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Samoa Observer not for sale
Your item (Islands Business October issue) claiming a Samoan newspaper
company is being offered for sale follows criticism we published of your
publisher's views on Samoa and Samoans. In case any of your readers have
been misled: The Samoa Observer newspaper group is NOT being offered for
sale. It is expanding. This includes our English-language Samoa Observer
now being published seven days a week, launch of a Samoan-language weekly,
and start of our own journalism school.
Our publisher, Muliagatele Jean Malifa, and editor-in-chief, Savea Sano
Malifa, will announce more developments soon.
Peter Lomas
Training and Development Editor
Samoa Observer Apia - ADVERTISEMENT -
Essence of failed states
In the October 2003 Islands Business, the editorial does less than justice
to your magazine. In a confused pan-nationalist rant, the editorial scribe
misunderstands the very essence of 'failed states'. For a state to 'fail',
its system of civil government and order must collapse. In this fashion,
the USSR and the Balkan states did indeed 'fail'Tuvalu, Tokelau and others
disappearing beneath rising global waters would not 'fail', but would
certainly be destroyed.
The column justifies saying that Fiji or Papua New Guinea could not fail
because they are too big, even though they are small by global standards.
However, at the same time, it is acknowledged that Yugoslavia and the
USSR failedwere those states not larger than any (or all!) of the Pacific
states? Obviously, size is irrelevant to this argument.
'Failure' will be due to corruption of government structures which is
unarguably occurring in a few Pacific states. If allowed to continue,
this will cause those states to 'fail'.
It is immoral to excuse this on the basis that failure can be followed
by success. What logic is that? The editorial chastises the United States
indirectly for killing innocent people in Afghanistan and Iraq, yet indirectly
assumes that this would be okay in the Pacific because we would 'try,
try again'!
Outrageous! Criticism is a nuisance but it can be useful. It is far better
for friends and neighbours of the Pacific to work together for prosperity
and justice for all in the region than to sit back and watch people suffer
and die as states 'fail'.
Ken Taylor
Auckland
New Zealand
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