Man of God

Dharmendra Kumar, Suva

Since pastors, preachers and church lead­ers are influential people they must ensure that before they speak from the pulpit they must speak only the truth and preferably only from the scriptures.

The leader of the Catholic Church in Fiji Archbishop Peter Loy Chong has apolo­gised for giving factually wrong and mis­leading figures to his flock.

I am confused. What was his real motive? When things happen that you cannot un­derstand…….understand, there is a reason for every occurrence. God knows the best.

“For nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither anything hid, that shall not be known and come abroad.”

Fiji Day

Dhirendra Prasad, Lautoka

Fiji Day is a time to enjoy. It is also to re­flect upon our input in the success or oth­erwise for this nation.

Firstly our flag needs respect. Just by standing we are showing our united feel­ings for our nation when a flag ceremony is being conducted.

This standing signifies our commitment, dedication and reverence in terms of our practices in our daily life. However, there are many who ignore this activity at our schools during flag ceremonies. All in the name of rushing back to work or time con­straints. I salute the Police and the mili­tary bases for their commitment to flag ceremonies regularly.

I suggest that this ceremony be made compulsory at all work places to embed the essence of patriotism.

Being patriotic means that we would keep our homes and kin under control, keep our environment clean, manage our garbage with extreme care, follow the policies and laws of our nation diligently, respect the existence of common identity, promote healthy lifestyles and set exemplary rou­tines of time management and love for educational attainment.

The Government can only provide the re­sources, but it is us, the citizens, who have to promote the essence of good citizenship in our young ones.

Merrymaking is just one-off stuff, but the effects of such celebrations should be reflected in our daily actions in terms of words spoken, work commitment and dis­play of feelings for other human beings.

Natural justice should also be considered as a prioritised factor in nation building. There are many of our own who are suf­fering from victimisation, neglect, seg­regation, degraded treatment, non-acces­sibility to basic needs and fear of being burgled in our own homes. By the way, our drivers need to reflect on their behaviour on our roads at this juncture and make a commitment to keep our roads safe. We are 48 years old, wow. Good luck to all Fijians. God bless Fiji.

World Rugby Union Council

Taitusi Sokiveta, Phoniex, Arizona

The World Rugby Union Council Board should not have some kind of qualification in order to become a member of the board.

You don’t have to go through a qualifica­tions assessment to qualify to represent your country as ambassador to the United Nations.

It’s the same thing with the Olympic com­mittees or governing body of FIFA which covers soccer around the world. You get nominated because your country is a ma­jor soccer playing nation like for Fiji it is rugby. This is a racial joke and it’s run by old men who came out of the apartheid era.The reason why Fiji or Tonga are not in the race is because it is run by these old white men who make up these racial poli­cies depriving Fiji from being a member of the World Rugby Council.

Look at its members how many people of colour or women are in it? With the number of international Fiji rugby play­ers throughout the 20th century and this century even winning an Olympic gold medal in rugby for Fiji, they don’t need a qualification to be a World Rugby Council member.

They should already be a member of the World Rugby Council in the 1930s when Fiji went on an undefeated tour of New Zealand.

This World Rugby Council needs to be looked at by the Security Council of the United Nation and their policies should be investigated. There is something not right with this World Rugby Council and its pol­icies and why a country of colour like Sa­moa is just now allowed to join their board member yet they have being playing rugby as long as Fiji.

Also why all these qualifications to be qualified to be a board member.? Did all the current board members go through the same qualification requirement when the World Rugby Council was formed and their delegates were nominated?

What’s so strange is that Brazil has been playing soccer, as long as Fiji has been playing rugby and is in the FIFA World Soccer Council and Fiji is not in the World Rugby Council.

The time is overdue to take this issue to the United Nations organisation. Why is Fiji being deprived of being a member of the World Rugby Council?

Mother tongue

Monita Devi Ram, Suva

Mother tongue is a language that identi­fies a person with their origin. It is sad to see that many people whom I’ve spoken to cannot speak their own language.

They say where they come from but do not speak the language. A language dies for many reasons and some of them are be­cause of cultural changes and migration.

In more ways than one you adapt to that place, learn of their food, language, tradi­tions and so the language you use becomes dormant.

Losing a language means losing critical knowledge about the linguistic group’s history, culture, or even knowledge about their local environment.

But languages can be preserved if it is spoken at home and added into the school curriculum, not just the indigenous lan­guage but others too.

Feedback: jyotip@fijisun.com.fj