ELLA KAUHUE Still Doesn't Get it!

Dear Editor,

I find the writings of Mr. Daukalia and Ella Kauhue very interesting and somewhat strange and I wish share my own thoughts regarding the issue of women leadership in Solomon Islands and what I perceived to be the most misunderstood terms in this whole debate.

Mr. Daukalia’s writing is reminiscent of Christian fascism of a bygone era in which theocratic leaders spoke of an absolute authority beyond the sky and used that to justify their greedy, evil motives. In fact, this view was the reason why Christian Europeans invaded South America and the rest of the world, claiming it to be a justifiable mission from the “god” of the Bible. To quote the Bible as the authority by which political leaders ought to be determined is dangerous in my view. Mr. Daukalia wrote that the Bible doesn't not teach juvenile and female leadership, but what he missed from the same book is that the hero of the Jewish nation and according to the Bible (David) was chosen as a young boy working in the fields, and world history is full of women leaders (emperors and queens).

To use the scriptures to shut-up the innocent women and youths of Solomon Islands is an abuse of the Bible. All humans have the capability of being rulers and history is full of examples of women and youth leaders. Passionate writers like Mr. Daukalia whose name appears almost daily on the Star newspaper, must not abuse the scriptures, nor should he ever considered poking fund of the efforts of our youths.

On the other hand, Ella Kahue still doesn’t get it. Throughout her campaign for women to enter Parliament through the back door (10 Reserved Parliamentary Seats); she made some very interesting and rather disturbing editorials on so-called “Rights of Women”. Her perceptions on leadership wrapped around conventions and International Agreements which our nation endorsed. She has not laid a proper argument—a legal or constitutional view or a compelling argument as to why women should receive special treatments in the electoral/political processes of SI. Because of her lack of proper constitutional, legal persuasive argument, she is nothing more than a radical feminist whose views espouse the mentality in which Marxism came to being. The idea that wealth, leadership, and power must be shared equally and that fairness must be attained in all classes of society. In fact, these notions didn’t survive and history bears witness to that flawed philosophy or ideology.

Let us be honest here, how many Solomon Islanders ever contemplated the words “Fair” and “Equality” and their raw meanings and applications? The two words, in my view, are the most abused words in the world of Politics. Fair and Equal often been used to bring down governments and destroy classes in society. They are often used to attack people’s hard works and their achievements in life. The truth is, nothing is fair in this world, and yes nothing is equal in any democratic society. If so-called fairness forced into fabric of our society in the manner in which Kauhue envisions, we will ALL be policemen, accounts, doctors, degree holders, rich, have the same IQ etc. If we force equality in the very hearts of our society, we would not have schools—no need for classes, no grades, nothing! There would be no elections, nor there a Parliament. Ever thought of that? Do you realize that using these two words arbitrarily to make a political statement is in fact an assault on the very fabric of our democratic society?

Democracy provides ALL citizens equal opportunity and fairness at the start-point—as a tool to empower us as actors in the political process, but not every citizen (contestants) gets to the other side at the same time and at the same rate. This is where Kauhue is completely strayed in her portrayal of our country. In her reply to Daukalia, Kauhue wrote that Solomon Islands is still the worst in terms of equal gender representation in Parliament. Where did you get that idea from? Straight out of Mao Zedong’s little red hand-book? You need to do more studies on the essence of democracy because democracy gives everyone the same opportunity (equal right) to participate, but no short-cuts. It is obvious that our Feminist movement is advocating a communist like approach to our parliamentary system and is trying to redefine democracy and its applications. Unless otherwise, our system is designed in a way that women are prohibited to vote, which is not true in our case.

The Feminist movement around the world is nothing more than a war against democratic society in which class, leadership, and personal achievement are seen as evil. The history of the movement goes back to the 18-20^th century in which women sought to include women in a males dominated world. The movement began to take strong hold in the heart of Britain by the writings of Virginia Woolf. In her book, ‘A Room for One’s Own’ she wrote, “Women are simultaneously victims of themselves as well as victims of men and are upholders of society by acting as mirrors to men". It takes another 40 years for the movement to take a strong real effect that resulted in the rights of Women to vote in United States. However, this movement had been hijacked by radicals who look to control world politics on the guise of women’s right. Even in places such as Churches where women played little part, authors of the Bible are been attacked and slowly, churches began to give in to women preachers, Bishops, pastors, evangelists, etc. Interestingly, men are a great proponent to this movement. Why is that? It is a powerful tool for one’s own gains. They aren’t afraid of challenging the norms, even if their political views and strategies are unconstitutional. Such is the notion adopted today by our women. Their truest strategy is to attack the government when we all know that the government doesn’t determine who is a Parliamentarian and who is not.

The truth is that Solomon Islands, which Kauhue portrays as the worst country in terms of gender rights, provides everyone the rights to worship, the right to speech, and the right to vote—including the right of all able people, including women, to compete in elections through a process called “election”. In fact, women have contested in the past years and many more have competed in the last two elections. You don’t see this freedom in most countries in the Middle East and in many Communist nations, and in some cases, Africa. Our country recognizes these conventions, but these conventions call for the protection of the rights of women in aspects of all society; not tools to tear down any national constitutions nor are they anti-democratic agreements. To use these conventions as campaign tools, or tickets to circumvent the electoral process, is indeed disturbing. These agreements or conventions do not, in my opinion, condone attacks on the democratic process of any democratic nation, but unless! But if I am wrong, our country should never support any conventions that threatened the balance of our society!

Finally, Kauhue should fight this battle in a different way. She should fight to undo the voting culture of our country. Unlike Australia where people vote according to Party places Solomon Islanders vote according to family units and tribal affiliations and that is another fact! Regardless of how rich a person is, male or female, the outcome determines by family relatives’ ballots. Let use this scenario: Two voters, a man and a woman, walk in to voting poll. The man recognizes that her aunt box sits there. He walks over and put her ballot inside her box. The woman on the other hand sees her uncle and a female box. She takes her ballot and puts it inside her uncle’s box.. At the end of the day, if the voters’ proportion is 40 male and 40 women, the outcome would be highly unlikely to be a tie, and that’s a fact! When Kauhue learned that all female competing in Malaita elections lost, she blamed the system when she knew that female don’t vote for women. The gender argument Kauhue had been perpetuating here is rather flawed and one that is extremely radical. Her arguments are skewered in that she manipulated the truth.

I commend all women who will contest this year. Let voters decide who should be in Parliament at the end of the year and who should not. This is the beauty of our democracy and if we want to change anything it ought to be our voting behaviors, and not the electoral process.

Good luck

Dzanie Sa’omoana