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An interesting Article from Islands Business Website
What lack of vision for a genuine Pacific community, integrated not just through trade, but the sporting glue that binds together the diverse peoples of our planet, as equals.
Dr Wadan Narsey
Two more years have gone by since the application by the Pacific Islanders (Fiji, Samoa and Tonga) to join the Super 12 competition was rejected.
Yet another two teams from Australia and South Africa were accepted (to make it Super 14).
The Australian and New Zealand governments went “Tut tut. Sorry, nothing we governments can do. Purely commercial decision. And it’s just a game”.
What hypocrisy! What ruthless colonial behaviour!
What lack of vision for a genuine Pacific community, integrated not just through trade, but the sporting glue that binds together the diverse peoples of our planet, as equals.
“Donors preaching”
For decades now, Australia and New Zealand, as “donors”, have thrusted economic advice down our throats.
You must have free trade, free competition. Stop the protection of local industries so consumers can have better choice (including better Australian and New Zealand goods). Focus on “comparative advantage”—“do what you are good at”.
But when it comes to the Super 14 rugby industry, these principles are kicked right out of the grounds.
Competitive Pacific Islanders
All know that Fijians, Samoans and Tongans have a comparative advantage in rugby. Look at the endless stream of our stars who play in the Super 14.
All know that our Pacific Islanders team, despite its lack of preparation and resources, has already proven its “competitiveness” with the Super 14 teams, even beating a few.
But sorry, our team cannot be allowed into the Super 14. We keep getting rejected by the Australian and New Zealand monopolies and guilds, supposedly, on “commercial” grounds.
But the Super 14 home matches of their smaller teams don’t make much money either. And that has never been an argument for shutting them down, has it?
And how can the Australian and New Zealand governments claim they cannot interfere in rugby, when they intervene daily in and for virtually every industry, including sports and rugby which receives huge public funding?
Restrictive trade practise
While preaching free trade to us, the Australian and New Zealand governments turn a blind eye to their own restrictive trade practise in rugby.
Annually, the best raw talent from Fiji, Samoa and Tonga are snared by the Australian and New Zealand rugby unions but our finished product, the Pacific Islanders team, is excluded.
If our players want to be considered for the All Blacks, they have to give up their availability for the Island nations—restrictive trade by any interpretation. Tough luck if the poor boys don’t actually make it to the All Blacks.
End result: the Islands rugby nations are deprived of some their brightest stars, when it comes to national duty, including the World Cup.
Our national teams then don’t do well at the World Cup, where Australians and New Zealanders proudly “prove” their supremacy by thrashing the “second tier” teams, who have not got their best players, and who have not been able to benefit from being part of the competitive Super 14.
A Pacific rugby vision?
Why cannot the donors see the potential economic benefits of including a Pacific Islander team in their Super 14 competition?
Their “home” matches, in rotation in Fiji, Tonga and Samoa, would not only generate large economic benefits for the players and rugby infrastructure, but hugely benefit the tourism industries (on which our future rests–as all donors admit).
Their five-star resorts could give subsidised accommodation to the visiting teams as part of the Super 14 deal.
There could be special packages for the hordes of rugby supporters from Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific countries themselves.
Television coverage of the rugby stars around the resorts, the great sandy beaches, the gorgeous reefs, would alone provide a huge boost to the islands tourism.
Imagine the excitement for the world viewers of rugby to see Super 14 matches rotated in the exotic Pacific islands?
And it would be competitive
The Pacific Islanders do not want automatic entry. At the end of the season, they can challenge the last two Super 14 teams from Australia and New Zealand.
If they win either, the Pacific Islanders go in. And after that they will be subject to the same rules as the others.
This is what happens to the South African Super 14 teams. The same thing happens in English soccer.
The fear of being relegated provides a phenomenal catalyst to encourage all teams to fight to the bitter end, to the last game of the year.
Lack of visionary leaders?
The Australian and New Zealand governments assist the less developed parts of their own countries with investment in infrastructure (including sports) to try to integrate them into their national economy and society.
It is always a slow process and there continues to be weaknesses in their regional development policies.
So why cannot they do the same to assist the Pacific Islanders to join the Super 14? Especially when it makes such economic sense for the islands economies?
And what about the cliché “nations that play together, bond together”?
Aaah. But we forget. Fifty years ago, rugby was also one of the common bonds of the “pioneering” white races of New Zealand, Australia and South Africa.
Their alleged pioneering spirit was not only in taming undeveloped colonial lands but also subjugating the indigenous “inferior” black races (a few of whom have crept into the noble game).
We also forget that the current perennial Pacific Islands Forum Leaders meetings at five-star resorts and the regional organisations who service them, are financed ultimately by the “donors”.
So the only times that Howard and Clark sit down together with the islands’ brown and black leaders are as “superior donors” and “inferior recipients”. Never as “equals”.
But they would not feel very superior, would they, if they were sitting together with Islands leaders watching not just one Jonah Lomu, but a whole Pacific Islander team beat the stuffing out of their Australian or New Zealand Super 14 team?
Perhaps that’s the heart of the matter. Not economics and commerce. But the remnants of an old racism, pure and simple, towards the Pacific Islands.
In race relations, New Zealand has come a long way since the bad old days. Australia has barely moved.
But deep down, as in their economic and political relations, Australian and New Zealand political leaders just have no vision of a future in which all Pacific Islanders, rich and poor, skilled and unskilled, are genuinely equal members of a South Pacific community.
Or do they?