Case in point: over recent weeks there has been this upheaval in the parliament. The government side weren't getting something they wanted, and in protest a lot of government MPs boycotted the parliament sittings.
Finally the Speaker invoked a law which said if a member missed more than a prescribed number of consecutive sitting days, his seat was declared vacant. So he declared most of the government seats vacant – including those of the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minster!
Now if this had been South Africa, Fiji, The Solomon Islands, (America?) … going by the past you would have expected blood in the streets.
Not here in Vanuatu. The people are going about their daily business while they waited for the Supreme Court to process a decision and now, an appeal.
Yes, the people are intensely interested in what's happening, but despite their tribal (and cannibalistic) heritage they are content to wait for the rule of law to prevail. The decades of preaching non-violence by (so-called Christian) missionaries has taken hold to the extent that it over-comes.
When you are choosing a country for your second (or third?) citizenship or residency it's good to remember that it's not the problems that count so much as how those problems are dealt with.
Like the “Sorry Mat” – something I will talk about tomorrow.
Lance in (Paradise) Vanuatu
