ANU Press

Chapter Title: Making History, Becoming History

Book Title: Intersections

Book Subtitle: History, Memory, Discipline
Book Author(s): BRIJ V LAL
Published by: ANU Press. (2012)
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt24hbmh.6

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 Three
Making History, Becoming History

E
arly in March 1995, when the telephone call came from Mr Jai Ram
Reddy, Fiji’s Leader of the Opposition and the long-term leader of the
Indo-Fijian community, asking me to be his nominee on the Constitution
Review Com­mission, I was naturally overwhelmed. The appointment was not
unex­pected: I had been asked several months earlier about my willingness to
serve but the enormity of the task ahead dawned on me at that moment. Many
friends in Fiji had cautioned me. The review, they said, was a cha­rade, a cynical
exercise in public relations by a coup-tainted government eager to refurbish its
image in the eyes of the international community. Rabuka was still Rabuka:
leopards do not change their spots. The pres­ence of Tomasi Vakatora, a member
of the 1988 cabinet subcommittee whose recommendations had formed the basis
of the contested 1990 constitu­tion, proclaimed the government’s real intention.
But I was undeterred. At a celebratory dinner with friends that evening, my son
Niraj, then just eleven, piped up proudly. ‘Dad,’ he said innocently, ‘You have
taught history and written history. Now you can make history and then become
history.’ Nervous laughter greeted his remark.
Niraj was more prophetic than anyone of us realized. Four tumultuous
years after the commission completed its report, Fiji is back on the road to ruin.
The 1997 constitution, based on our commission’s report, unan­imously approved
by parliament, and blessed by the Great Council of Chiefs, lies in limbo.
A democratically elected government, with an abso­lute majority, was ousted by
a coup, the country subjected to a reign of terror and violence unprecedented in
Fiji’s history. The fabric of race rela­tions, just beginning to be repaired after years
of strain following the coups of a decade earlier, is in tatters. The economy is
down, and the best and the brightest are looking for greener pastures. The May
coup and the ensuing mayhem have taken Fiji back by a generation. As I write
(in November 2000), the people of Fiji are intensely debating the future political
direction of the country, including the formulation of a new constitution.
The Fiji saga has received more than its share of regional and interna­tional
notice. Coups attract attention, for there is something deeply unset­tling and

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 Making Histor y, Becoming Histor y

immoral about using the bayonet to overturn the verdict of the ballot box, not
once but thrice in thirteen years, the first two as tragedy, the third as farce.
Fiji’s situation highlights dilemmas faced by other mul­tiethnic countries in
the developing world. What framework of govern­ment is appropriate for
multicultural, multiethnic nations like Fiji (or Guyana or Malaysia)? How and in
what ways should the constitution of a country enlarge and enrich the common
space of equal citizenship without infringing on the unique and rich cultural
and spiritual traditions of the various components making up the larger society?
Fiji’s case also raises questions about the tension between the privileged claims of
the first set­tlers—the indigenous people—and those of the later arrivals. Should
the basis of political affiliation be blood rather than belief, primordiality rather
than ideology? Our commission provided a set of recommendations to resolve
these complex questions, but the latest coup-makers and their supporters did not
approve of them. A vision has vanished beyond recall.
Between the beneficiaries of the coup in the interim administration and those
deposed from power, a war of words is raging to win the hearts and minds of the
local people and of the international community. The deposed government insists
that any constitutional solution to the present crisis should be sought within the
framework of the 1997 constitution; its rein-statement is for them a prerequisite
for any future dialogue and reconcil­iation. But the coup supporters insist that the
1997 constitution is dead and buried and that a fresh start, favouring indigenous
Fijian interests and needs, is necessary to resolve the crisis. What the outcome
will be remains unclear. I am not convinced that the constitution has failed the
people of Fiji. More to the point, the people of Fiji have failed the constitution. It
will take many years of toil and tears to recover what Fiji has lost in its moment
of madness, just as it did following the 1987 coups.
The destroyers of the 1997 constitution have advanced many arguments to
support their cause. To begin with, George Speight and his supporters circulated
a twenty-six-point document to the Great Council of Chiefs soon after hijacking
parliament.1 Their main points were that the 1997 constitution was not in the
interests of the Fijian people, as seen in the rejection of it by a majority of the Fijian
provinces; that it was not prop­erly explained to the Fijian people; and that it was
introduced by stealth. The democratic principles that the constitution enshrines
were, in their view, foreign flowers unsuited to Fijian soil and antithetical to the
central tenets of indigenous Fijian society. They further claimed that Chaudhry
was ‘Indianizing’ the public sector by appointing more Indo-Fijians to senior
positions. Chaudhry, they said, had ‘a long history of arguing for racial equality
under the umbrella of democracy whilst pursuing an underlying secret agenda
of entrenching the interests of Indians in Fiji as supreme.’ The prime minister

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Intersections

(Chaudhry) was confrontational in his style and insen­sitive to Fijian interests

and concerns, particularly in relation to the ever-sensitive issue of land. His
government, they complained, had ‘contrib­uted to the impoverishment and
disaffection of indigenous Fijians and his rule was the culmination of thirty
fraught years of modern indigenous Fijian leadership that have sacrificed the
economic and cultural well being of Fijians for the advancement of a few.’ In
short, both the constitution and the government elected under it failed to serve
the interests of the indigenous people and so had to be removed by force. Speight
and his gunmen did what most Fijians had secretly desired. Speight should thus
be treated as a hero and not as a treasonous criminal.
There are two sets of issues here, one constitutional and the other polit­ical;
one involving the rules and regulations of government, and the other dealing
with the way the party in government promulgated policies prom­ised in their
election manifesto and handled the business of administration. The two have
often conveniently been conflated in Fiji, the shortcomings of the government
of the day hitched to the supposed shortcomings of the constitution, and the
constitution blamed for the outcome of the election. The coupling of the two
is a politically expedient but unconvincing ploy; they must be separated and
considered separately.
The 1997 constitution was not introduced by stealth, preceded as it was
by the most comprehensive process of review and consultation ever carried
out in Fiji, far more even than the 1970 constitution. This process began with
the appointment of the Constitution Review Commission.2 Its members were
chosen by parliament, which also drew up the commission’s terms of reference.
These required the commission to review the 1990 constitution and produce a
report recommending constitutional arrangements that would meet the present
and future needs of the people of Fiji; promote racial harmony, national unity,
and the economic and social advancement of all communities; take into account
internationally recognized principles and standards of individual and group
rights; guar­antee full protection and promotion of the rights, interests, and
concerns of the indigenous Fijian and Rotuman people; and have full regard for
the rights, interests, and concerns of all ethnic groups in Fiji.
The commission itself consulted widely. It travelled to all the provinces and
major settlements throughout the group and received well over eight hundred
written and oral submissions from individuals, non-government organizations,
church and community groups, and all the major political parties.3 These
submissions were printed in the media and broadcast over television and radio. The
commission also requested research papers from local as well as overseas experts
on the matters it was called to consider. These papers, too, were published.4 In

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 Making Histor y, Becoming Histor y

addition, the commission visited three countries with constitutional arrangements

that had some bearing on the Fiji case, including Malaysia, a multiracial country
with a significant indigenous population enjoying constitutionally guaranteed
affirmative action policies; Mauritius, a small island state in the Indian Ocean
whose constitutional structure had facilitated enviable economic growth that far
outstripped Fiji’s (although at the time of independence in 1968 it had lagged
behind Fiji in virtually every sphere); and South Africa which, in the mid-1990s,
was engaged in a massive effort to formulate an appro­priate constitution to
facilitate the change from apartheid to a multiparty democracy.
The commission’s thoroughness and sensitivity received wide praise both
locally and internationally. Introducing the report to parliament, President Ratu
Sir Kamisese Mara commended the commissioners ‘first for their willingness to
undertake this important task, and second for the devotion and commitment
they and their staff have shown in accom­plishing it. We are all very much in
their debt.’ Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka extended his ‘warmest gratitude
and congratulations for a work well done,’ and went on, ‘The Commission
had painstakingly canvassed views and consulted widely throughout Fiji.
With meticulous care and with patience, they then compiled their report. The
unanimity with which they have submitted their recommendations clearly
demonstrates the seri­ousness with which they had approached their task, and
their determina­tion to speak as one is suggesting to us the best way forward for
our country.’ Opposition Leader Jai Ram Reddy was equally fulsome in his praise
of a ‘thorough and comprehensive document.’5 Internationally, the commission’s
modus operandi was recommended by the Commonwealth Secretariat and the
United Nations’ Electoral Assistance Division as a model for other constitutional
review exercises.
A multiparty, multiethnic Joint Parliamentary Select Committee consid­
ered the commission’s report for a whole year, before producing a report that
formed the basis of the constitution, was debated in parliament, and was
approved unanimously. Subsequently, the Great Council of Chiefs blessed the
document unreservedly. It is true that many provincial councils had rejected the
commission’s report at the instigation of leaders opposed to the review process.
But the same people were also members of parlia­ment, indeed members’ of the
Joint Parliamentary Select Committee that had approved the constitution, as
well as members of the Great Council of Chiefs.
Nor is it valid to argue that the constitution could not be understood by
ordinary people because it was not translated into the Fijian language (or Hindi,
for that matter). Translating a complex document like a constitu­tion is not
an easy task, although the Citizens Constitutional Forum, a nongovernment

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Intersections

organization, explained its basic features in all the three principal languages of
Fiji. More important, the people who worked against the constitution were not
ordinary, unlettered Fijians, but members of parliament who understood the
document and had voted for it.
Is democracy a foreign flower unsuited to Fijian soil? It is of course true that
democracy is foreign to Fiji, but so too are some of the most cherished institutions
and practices of modern Fijian society.6 The Fijian state itself is a creation of
British colonialism, for before the middle of the nineteenth century, the islands
of Fiji comprised a warring collection of matanitu (traditional confederacies),
clamouring for political supremacy, a semblance of which was eventually
achieved under Ratu Seru Cakobau, the self-styled king of Fiji. Christianity, too,
is a foreign flower, having arrived in the islands via Tonga in 1835. The Great
Coun­cil of Chiefs, the powerful umbrella organization of traditional Fijian lead­
ers, and the established principles of Fijian land tenure are both, in dif­ferent
degrees, foreign flowers in Fiji.
The advocates of the foreign-flower argument ignore the fact that Fiji had
practised kind of democracy since independence in 1970. The legitimacy of
democracy was not questioned then because the Fijian establishment always
won. Only when they lost power in 1987 and in 1999 was the issue raised.
Even the interim administration does not question the validity of a democratic
form of government for Fiji. They simply want a democracy that will always
put Fijians—or more correctly, the most vocal sections of them—in power. The
independence constitution, and those that followed it, did include provisions
that became entrenched, effectively quarantining indigenous Fijian interests
from general public debate, and giving the power of veto over them to the
representatives of the Great Council of Chiefs in the Senate. That was as it should
be, and those pro­tective provisions were the product of national consensus. If
Fiji jettisons democracy and all that it represents—the sovereignty of parliament
as the repository of the peoples’ will, an independent judiciary, an impartial
civil service: what alternative will be put in its place? Monarchy? Ethnocracy?
Theocracy?
Some coup supporters argued that the 1997 constitution did not protect the
‘paramountcy of Fijian interests.’ These words have a peculiar origin in Fijian history,
their significance distorted by meanings invested in them by different groups over
the years. Many have mistakenly traced them back to the Deed of Cession in 1874,
by which Fiji became a Crown colony. Those words are not found there; instead,
the document records the chiefs’ desire to ‘tender unconditionally’ the sovereignty
of the islands to Queen Victoria and her successors, ‘relying upon the justice and
generosity’ of Her Majesty in dealing with her subject peoples. Cession, the chiefs

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 Making Histor y, Becoming Histor y

hoped, would promote ‘Civilization’ and ‘Christianity’—both foreign flowers—

in the islands along with a secure and stable government—another for­eign flower.
In turn the Crown promised that ‘the rights and interests of the said Tui Viti
and other high chiefs the ceding parties hereto shall be recognised so far as is
and shall be consistent with British Sovereignty and Colonial form government.’
This is paramountcy within parameters. In early colonial usage, ‘paramountcy of
Fijian interests’ meant the protec­tion (and the insulation) of those institutions and
social practices that had a particular significance to the Fijian people—their land
tenure system, ‘native policies’ designed to preserve the neotraditional structure
of their society, a separate system of administration, matters of chiefly titles and
genealogies. On these matters, the view of the Fijian people, expressed through
the Great Council of Chiefs, prevailed. The European planters invoked the
principle of Fijian paramountcy in the 1920s, not to support Fijians, but to halt
political equality demanded by Indo-Fijians. Nonethe­less, until the middle of the
twentieth century, the words were used in a protective sense.
That changed when independence became imminent in the 1960s. Then,
Fijian leaders began to interpret the ‘paramountcy of Fijian interests’ to mean
‘political paramountcy,’ as was most forcefully articulated in 1963 in the now
famous ‘Wakaya Letter’7 In it, Fijian leaders laid down preconditions for further
political change toward greater internal self-government, including declaring Fiji
a Christian state, seeking security of landownership, demanding Fijian parity in
the public service, and recognizing a continuing constitutional link with Britain,
a link ‘forged in a spirit of mutual trust and goodwill that should never be
severed,’ and ‘building on and strengthening the spirit and substance of the Deed
of Cession.’ The letter was a negotiating document, and a suc­cessful one. The
1965 constitution gave Fijians two additional seats over the Indo-Fijians, thus
upsetting the principle of balance that had under-pinned the colonial pattern of
political representation, and sowing seeds of further political instability for the
remainder of the 1960s. The 1970 constitution camouflaged the issue through
a complex system of political representation. Fijians and Indo-Fijians each had
22 seats in a 52-seat Lower house, 10 elected on national or cross-voting seats
and 12 on straight communal seats. General voters had 8 seats. Because General
Vot­ers tended to side with Fijians and the Indo-Fijian community was prone
to splitting, the dominance of the Fijian leadership was ensured. But beyond
politics, paramount chiefs were at the helm of national leader­ship—Ratu Sir
Kamisese Mara, Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau, Ratu Sir George Cakobau, and Ratu
Sir Edward Cakobau, assuring Fijians of continuity with the past.
The conventional wisdom of communal compartmentalization that under-
pinned Fiji’s political system was that ethnicity would drive the engine of party

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Intersections

politics. That view as was threatened by social and economic developments

in the post-independence era and the widespread changes they brought in
their wake. Modern, multiracial education opened new doors. Urban drift
introduced people to new and often unsettling challenges. The video and then
the electronic revolution introduced ideas and values once alien or inaccessible.
Improved communications and increased cash cropping in rural areas brought
the subsistence sector more centrally into the modern, monetary economy. New
horizons opened, more opportunities presented themselves, and old assumptions
about politics changed. New ideas man­ifested themselves in the emergence in
1985 of a multiracial Fiji Labour Parry whose non-racial social and economic
philosophy challenged the old order. Seen this way, the coups of 1987 represented
an effort to turn the clock back, by force.
Three years later, the post-coup administration decreed a new consti­tution
weighted in favour of the indigenous Fijians to ‘realise the aims of the coup.’
Important offices of state, including that of the prime minister, were reserved
for them. Special, racially exclusive affirmative action programs for Fijians and
Rotumans were legislated. And in parliament, the indigenous Fijians enjoyed an
outright majority of seats, with 37 of the 71 seats in the House of Representatives.
For indigenous Fijians election to parliament took place from their traditional
provinces; urban Fijians, more than a third of the Fijian population, were severely
underrepresented. With rural weighting and an outright parliamentary majority,
the architects of the 1990 constitution hoped that Fijians would always remain in
power, that Fijian political paramountcy would prevail. That did not eventuate.
Soon after its formation, a party backed by the Great Council of Chiefs (the
Soqosoqo ni Vakavulewa ni Taukei SVT), splintered, with rival parties forming
to contest its legitimacy, including the Mara-backed Fijian Association Party
and the All National Congress launched by Apisai Tora in the west. Part of the
fragmentation arose from dissatisfaction with Rabuka’s erratic leadership, part
from regional factionalism, and part from class tensions—Rabuka, a commoner,
had beaten high chief Ro Lady Lala Mara for the presidency of the new party.
Electing candidates from prov­inces encouraged provincial loyalties, paralysing the
operation of effective party politics with a national agenda and vision. Rabuka’s
party won the 1992 election but not in sufficient numbers to form a government
on its own. It could do so only with the support of the Fiji Labour Party, backed
in the main by the Indo-Fijian community, the very people so recently deposed.
The clear lesson of 1990 was that Fijian numerical supremacy in parlia­
ment was no guarantee of Fijian political paramountcy. This fact was fur­ther
clearly demonstrated in the 1999 elections, when Fijian fragmenta­tion reached
epidemic proportions with some twelve ethnic Fijian parties contesting the

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 Making Histor y, Becoming Histor y

election.8 Division among the Fijians, not political unity among Indo-Fijians,
led to the fall of the Rabuka govern­ment. Since the coup of 19 May 2000,
regionalism and confederacy-based politics have become rife, dividing the Fijian
community as never before, and not likely to end anytime soon. Other factors
must be noted: Precisely what constitutes ‘the Fijian interest,’ besides those items
already given watertight protection in the 1997 constitution, remains unclear.
Fijian interests are more diffuse now than ever before. Over 40 percent of the
indigenous population now resides in urban and peri-urban areas, exposed to
all the challenges of living in a complex monetary economy. Increas­ingly, their
needs are not the needs of their rural counterparts. Weighting representation in
parliament in favour of the rural dwellers—as election from the provinces will
inevitably entail—will marginalize urban Fijians even more.
Given the diversity of Fijian society across class and region, the goal of
permanent political unity also puts enormous strains on the Fijian com­munity.
It is difficult, if not impossible, the Constitution Review Commis­sion argued, for
one party to accommodate the multiplicity of interests that embrace Fijians. The
quest for political unity also puts strains on tra­ditional institutions. The Great
Council of Chiefs’ sponsorship of one political party divided the Fijians, who
wanted the Council to provide lead­ership to all Fijians irrespective of political
affiliation. The emphasis on Fijian unity also means that Fijians will not be free
to vote out a Fijian government if it does not deliver what they expect. Those
expectations go beyond fulfilment of the government’s election promises to
improve the conditions of life for Fijians, who, like other citizens, want the same
stan­dards of integrity, efficiency, and effectiveness from those they elect. The
idea that a Fijian government must be maintained in office at all costs has grave
consequences for political accountability. It requires setting aside the normal
democratic controls on a government’s performance in office, and this is bad for
the Fijian community as well as for the country as a whole.
Supporters of the coups have invoked various international instru­ments on
indigenous rights in support of their claim for political para­mountcy. Their
argument rests on a misreading of these instruments. The conventions most
commonly cited in support are ILO Convention No 169 on Indigenous and
Tribal Peoples and the draft ‘Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.’ 5
The ILO Convention was adopted in June 1989 as a revision of ILO Convention
No 107 on Indigenous and Tribal Popu­lations. The Convention was based on
the assumption that all relevant decisions on the living and working conditions
of indigenous and tribal peoples would be taken into account by the government
and that even­tually the indigenous and tribal peoples would be assimilated into
the broader community. But the goal and philosophy of assimilation has been

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Intersections

discredited, and Convention 169 accepts that the indigenous and tribal peoples
will continue to enjoy a separate cultural identity within the national society.
The draft declaration provides for greater autonomy for these groups within
states where they and their lands are now situated. These and other instruments
apply, or are intended to apply, to indigenous and tribal communities whose
lands, culture, and separate identity are at risk of marginalization as a result of
colonization, such as the Hawaiians, the Maori, and Australian Aborigines, as
well as tribal groups in North and South America. For that reason, they are not
wholly relevant to indig­enous Fijians, who have always enjoyed autonomy in the
management of their administrative affairs and are secure in the possession of
their lands and a vibrant cultural identity.
At the heart of these instruments lie two ideas: that indigenous peoples will
remain a distinct community, and that they will enjoy equal rights with other
members of society. The clear implication is that at the national level the political
and other rights of the indigenous and tribal peoples are on exactly the same
footing as those of other members of the national soci­ety. Both instruments see
the special rights of indigenous peoples as dis­tinct communities as supplementing
the fundamental human rights and freedoms they already share with all other
citizens. Nothing in either instrument gives an indigenous people superior or
paramount rights in participating in the government of their society. Sometimes,
indigenous activists raise the issue of ‘self-determination.’ The declaration (Article
3) states, ‘Indigenous peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that
right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic,
social and cultural development.’ But the phrase ‘freely determine their political
status’ refers to their political status in taking control of their own affairs, not to
their political status as it affects their participation in the national government.
The article does not sanction secession. Nor does ‘self-determination’ authorize
a particular ‘people’ within a country, whether or not indigenous, to exercise
political domina­tion over other ‘peoples’ as citizens. No political community, by
reference to either ‘self-determination’ or ‘sovereignty,’ can legitimately claim it
has political rights that entitle it to a position of dominance over other groups
forming part of the same national society.
The word ‘rights’ is often used in conjunction with sovereignty and self-
determination. What are Fijian rights? An important Fijian right is the right
to own land. This is guaranteed through the recognition of custom­ary title in
the Native Land Act. The Native Land Trust Act provides that Fijians may not
dispose of their lands except to the government through the Native Land Trust
Board. Fijian traditional fishing rights are pro­tected by the Fisheries Act. And
the constitution gives all landowners, including indigenous Fijians, the right to a

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 Making Histor y, Becoming Histor y

share of the royalties from the exploitation of minerals in the subsoil of their land
or the seabed over which they have traditional fishing rights. Fijians also have
rights to their traditional institutions, including the Great Council of Chiefs,
and other separate administrative systems set up for their governance under the
Fijian Affairs Act. The 1997 constitution for the first time recognized the council
as a constitutional body and empowered it to nominate both the president and
the vice president of the republic. The separate system of Fijian administration
is also protected. But political paramountcy is not, and cannot be, a right. As
mentioned, international standards, including the two instruments dealing with
indigenous peoples, and the concepts of ‘self-determination’ and ‘sovereignty’
give no support to that proposition.
Some Fijians also argue that they have a ‘right’ to affirmative action programs.
This is a complex area involving an interplay of many percep­tions about the
present circumstances of different communities; the phi­losophy of giving state
assistance to individuals by reason of their mem­bership in a particular community
or group; the principles on which appointments should be made to public service;
how programs for the benefit of a particular community or groups are reconciled
with the right of equality before the law and freedom from discrimination on the
consti­tutionally prohibited grounds; the desirable balance between the resources
used for those purposes and other social justice programs for the needy members
of all communities; and the question of whether the assistance given to enhance
the position of particular communities and groups achieves the desired results.
Nonetheless, affirmative action for the indigenous Fijians was an accepted fact
of public policy in post-independence Fiji. Since the 1970s, for example, following
the report of the 1969 Education Commission, 50 percent of all government
scholarships for tertiary education was reserved for them on a parallel-block
basis, despite demonstrably inferior perfor­mance. The Fiji Development Bank
initiated a number of commercial and business schemes to assist indigenous
Fijians in the commercial sector9, a function that the National Bank of Fiji
assumed between 1987 and 1995. After 1987, the government set up special
funds to purchase freehold lands and give them back to the indigenous land-
owners. And a special scholarship fund was set up by the Fijian Affairs Board to
help indigenous Fijian students gain tertiary qualifications. The results of these
efforts did not match expectations. The 1990 Constitution explicitly provided
for affirmative action for indigenous Fijians and Rotu­mans. Section 21, entitled
‘Protection and Enhancement of Fijian and Rotuman Interests,’ authorized and
directed parliament to put in place affirmative action programs for their benefit:
‘Parliament shall, with the object of promoting and safeguarding the economic,
social, educational, cultural, traditional and other interests of the Fijian and

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Intersections

Rotuman people, enact laws for those objects and shall direct the Government to
adopt any programme or activity for the attainment of the said objectives.’ The
Cab­inet could authorize government departments and statutory commissions to
reserve scholarships and other training opportunities and business per­mits and
licenses to attain the aims of the section. The constitution also contained specific
provisions that sought to secure a minimum 50 percent representation of Fijians
and Rotumans in government departments and among the holders of judicial
and legal offices.
There is no quarrel with the principle of affirmative action, but the selective
manner of its application, as well as the failure to reach expec­tations, has become
a bone of contention. No matter of sensitive public policy such as affirmative
action can succeed without public or national consensus. In the case of post-
coup Fiji, no such consensus existed. Nor is any program of this kind likely
to succeed unless the specific goals, and the means through which they are
to be achieved, are clearly indicated. To succeed, there must be performance
indicators for judging the efficacy of the program in achieving its goals, and
criteria for selecting the indi­viduals who will be entitled to the privileges and
advantages. A blanket ‘Fijian’ or ‘Rotuman’ criterion is not good enough because,
as men­tioned, these communities are as diverse as others in the distribution
of wealth among them. Prescribing ethnicity as the sole criterion for affirma­
tive action is problematic for other reasons as well. For one, it ignores other
criteria, such as gender; and women are grossly underrepresented in the public
sector. For another, it assumes that other communities, in par­ticular the Indo-
Fijians, do not need affirmative action. This is not true, as the level of Indo-Fijian
participation in the public sector has been declin­ing markedly. In 1985, Fijians
made up 46.4 percent of established pub­lic servants, Indo-Fijians 48 percent, and
General Voters and expatriates 5.6 percent. The corresponding figures in 1995
were Fijians 57.3 percent, Indo-Fijians 38.6 percent, and General Voters and
expatriates 4.1 percent. In 1995, of the 31 permanent secretaries, 22 were Fijians,
6 Indo-Fijians, and 3 were General Voters. Furthermore, virtually every study of
income levels and poverty in Fiji in recent years has shown that, among Fijian
and Indo-Fijian households, each group has a roughly comparable percentage
living in poverty. Although incomes of Indo-Fijian households, on the whole,
were higher than those of Fijian households, income disparity was significantly
greater among Indo-Fijian households
The Fiji Constitution Review Commission therefore recommended that
the government ‘put in place not only affirmative action programmes for the
benefit of the Fijian and Rotuman people, but similar programmes for other
ethnic communities, and for women, and for all other disadvantaged citizens or

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 Making Histor y, Becoming Histor y

groups in the Republic of the Fiji Islands.’ The Compact of the 1997 constitution
(Section k) agreed that ‘affirmative action and social justice programmes to
secure effective equality of access to opportunities, amenities or services for the
Fijian and Rotuman people, as well as for other communities, for women as well
as men, and for all disadvantaged citizens or groups, are based on an allocation of
resources broadly accept-able to all communities.’ The phrase ‘broadly acceptable
to all commu­nities’ is important: it implies consensus as well as the principle of
pro­portionality. In effect it means that since the Fijian and Rotuman people now
constitute more than 50 percent of the population they are legiti­mately entitled
to 50 percent of affirmative action resources.
The current interim administration has proposed reimplementation of a
race-based affirmative action program. It has promised to establish a Fijian and
Rotuman Trust Fund to support indigenous development projects; to start a
national saving scheme for Fijians and Rotumans to finance increased Fijian
equity and other forms of participation in business as well as invest­ment in
education; to give tax exemptions to Fijian companies for an unspecified period;
to set up a Fijian Development Trust Fund and a Fijian Education Fund to
provide scholarships to students and grants to Fijian schools; and to reserve for
indigenous Fijians 50 percent of government shares in commercial companies,
50 percent of all licenses and permits, and 50 percent of all government
contracts. All this in addition to trans­ferring all Crown Schedule A and B lands
to the Native Land Trust Board and establishing a Land Claims Tribunal to
deal with long-standing claims for native lands acquired for public purposes.
These proposals are designed to appease the Fijian nationalist fringe: the interim
administra­tion wants to be seen to be implementing policies that favour Fijians.
But such policies and initiatives have been in place for a long time and have failed
to deliver the desired outcome. It must be asked whether more affirmative action
is the answer, or are the problems, in the commercial field, for example, more
deep-seated and culturally based than money alone can remedy. And what of the
principles of efficiency, accountability, transparency, merit, and effective delivery
of state services? Playing the ‘race’ card, blaming other ethnic groups for the poor
performance of indigenous Fijians, as is often done, is no longer convincing.
Deeper soul searching about the role of culture and tradition would yield more
fruit­ful results.
In my opinion, then, the 1997 Constitution did not fail. The people of
Fiji failed the Constitution. The next question is: Did the People’s Coali­tion
government fail, or in some way dilute Fijian interests? The People’s Coalition
government included disparate political parties with diverse interests and
agendas. They came together not necessarily because of a shared vision for the

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Intersections

nation but because of what might be termed ‘negative’ sentiments. The Fijian
parties in the coalition joined with the Labour Party because they wanted
Rabuka out of office as pun­ishment for the sorry record of his government in the
1990s, tainted as it was by mismanagement, corruption, indecisive leadership,
and the scan­dals in his private life. They also opposed the 1997 constitution,
which Rabuka, working closely with Jai Ram Reddy, had been instrumental in
shepherding through parliament. The Christian Democratic Alliance, a member
of the People’s Coalition, wanted Fiji to become a Christian state and wanted the
constitution to be revised to address Fijian concerns, espe­cially the issue of Fijian
political paramountcy. Soon after forming a gov­ernment, rifts emerged in the
coalition. A faction of the Fijian Association Parry opposed the government in
which its own leader, Adi Kuini Bavadra Speed, was the deputy prime minister.
And Apisai Tora, the founding leader of another coalition partner, the Parry of
National Unity, attacked the prime minister and opposed the government even
though two of his own colleagues were members of the cabinet. So the coalition
government was hobbled by internal friction and division, that threatened its
unity and cohesiveness.
The Labour Party was the dominant partner in the coalition, with 37 out
of the 71 seats giving it an outright majority in parliament. But because the
constitution prescribed compulsory power sharing in cabinet—any political
party with more than ten percent of seats in parliament was enti­tled to be invited
to join the government—Chaudhry’s hands were tied: he had to share power
with parties not in his coalition. As leader of the largest party in parliament,
Chaudhry became prime minister, although several of his own colleagues would
have preferred an indigenous Fijian in that office. Perhaps the manner in which
he attained that office might have been different, through more consultation and
dialogue, but Chaudhry did the right thing. The fact that President Ratu Sir
Kamisese Mara persuaded recalcitrant Fijian parties to rally behind Chaudhry
(in whose government Mara’s own family members were ministers), raised
suspicions among Fijians long distrustful of Mara’s rule about his dynastic
ambitions for himself and his traditional power base in the eastern parts of Fiji.
Chau­dhry’s ability to secure the president’s support, along with that of factions
of Fijian parties in his coalition (successfully practicing the kind of poli­tics Fijian
leaders had played with the Indo-Fijian community since inde­pendence), was
seen, rightly or wrongly, as a strategy to divide the Fijians.
Chaudhry’s own personal style compounded problems. An intelligent and
battle-hardened trade union leader, he had been the single most pain­ful thorn
in the side of post-coup regimes, his uncompromising defense of the trade union
movement and the principles of non-racial democracy earning him enemies

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 Making Histor y, Becoming Histor y

among important, unforgiving sections of the Fijian community. Although

more Fijians than Indo-Fijians were in the cabinet, there was no doubt in his
opponents’ minds that real power was wielded by Chaudhry, who himself
controlled the portfolios of prime minister, minister of finance, sugar, public
service, and information. Such central­ization was consistent with his personal
style of leadership as well as a tacit acknowledgement of dearth of ministerial
talent in his coalition. Some of his decisions invited public censure, such as
appointing his own son, not a civil servant, as his personal secretary on the
public payroll. He was criticized for practising the very kind of nepotism he
had condemned while in opposition, and the perception of a government that
favoured its own grew among those already disapproving of it. The government’s
con­frontational approach to the media did not help matters. To every criti­cism
and every opposition, the government responded with the mantra: it had the
people’s mandate to implement policies promised in its manifesto. Of course, the
government did have the mandate, but astute political lead­ership in Fiji would
have understood that parliamentary mandate is one among several mandates
in Fiji. Repeated invocation of the mantra of mandate irritated those already
fearful of the government’s huge majority in parliament. The government’s hectic
legislative program, institutional reforms, and the shedding of deadwood from
the public sector heightened those fears.
The issue that raised the greatest emotion was land, not its ownership, but
the imminent expiry of thirty-year leases granted under the Agricul­tural Land
and Tenant Act, first passed in 1969. Some Fijian landowners wanted their land
back, either to cultivate it themselves, to re-zone it for commercial or residential
purposes, or to use the threat of nonrenewal to extract more rent from their
tenants. They were led by Marika Qarikau, head of the Native Land Trust
Board, an abrasive, hardline nationalist who used every means possible, from
addressing the provincial councils to using the network of the Fijian Methodist
Church, to rally the landowners behind him and against the government. The
government did not contest the right of the landowners to reclaim their land, but
neither could it ignore the plight of tenants, most unskilled, poor, uneducated,
evicted from the land, thus causing a massive social problem for the country. The
government offered the displaced tenants F$28,000 to get started in some other
occupation, and the landlords F$8,000 to equip themselves as cul­tivators. It was
a pragmatic interim solution to an intractable problem.
At the same time, the government attempted to establish a Land Use
Commission to work with landowners to identify idle lands that could be put to
productive use, including, if possible, resettling displaced tenants on them. With
Qarikau on the warpath, the government went directly to the landowners, and

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Intersections

sent a delegation of chiefs to Malaysia (Sarawak) to familiarize themselves with

the work of a similar commission there and to dispel any fears they might have
about the government’s intentions. To everyone’s surprise, the chiefs returned
impressed, but by then Qarikau had already orchestrated an unqualified rejection
of the proposal from many provincial councils. Qarikau feared that if the concept
of a Land Use Commission were accepted, the power of his own political base,
the Native Land Trust Board, might be irredeemably impaired. With provin­cial
criticism swirling, the government did what it should have done in the first place:
it took the proposal to the Great Council of Chiefs, which blessed it and asked
the government and the Board to work cooperatively to finalize the details.
This hard-fought victory was short-lived, for just as the government felt
it was gaining the upper hand over its critics, protest marches began around
the country, led in virtually every instance by defeated politicians, Ratu Tevita
Bolobolo and Apisai Tora among others. The protests gained momentum,
energized by the government’s dismissive stance toward the marches as the
work of a few misguided miscreants. The cry ‘Fijian Rights in Danger’ rallied
many behind the reinvigorated Taukei Movement, and roadblocks and
threatening antigovernment banners went up. The climax came on 19 May when
George Speight and six other armed gunmen hijacked parliament, tore up the
constitution, and unleashed a reign of terror and violence on an unsuspecting
population. Even if the Chaudhry government was not everyone’s choice, even if
it was drunk on the power of its numbers in parliament, to justify a coup on these
grounds is plainly untenable. For, if style were the criterion, then coups would
be the order of the day in many of the most advanced democ­racies of the world.
Saying that just because Chaudhry was unacceptable to the nationalists, no other
Indo-Fijian should ever aspire to lead the gov­ernment of Fiji equally boggles the
mind. Whether it realized it or not, the Chaudhry government was forced to
share the political space with com­peting centres of power. No law affecting the
indigenous Fijians could be changed without the support of the nominees of
the Great Council of Chiefs in the Senate. The Fijian Affairs Act specified the
rules and proce­dures for the governance of indigenous Fijians. The power of the
Native Land and Fisheries Commission to adjudicate ownership disputes among
indigenous Fijians was absolute. The Chaudhry government did not threaten to
cancel programs put in place for indigenous Fijians by previ­ous governments; it
merely asked for more accountability and transpar­ency in their administration.
In one respect, however, the People’s Coalition government did threaten the
established habits of thought and political behaviour in Fiji. In however small
a way, its emphasis on non-racial solutions to the country’s deep-seated social
and economic problems threatened to undermine the way of thinking that has

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 Making Histor y, Becoming Histor y

long seen the country’s problems and remedies through the prism of race and
ethnicity. Those who viewed race not only as a ‘fact’ of life but also as a ‘way of
life’ saw the Chaudhry government as undermining a system that had kept them
in positions of power for more than a generation. Over the years, many had been
led to believe that only a Fijian prime minister, not an Indo-Fijian one, could
be trusted to govern the country and maintain the security of Fijian interests.
Chaudhry’s suc­cess, as seen in soaring public opinion polls on the eve of the coup
in May, would have undermined a fundamental tenet of their beliefs. Chaudhry
had to go before he and his vision for Fiji became too deeply entrenched.
The interim administration has proposed a new constitution, which it says
must enshrine Fijian political paramountcy. In his address to the United Nations
in September woo, Interim Prime Minister Qarase hinted at the kinds of things
that the constitution might include. Because over 50 percent of the population
is Christian, Fiji might be declared a Christian state. Qarase also said that the
amount and value of landownership should also be reflected in the composition of
parliament. The Soqosoqo ni Vaka­vulewa ni Taukei is more specific. Indigenous
Fijians, it says, must have 70 percent of all parliamentary seats; Fijian culture
and language should be made the national language and culture; the first-past
the-post system should be used in national voting rather than the alternative
voting system prescribed in the 1997 constitution; open (non-racial) seats should
be turned into national seats (that is, cross-voting seats where the ethnicity of
the candidate is specified but all vote); and there should be greater decentral­
ization of political, fiscal, and administrative structures. The salience of these
points can be debated at length—can a small island state like Fiji, for example,
afford the financial burden of more decentralization? Why have national seats
when everyone knows them to be compromised and dis­credited? Why use the
first-past-the-post system when it is universally regarded as obsolete? Why give
the Fijian people the right to vote and then insist that they vote for only Fijian
candidates? Decentralization is fine in theory, but Indo-Fijians are excluded from
Fijian provincial and district councils.
The real issue underlying the demands of the Soqosoqo ni Vakavulewa ni
Taukei is Fijian political paramountcy. A Fijian must be the head of state, and
of government, and if possible of important statutory positions as well. Fiji has
travelled that route before, under the 1990 constitution, with disastrous results.
The question for the Fijian people is not whether a Fijian must be the head of
government, but which or what kind of, Fijian. For some, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara
was the ‘wrong’ kind of Fijian leader. Others rejected Sitiveni Rabuka because
he was a commoner, albeit an uncommon one. Dr Timoci Bavadra, too, could
not be trusted by everyone. For yet others, George Speight (now calling himself

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Intersections

Ilikini Nai­tini) is an unacceptable face of Fijian nationalism. Increasingly, too,

many Fijians are thinking in terms of their provinces and confederacies, all want­
ing to take turns at the helm of the ship of state. Taking turns: that is what the
debate is about, not about social, economic, and national development in an era
of unprecedented change and globalization.
Now, Fijians will take turns without the ‘threat’ of Indo-Fijian dom­inance.
Thousands of Indo-Fijians left the country after the coups of 1987, and now
many more will leave, depriving the country of much-needed tal­ent and skills.
The reduced number of Indo-Fijians will open up space for more debate among
Fijians as provincial, regional, and confederacy ten­sions and rivalries come to
the fore, as they have already begun to do since the 19 May coup. Their situation
is aggravated by the absence on the national scene of experienced and trusted
leaders with overarching national influ­ence. The departure of Ratu Sir Kamisese
Mara has brought to an end the rule of paramount chiefs tutored for national
leadership by the colonial government in the years following the Second World
War. The new gen­eration of Fijian leaders is embroiled in local and regional
politics, their wider influence limited or tainted by involvement in the events of
the last decade or so. In the absence of any alternative, Fijian people may discover
the ‘foreign flower’ of democracy as their political saviour.
In recent months, I have often revisited in my mind the work of the Fiji
Constitution Review Commission. I continue to be inspired by its vision of
Fiji as a vibrant, multiethnic, democratic state that celebrates the indi­geneity
of Fiji, recognizes the equal rights of all citizens, maintains the separation of
church and state, provides a basis on which all citizens can describe themselves by
a common name, and encourages every community to regard the major concerns
of other communities as national, not sec­tional, concerns. A multiethnic state,
I fervently believe, should strive for multiethnic government achieved through
the voluntary cooperation of political parties, or increased support for a genuinely
multiethnic party. It must recognize and celebrate the distinctive character of its
diverse con­stituent parts while enlarging the common space and opportunities
of equal citizenship. Consensus, not coercion, is the way forward to genuine
reconciliation. The Fijian powers that be may wish to turn back the clock, but it
would not do the clock any good. The Fijian tragedy once again underlines the
fundamental truth that those who do not learn from his­tory are condemned to
repeat it.

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