THOSE DAMN FOREIGNERS!

It’s natural people get very upset with foreigners buying up their land.  Australia’s indigenes experienced much the same problem with all the Europeans who lobbed here, and to our east, native Fijians with those immigrants who arrived from the Asian sub-continent.  Fijians have come closer to solving the issue by demanding that land rent must be paid, but this is more honoured in the breach now by underassessment and exemptions, akin to those applying to Australian state land taxes. Therefore, Fijians were forced into taking anti-democratic action to retain what they believed to be their patrimony – their land. Whether Fiji can achieve a return to democracy without resolving its land question is open to question.

Maybe there is, indeed, deep social and economic philosophy behind that part of Leviticus–“Land must be rented, not sold, because you’re just passing through”–now dismissed by Jew and Gentile alike?  Could it be that something as ludicrous as The Bible might offer insights into territorial and land questions that have arisen throughout the Middle East, the Crimea, Ukraine, Ireland, England/Scotland/Wales, Spain/Catalonia, the US, Fiji – even Australia?