Pacific

Fiji senator wants Fijian editions of the Bible destroyed

10:24 am on 12 May 2005

A senator appointed by Fiji's great Council of Chiefs and former finance minister has called for all current Fijian editions of the Bible to be taken off the shelves and burnt.

The Daily Post quotes Senator Jim Ah Koy as saying the word "Kalougata" used in the Fijian Bible is the cause of generational curses in Fiji because it represents the snake gods worshipped by the ancestors of present day Fijians.

Senator Ah Koy says he believes "coups, murders, rapes, violence, brutality, burglaries, incest, rebellion, homosexuality and other forms of social ills and criminality are a product of a generational curse happening mostly in the indigenous Fijian community."

He says all these things are brought upon the Fijian people by the constant use of the word "Kalougata."

Senator Ah Koy says "the devil has done a great job in perverting the Fijian Bible" so that every time Fijians wish somebody a blessing, they are "in fact calling down a curse on him."

He says the Bible Society should come up with new words to replace the offending words in the current Fijian Bible.

A former president of the Methodist Church deposed in the 1987 coups, the Rev Josateki Koroi, says he totally agrees with Senator Ah Koy.