I have seen FB, Twitter & Insta littered with post of Fijians asking why Fijians are so passionate about protests in the US about the BLM yet we ignore police brutality in Fiji. Somehow insinuating that we're complacent in our protests and only choose battles on SM & not at home.

Ironically, these are Fijians who don't live in Fiji, who migrated on their own, or for the fear of persecution by the regime. They migrated to countries where despite all the discrimination and injustices, the countries still have the rights to assembly, to protest and rally.

They are so used to people marching on the streets because of the freedoms they enjoy, that they don't realize the realities of Fijians living in Fiji under this Fiji First Government.

"People risk their lives everyday" they say. "Get off SM and do something" they say.

We live under a democratic dictatorship where draconian decrees have been passed into laws and continue to limit our freedom of assembly, right to protest and rally. We have institutions that are either headed by military personals or family members of the ruling party.

A convicted murderer heads our Corrections Department. Recently, he has been alleged for homophobia in the workplace. The Police Commissioner runs a department that has been constantly plagued with police brutality. While his stance in public is against that, there's no change.

The Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Commission (HRADC) the statutory body responsible for looking after and ensuring people's rights are not violated by state actors, spends more time defending the violations by the state than actually defending human rights in Fiji.

The HRADC day in and day out, through its Director, comes out with multiple theories and tests and reasonings on why people need to be content with a bigger passage of the limitations of the Bill of Rights in the Fijian Constitution.

The Government as a whole acts like a dictatorship where dissent gets you alienated publicly but toeing the party line/ narrative gets you in good books.

Every institution meant to protect and promote the civil rights and liberty of Fijians seem to be working against the people.

Our major political party is suspended because they can't get their own affairs in order. The 3rd political party is small and as an Opposition, they are not given much value it seems by the main Opposition Party. The Opposition participation in parliament is rendered useless...

... because of Standing Orders that don't work in their favor, the constant changing of Parliamentary rules to suit the government's agenda, the lack of capacity on the side of Oppostion to provide clear and concise discussion, the in party bickering that diverts attention...

... their inability to work as the alternate government and the overall shunning by government by including them in the bare minimum of parliamentary and democratic processes for the nation.

We have a minimum wage that requires a person to work for 3 hours to buy a packet of milk, 4 hours to buy a set of 5 shaving gear and 5 hours to buy gas. Lives of people are on paycheck to paycheck and we can't afford to lose jobs or take time off in a democracy where the...

... power of the workers and their unions have been reduced to almost nothing by taking away their rights, and freedoms of expressions an the power to negotiate. Where the value if the very workers that are the machinery of the nation live in constant worry about...

... job security and fear of speaking out. Where whistleblowing policies exist but there is no safety for the whistleblower, where workplace sexual harassment policies exist but women still face harassment, where environmental policies exist and we chair COP but our own...

... backyard is mired in environmental degradation that is overlooked by institutions and agencies that exist to look after them. That need the prompting of international media to get them off their arses and do their jobs.

And speaking of media. Legislations such as MIDA has effectively killed off investigative journalism leaving us with Fiji Sun articles trolling about "sex workers and their sugar daddies" as breaking news and editorial analysis and jousting by people who have no qualification...

... in the area they are analyzing.

A media industry that shows the bias in the print media, TV and radio extending to journalists who use their position to promote any one side in parliament.

Where the government tries to get the public to buy and consume information from...

... one paper that writes positively for them by providing them with millions in contract for government advertisements while bashing the other for being biased because they don't always report on the government in a positive light.

With all of these realities, and more, that Fijians here face, there is a reason why we have had to evolve in our way of advocacy, awareness and protests from physical to virtual, from organized groups on the streets to group chats, from the roads to the TL.

And this is why when Fijians living overseas take it on themselves to criticize Fijians in Fiji for complacency, because they overseas were able to take to the streets in a more free and democratic country, that the question of us versus them starts. Great.

You consider yourself Fijian despite not being here and you know your identities geographically, ethnically etc but YOU DON'T LIVE THE REALITIES OF FIJI. You don't get to demand people to take to the streets when we have found alternative means.

I write this thread because I love talking.

But also because I am tired of the self-righteous prick like attitude that some of you have lording it over Fijians in Fiji of how much you or others do in their country compared to us here. We do a lot thanks.

Waking up everyday and breathing is a form of protests in itself when you live at and around $2.68/ hour and the only breadwinner of an extended family.

When the very industry your ancestors have worked in for years have been destroyed but you still persevere because.

When we send our kids to school knowing that they are learning a whitewashed curriculum where your own history has ben censured and 2006 is not even mentioned and it is now on you to present the facts.

When you have been branded because of your ethnicity and race.

All countries in the world have their own problems and some of these still allow them to make a stand and protest. We don't. We don't have that luxury and we yearn for it so respect that there are people who talk about all these, despite it all, on SM atleast.