
Superintendent of Rabi, Rev, Abute Abutarea in the village and circuit of
Tabwewa, one of four villages (the others being Uma, Tabiang and Buakonikai) on
the island, which are named after the four villages on the island of Banaba (known
also as Ocean Island) the ancestral home of the Banaban people in what is now
known as Kiribati. The fifth circuit (or parish) of the Methodist Rabi division
is Ketetemane in Toorak, Suva, while other Banaban Methodist communities exist
in Lautoka and Labasa.
After a traditional welcome and refreshments in the
Emanuera Maneaba (Tabwewa’s traditional meeting house) we sat and had a talanoa
with Rev. Abutarea and some of the Tabwewa community. This was a special time
for the Banaban community, not only because of Rev. Abutarea’s induction on
Sunday, but because the following day, Monday 15th December was Rabi
Day, commemorating the arrival of the first of the Banaban people on Rabi
sixty-nine years ago.
The story of the Banaban people’s arrival is similar to
the arrival of the Indentured Labourers or Girmitiyas from India in that there
is not only a displacement of people for financial gain (although each
situation is different) but also in that their stories are often glossed over
as “settlement”stories. I grew up at a time when we were taught that the “”Indians
came to work as sugar cane farmers for the British settled in Fiji for a better
life” and that the “Banabans settled in Rabi because of over-mining for
phosphate on Ocean Island”. This simplistic story belies the structural evil
that took place in both situations. Despite growing up in Fiji and having
Banaban friends and colleagues and a wife with i-Kiribati connections, I was
ashamed that coming from a minority which had experienced a not dissimilar
colonial oppression, I had a lot to learn about the Banaban story.
The discovery of A-grade phosphate on Banaba in 1900 led
to the British annexation of thee island and commencement of mining. By the
time mining operations ceased in 1979, twenty-one million tons of phosphate had
been removed – thirteen million tons of it scattered across the farms of
Australia. The Banabans received a 15 per cent share of the profit. In order to
gain more access to the land the British proposed the resettlement of the
Banaban people.
Following World War Two and the Japanese occupation of
the island the islanders were finally removed. The Japanese had already moved the
majority of the Banaban population to Tarawa, Kosrae and Nauru.
According to the story I was told, the Banaban elders
were shown photographs of a town with two-storey houses and told that this was
Rabi, their new home. The photographs were fake. In fact they were photographs
of Levuka. Duped by the British authories, they agreed to relocate. The majority
of the population arrived in Rabi on 15th December 1945, finding no double
storey houses but only tents beside the beach and two to three months of
rations. It was also the middle of the cyclone season.
In an article titled, “Peripheral visions? Rabi Island in
Fiji's general election” from the book, Fiji
Before the Storm: Elections and the Politics of Development, Dr. Teresia
Teaiwa described the Banaban people as a “peripheral minority” in two ways,
“the way Rabi exists for the most part in the peripheral vision of the nation,
and the way the nation occupies the periphery of Rabi Islanders' imagination.”
She adds:
“Many Fiji Islanders are uncertain about whether Rabi
island is part of Fiji or not, and whether Rabi Islanders are Fiji citizens. Many
people have asked me whether Rabi is in Kiribati, and whether Rabi Islanders
have dual citizenship. Rabi Islanders are Fiji citizens who are entitled to a
'permanent
residency' status if they entered Kiribati on a Fiji
passport, because Banaba falls within the national boundaries of Kiribati. It
bears repeating, though, that Rabi Islanders are Fiji citizens.”
As we prepare to enter a new year, standing on the
threshold of 2015, the question that comes to mind is how do we weave a nation
that is aware of each strand on the mat on which we all sit? Each of the
strands is important as the next. Each has its own story, its own value which
adds to the value of the mat. The finer the mat, the more strands and the
richer the value.
I sat on a mat in the maneaba in Tabwewa. It was lunch
time on Sunday, following the induction service. All the food was laid out for
the guests. We sat and waited. Then the food for everyone else was laid out.
Then everyone sat together and ate together. When we were finished, we waited
for those who had been singing to eat while those who had been eating sang.
When we were all finished and every group had shared their expression of
gratitude, only then did we disperse.
I sat on a stage in the main park. It was the celebration
of the 15th of December arrival. As I watched the young people share
their painful history in song and dance, I thought of the lunch the day before.
It was for me a reminder of the communal, open table fellowship practiced by a
man from Palestine whose birth we celebrated just last week.
In 2015 let us make an effort to value each strand in the
mat of our nation. After all, each of us seeks to sit on it.
May you have a peaceful and enlightening 2015.
“Simplicity, Serenity, Spontaneity”
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