Anti-Kava Propaganda

Aloha my online friends!

It makes me angry when any group, whether they be religious or political, attempts to infringe on other people’s freedom. As you all well know, I am an advocate of kava use as a way to soothe one’s soul and attune one’s focus. I recently discovered that the New Methodist Church in Fiji began to preach against the “evils” of kava consumption.

I consider myself to be a very spiritual person. However, I do not follow any particular organized religion, although I am very supportive of peoples’ rights to pursue any religion or spiritual path they choose. That also goes for their right to imbibe kava as a healthful way to relax and unwind after a long day.

The native Hawaiian religion, which I grew up in and around, has greatly influenced my spirituality. “Hawaiian religion” is really just a blanket term used to describe the traditional spiritual beliefs and practices of the Hawaiian people.

The principle I have most identified with in the Hawaiian religion is that spirits are found in non-human beings and objects such as animals, the ocean, the sky, the sun and the moon. I’m very interested in shamanic rituals, the significance of spirit animals, and the power of the universe. I am especially drawn to the moon and have a very special, life-long connection to it.

Leaders of the New Methodist Church in Fiji have been railing against the “evils” of kava consumption. The Church’s General Superintendent Senior Pastor Atu Vulaono said in a Fiji Times article that many leaders preach against drunkenness, and talk about young people going out to clubs and doing drugs, yet live in apparent hypocrisy, since these community and religious leaders are themselves getting “drunk” on kava.

“Kava is like a grandfather to all these things. They should not fool themselves,” Vulaono is quoted as saying in the article. He claims that the New Methodist Church is the fastest growing denomination in Fiji with its numbers exceeding 10,000.

I believe he is simply using kava as a scapegoat for drug abuse. He also links issues like unwanted pregnancies, broken families, glue sniffing, and poverty to kava and suggests that Fiji must go back to be ruled by the word of “the Lord”.  If that is the case, why then did the Lord put kava on this great green earth of ours?

I found the next day’s news following the end of the conference amusing. Kava stands and bars in and around the facility where the New Methodist Church convention was held reported record sales of kava during the convention. Reading that made me giggle. I love to laugh!

One vendor said that kava was his number-one seller, with food trailing far behind at number two. He actually ended up replacing a food concession stand with a kava bar because business was so good. The reports I read stated that 50 percent of the people living in the town that hosted the conference benefited from its business.

What followed was the announcement that Methodist church ministers were ordered to stop drinking kava. There are more than 500 clerics and thousands of lay preachers of this church, which boasts the largest Christian denomination in Fiji. The order went out that they should abandon their traditional, cultural kava practices, because it “affected the spiritual lives of their flock,” and that “the abuse of yaqona would destroy lives.” Yaqona is the name of the traditional kava drink of Fiji.

This is anti-kava propaganda, plain and simple, and it is designed to inspire fear of retribution and deflect from the real problems of “their flock” – those of drinking and drugging. If more people would drink kava, possibly they would stop using drugs. There are studies on this topic which I will share with you sometime in the future. But for now, I must go check on the farm.

Aloha no!
Makaira

Be Sociable, Share!

•