Musings on Lord Haw Haw

By Michael Field

A blog-site with nine readers in Brazil and 36 in Singapore has attacked me.

I know this because its Master, DipTchgMAWell,PhDMassey, of a Retired Kapiti Coast address, suffers such vanity that he feels the need to tell us all of who is reading his words.

That he attaches the word “emeritus” to his name adequately rounds out the picture of a chap anxious not to be forgotten.

As it is, DipTchgMAWell,PhDMassey’s attack on me, sponsored by the Fiji Military Council would have largely gone unnoticed. But people who sign their name, and who can be verified (in notable contrast to the Plague of Anonymous on the website in question) have suggested it might be useful if I respond.

One of the reasons I am unfussed by DipTchgMAWell,PhDMassey is the fact that I have long experience of the type.

White chaps telling Natives what is good for them.

Over years of reporting in the Pacific I’ve come across them more than once.

They come from obscure little places, like Palmerston North, and are mostly unnoticed. They then get a job in a Pacific Place Of Natives, and suddenly it is House Girls (of the native variety mostly) to cook the meals and as they earn tax free aid dollars, keep the new gin cabinet stacked. And of course all this from a rent free New Zealand aid funded house.

Back in Palmy they’d be drinking DB.

They are men – always men – from little places who believe that the best way to treat the Natives is to give them good old fashion discipline.

And of course they have a severe dose of the Do As I Say, Not Do As I Do, about them.

Thus, our friend DipTchgMAWell,PhDMassey thinks it superb that Voreqe Bainimarama is cutting the pensions of uppity Native Pensioners who disagree with him.

Discipline, that's what them there Natives need.

Mr, err Doctor DipTchgMAWell,PhDMassey also collects a pension. But unlike the Uppity Natives he also lives in a democracy where theft from pensioners is regarded as down right low.

Dr DipTchgMAWell,PhDMassey spends much of his life hailing the achievements of the Little Commodore (do his house boys pay the cheques to support this little blog?), but, and here is the rub, he does not live under the regime.

No, DipTchgMAWell,PhDMassey happily lives in New Zealand, feasting off the New Zealand taxpayer while berating the Uppity Fiji Natives for wanting the same kind of democracy.

Golly, DipTchgMAWell,PhDMassey even gets to vote. White Man Vote. Nothing for the Pushy Natives.

And lets be clear here, what  DipTchgMAWell,PhDMassey is doing is something most of the people of Fiji are not allowed to do: express honest opinion.  

So, let us review his Tax Payer funded Blog in which, doing Bainimarama’s bidding, he assails me – and attracts a lot of Anonymous support – err, is that Mrs DipTchgMAWell,PhDMassey , or is it Frank?

In his fevered account, I am “fearless” in my coverage of the democracy movement in Tonga. This is rather silly; I just kind of think that the untitled of Tonga might have the right to vote.

Just as DipTchgMAWell,PhDMassey does.

Apparently I cannot see the difference between the 1987, 2000 and 2006 coups in Fiji. This is amusing, although if you’ve backed a particular coup, as DipTchgMAWell,PhDMassey plainly has, then I guess all other coups look bad. I just prefer the simple option; they were all bad.

According to the blog I have made “libellous comments on a former Fiji Attorney-General”. This is news and worthy of a separate break out report. I’ve never been sued by a Fiji Attorney-General, and never been found to have carried out a libel.

But I live in hope, one day.

Apparently my “mainstream colleagues must be embarrassed” by me.

Name one.

Oh dear, I have been harsh on Nazhat Shameem.

I have a message Mr DipTchgMAWell,PhDMassey; Not by half have I been harsh – the information I have on her suggests I have been kind and forgiving.

This Gin Cabinet fellow does not like the fact that I have attacked the Military Council’s Crime Decree. He says, with all the breathlessness of a boy, that it was from a draft produced by Qarase.

So how is this acceptable?

At least Qarase was elected; the draft would have faced Parliament. The Crimes Decree is forced upon people by the gun.

Apparently, and take a gasp here, “all relevant bodies were consulted”… golly. 

What about the voters?

DipTchgMAWell,PhDMassey never got near a treason trial. He does not know what he is talking about. DipTchgMAWell,PhDMassey  is an academic - "well-published" he tells us repeatedly - who hasn't been on the front line of anything.

He says sacking and overthrowing a constitution is the equivalent of levying an act of war.

Well, apart from this silly Kapiti retiree’s indictment of the Bainimarama regime, is he also saying that his Paymaster levied war?

I don't think he would like that?

Unlike DipTchgMAWell,PhDMassey I was in the court for every day of Silatolu and Nata.

DipTchgMAWell,PhDMassey was restocking.

As for his defence of the Fiji Times indoctrination session, I can barely be bothered.

This is a man who has never entered a newsroom in his life.

I know the form, I know the routine.

He does not.

Fiji's journalists, for the most part, have sold out. Certainly the management of the Fiji Times and the Fiji Sun are with the programme now. Frank's programme. 

DipTchgMAWell,PhDMassey says it was a “workshop”. Well, forgive me; such delicate words.

He misses the point. As he genuflects at the feet of Bainimarama, he defends the censorship and oppression of journalists.

He says “one might have thought that as a fellow journalist he would have recognized just how difficult it is for Fiji journalists to write stories in the present circumstances….”

That is because the very regime that he defends has thugs and gunmen now censoring journalists. Get it wrong, and they take you up to QEB and beat you up.

That does not happen in Kapiti Retirement Village DipTchgMAWell,PhDMassey.

And he reveals that corrupt and time serving Paul Madigan was there too, sharing with journalists… the man who was supposedly objectively trying to work out whether somebody tried to assassinate Bainimarama.

Journalists did not ask about that?

Where was DipTchgMAWell,PhDMassey when the guns were being carried down Suva streets, threatening the population?

Sigh, its all too hard.

Where is the housegirl, its time for another G & T....

6 March 2010