A Fiji senator says the government needs to change its focus from setting up the Reconciliation and Unity Commission to retranslating the Fijian Bible.
Jim Ah Koy says during a recent church sermon, it dawned on him that the current bible has been mistranslated by missionaries, and as a result God has cursed the country.
He says the word Kalou Gata, which has come to mean blessing, actually translates literally to the name of an ancestral snake god.
Mr Ah Koy says this is blasphemy, and the government needs to fund a new bible.
"Instead of this government, the Qarase government, spending millions of dollars on reconciliation and every different ministry changing this new bill that's coming before the house shortly, all these are a waste of time and money really. My belief is if they spent these hundreds of thousands of dollars in getting a Fijian bible reprinted expunging those words and finding new words to replace it, we would find a definite change. This is so simplistic, but I really believe it. Get rid of these old bibles and burn the present editions."
Jim Ah Koy says one solution is to change the questionable word to Kalou Soli, which means God who gives good gifts.
