View from the West

I have a confession to make.

Lately, I’ve been obsessed about those Asian Subterranean Termites and how they’ve caused so much destruction in our western suburbs here in Fiji.

They burrow with almost silent but deliberate fervor in our homes, ceilings and fruit trees, leaving a trail of minute holes which leak fine “wood powder”.

Like most Western homeowners, I often self-indulge in fanciful thoughts wishing some bank would cushion our financial losses by generously converting that powder into gold dust!!

Seriously, however, one has to marvel at how termites invade our midst without our realising it, feed off our investment, devalue our net worth and once they’ve had their fill, swarm off to form another colony somewhere else in the neighbourhood.

Sadly, my obsession with the little parasites has left me wondering whether they’ve also chiseled neurological schisms into my brain, causing havoc with my ageing biological wiring system.

I find myself perplexed, trying to distinguish between “insect” and what appears in my mind’s eye as two-legged human “termites” wandering this tropical land of ours – our New Fiji.

Take for example the widely publicised determination within Fiji’s Social Democratic Liberal Party (SODELPA), described in some circles as a Fijian ethno-nationalist political party, to ferret out rebel rousing “moles” who leak party secrets to the whole world.

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