Problems of media freedom and access to information Featured
Letter to the Editor
Problems of media freedom and access to information
Dear Editor,
RE. ARTICLE ON PROBLEMS OF MEDIA FREEDOM AND ACCESS TO INFORMATION
What a very very sad news, both in fact and in effect, a very sad news indeed.
May I humbly ask that you consider my response to, and reflection on, the above-named truly alarming and disturbing article for publishing on Nepituno Online News. I wish to begin by posing a few key questions, and making some basic reflections, both of which are of strict grave concerns.
Where the hell is the very heart of democracy, informed by good governance (or good leadership), viz., transparency, accountability, equality, and justice which PM ‘Akilisi Pohiva unrelentingly preached for the past twenty-five odd years before he became PM for a few years now, when he has unsurprisingly made a complete 360 degrees turn?
In fact, PM Pohiva (and PTOA) problematically adheres to the “technicality” rather than the “legality,” i.e., the rule of law, underpinning the constitutive elements, viz., transparency, accountability, equality, and justice of the so-called good governance (or good leadership), which define the very essence of democracy as a specific form of freedom.
Although we are directly concerned here with an important aspect of freedom squarely expressed in the constitution (and the law), viz., freedom of speech yet his highly suspect mode of operation as PM and leader is total in its distributive effects, thereby adversely affecting all forms of freedom.
As a result, PM Pohiva has over the years slowly but surely become “anti-everything” and “anti-anything,” especially when things do not serve his self-interests (as opposed to those of the whole of Tonga), as in the case of anti-establishment, anti-culture, anti-royalty, anti-aristocracy, anti-education, anti-sports and, more recently, anti-religion and so on and so forth.
It is effectively clear that these unconstitutional and unlawful (but immorally wicked and unethically evil) ways of PM Pohiva (and PTOA) constitute what can be taken as bad governance (or bad leadership). This led to the first-ever, historic dissolution of the House of Parliament in 2017 through a just royal command by HM King Tupou VI as a necessary exercise of his constitutional (and legal) rights.
Given the rate in which things are going now, there are obvious signs that PM Pohiva (and PTOA) are well and deep right into dictatorship and oligarchy as the very opposite of good governance (and good leadership) as true democracy, defined by reason and love of freedom!
Yours faithfully,
Pouono
4 comments
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People who grew up without anything and still do not have anything end up being anti-anything and anti-everything. They have developed over the years a great dislike and hatred to those who grew up with everything. They are nobodies with strong desires to be somebodies. But they can't be a somebody because everybody who is somebody don't want them to be anybody. So they end up being anti-everybody and pro-nobody.
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Rightly so and spot on Senolita Swan! PM 'Akilisi Pohiva is both a bona-fide Communist and a pseudo (ill-informed) Marxist. Communism is Marxism taken to the extreme, and it duly involves both revolution and creation of a classless society. The case of Tonga is by and large one of physically-enforced coercion and emotionally-led persuasion (and not intellectual and practical understanding and enlightenment) But is a classless society at all possible? There cannot be a classless society, and is not a classless society really a cultureless one?
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GOOD GOVERNANCE LEADERSHIP: A GUISE FOR PM’s “GANGSTER”-SHIP. We could call it the tactics of dictatorship, communism, undemocratic, tyranny and even gangster-style leadership. Akilsi Pohiva gave the people “AN OFFER THEY COULD NOT REFUSE.”
He used “good governance” in speeches but knows nothing what it means, The people could not refuse such an offer. Like Eve in the Garden of Eden who could not refuse the offer from the snake to eat the forbidden fruit: “Your eyes will be open...and you’ll be like God Himself”. Well Eve did not become like God, but she became mortal subjected to hardships and death. Now Akilisi Pohiva sits in the PM OFFICE unable to deliver on “good governance.” The people are now awakened to his deception.
Like a mobster boss who knows nothing else but violence and brute force must rely on “henchmen” (strong-arm men) to intimidate, threaten, scare, and coerce people to accept totalitarian rule by deception. Thus we have Piveni Piukala and his computer business partner PM’s son Siaosi Pohiva to terrorize the Dept of Ed with deceptive computer promises, and unelected Minister Tui Uata who removed experienced journalists from Tonga Broadcasting Commission - a form of suppressing free speech.
Now there’s no rule of law; only mobster-style rule. -
Mo'oni lahi Pouono. Ko Tonga he taimi ni koe kominiusi ia under Akilisi Pohiva. He is a dictator.