Sunday, February 14, 2016

Good letter about the Fiji flag issue

    Allen Lockington, Mulomulo, Nadi | Saturday, February 13, 2016
Please allow me to give my one saqamoli worth towards the flag issue.
Here we go. How much will be spent on making a new flag? How much heartache will be caused? How many people want a new flag? Do we really need a new flag? What will happen to all the Fiji flags that the supporters of our 7s team have here and overseas, can we still use it? 
Then there are the articles, official and lay that have the Fiji flag emblazoned on them? How much will it cost to change all that?
Anyway, we have a team of friends who do charity work and we struggle to find funds, many times money comes out of our pockets.  This is not a complaint, but I am just stating facts. We sell raffle tickets and attend bazaars to raise funds for charity. We secured nebulizers from donors for the Lautoka Hospital and containers of goods after cyclones. Our partners overseas had to look around to find funds to pay for freight. Then we collected old wheelchairs and repaired them at our cost. And distributed them free to those who merited them. We were lucky to get crutches from the spinal injury organisation and thanks to them.
During our rounds assessing peoples' situation, we found so many families in out of the way places where aid has not reached, but we got there by four-wheel drive vehicles. And we do our best to give some comfort to these people.
For the record, I wonder why we didn't let go of the wig and other things British after independence? But that's another story.
How about we get rid of all things British now and, of course, the wig was uncomfortable. But keep the flag and get a poll to determine who wants it out. If the majority says get rid of it, then we do it. I think that's called democracy.
Then there are our hospitals. The outpatients department are always full. Doctors work their fingers to the bone. We need extra doctors.
So many questions so little time.
Can we shift the effort to things that matter most, please?

2 comments:

Pandabonium said...

This sort of thing should only be addressed by volunteers who committee at no cost to the public, then voted on during an election so as not to add that cost. I agree - a lot of more important things to work on.

Peceli and Wendy's Blog said...

And now with a raging hurricane that is enormous in its area and its potential for damage, there are more important concerns in Fiji than to design a new flag. Looks like this hurricane is covering the whole of Fiji!