Pacific Islands Development Program/East-West Center
Center for Pacific Islands Studies/University of Hawai'i at Manoa
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Teresia Teaiwa is a Lecturer in Pacific Studies at Victoria University of
Wellington. She was raised around Fiji and attended High School in Suva.
Before coming to Victoria she taught for five years in the History/Politics
Department at the University of the South Pacific, Laucala Campus in Suva,
Fiji.
The problem with Fijian nationalism is that there is no Fijian nation. There
are Fijian provinces, and traditional Fijian confederacies, but the two
military coups of 1987 and the current hostage crisis illustrate with
disturbing insistence the erosion of indigenous Fijian social order and the
fragmentation of indigenous Fijian leadership.
The problem with prevailing analyses of the political situation in Fiji is
the notion that the conflict is between indigenous Fijians and Indo-Fijians.
The "race" card is misleading and mischievous, and unfortunately,
Mahendra
Chaudhry, Fiji's first Indo-Fijian Prime Minister played right into it with
his abrasive leadership style. But in the end, Chaudhry is not the problem
and neither are the Indo-Fijian communities.
Fiji's problem is Fijian. Following the fortunes and misfortunes of the
countryÕs three indigenous Prime Ministers -- Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara,
Dr.
Timoci Bavadra, and Sitiveni Rabuka -- we see the increasingly problematic
configuration of indigenous leadership in the country.
Ratu Mara was the countryÕs first and only Prime Minister for seventeen
years since independence in 1970; joined the interim government formed after
the military coup of 1987; and later became President of the Republic in
1994. His leadership draws on the mana of his own chiefly title, Tui Nayau;
his wifeÕs mana, (the Roko Tui Dreketi, from the confederacy of Burebasaga,
is the highest chiefly title in the islands); and his close association with
a tight elite cohort of European, part-European and Indo-Fijian business
interests. Ratu Mara's leadership, however, has alienated rival chiefs,
proletarian and nationalist groups within his domain of Eastern Fiji, and
has generated resentment in the Western provinces.
The late Dr. Timoci Bavadra, was Prime Minister in the predominantly
Indo-Fijian Labour/National Federation Party coalition government which
defeated Ratu Mara's Alliance party in the 1987 elections. Dr. Bavadra was
consistently described in the media and literature as a "commoner"
even
though he came from a noble Fijian background in the chiefly village of
Viseisei. The problem with Dr. BavadraÕs political genealogy in 1987
was not
so much his Labour ideology nor his "commoner" status, but the fact
that
significant and powerful sectors of indigenous Fijian society -- in the East
-- were not ready for a Fijian Prime Minister from a Western province.
Being both a "commoner" and national leader, however, was not a problem
for
Sitiveni Rabuka. In fact, a large part of RabukaÕs popularity with
indigenous Fijians is his "commoner" status. Prime Minister from 1992
to
1999, RabukaÕs mana comes from the interweaving of his traditional "bati"
or
warrior genealogy (in the Eastern province of Cakaudrove), his career in
modern armed forces, his identification with and deployment of
Christian/Methodist discourse, his staging of the two coups dÕetat in
1987,
and the support he has consistently received from the Great Council of
Chiefs. Rabuka has even gained political mileage out of his "human
frailties": sexual and financial indiscretions, as well as flip-flopping
policy decisions have increased rather than diminished his appeal.
Many indigenous Fijians identify with Rabuka much more easily than they can
with the aristocratic Ratu Mara. Counterposed in this way against the elder
statesman of Fiji, Rabuka developed his own ethos of popularism and "can-do"
capitalism -- exemplified by the National Bank of Fiji debacle. During his
Prime Ministership, a brash nouveau riche elite of "indigenous" Fijians
developed and thrived. George Speight is a good representative of this
group, but an even better example is his mentor and benefactor Jim Ah Koy:
both illustrate a new opportunism in regards to identity politics in Fiji.
A "general elector" MP in the 1970s, Chinese/Fijian Ah Koy was sent
into
political coventry by Ratu Mara for insubordination. Concentrating his
energies in business during the 1980s, Ah KoyÕs phenomenal success became
worthy of a Horatio Alger story. In the first post-coup election of 1992,
however, Ah Koy re-emerged as a political candidate, this time on the
indigenous Fijian electoral roll. Although his eligibility to stand as a
Fijian was challenged by other indigenous Fijians, Ah Koy won his case in
court, and has represented his maternal constituency of Kadavu in Parliament
ever since.
Like Ah Koy, George SpeightÕs father, a "part-European" and
former general
elector named Sam Speight, became a "born again Fijian" in the post-coup
era. Sam Speight legally changed his name to Savenaca Tokainavo, winning an
indigenous Fijian electoral seat in Parliament in the 1992 and subsequent
elections.
In Fiji's disconcertingly racialized electoral system (comprising three
electoral rolls - Fijian, Indian, and General) general voters have
historically aligned themselves with indigenous Fijian chiefly interests.
The category of general voters covers Fiji's multitude of ethnic minority
communities: Banabans, Chinese, Europeans, Gilbertese, "part-Europeans",
Samoans, Solomon Islanders, Tongans, and Tuvaluans.
"Part-Europeans" form the largest and most influential group of general
voters and in the post-coup era have shifted away from their historical
identification with colonial European privilege towards a reclamation of
their "part-Fijian" or vasu-i-taukei roots. This shift in "part-European"
identification reflects a recognition of the contemporary realities of
political power in Fiji: indigenous Fijians rule.
George Speight claims to represent indigenous Fijian interests. Sporting his
European name, speaking exclusively in English, drawing on his Australian
and American degrees in business for mana, and wearing his designer clothes,
Speight does indeed represent indigenous Fijian interests. But Speight's
indigenous Fijian interests are clearly neither the indigenous Fijian
interests of Ratu Mara nor those of the late Dr. Bavadra.
SpeightÕs version of indigenous Fijian interests probably coincides in
many
areas with Rabuka's version of indigenous Fijian interests. But the men
Speight has surrounded himself with also represent a changing of the guard
from Rabuka's Queen Victoria School Old Boys network to an unlikely
coalition of relatively young "old boys" from Marist Brothers High
School
(Ratu Mara's alma mater) and Suva Grammar School.
And what of Speight et al's relationship with the marching/looting masses
who were so inspired by the illegal actions in the House of Parliament on
Friday 19 May 2000? It is a relationship of convenience: Speight has about
as much respect for the 1997 constitution he once congratulated Professor
Brij Lal on, as he does for the indigenous marama in sulu and jaba helping
herself to bales of cloth through the shattered window of a Waimanu Road
store.
The march was organized by church and Taukei Movement leaders, and though
the looting may not have been planned they certainly enabled it. Looting has
become an ominous feature of recent indigenous Fijian responses to crisis:
during the floods of 1998, at the tragic crash site of flight PC 121 in
1999, and now in the streets of Suva -- "the millennium city". The
image of
a humble, God-fearing, dignified and hospitable people marketed by the Fiji
Visitors Bureau is chillingly contraverted. The chiefs and church ministers
stir their people but the simple truth is they do not control them: a group
of alert and ambitious businessmen has used this feature of Fijian
leadership to its advantage. Indigenous Fijians rule, but indigenous Fijians
are not united.
This puts the past 12 months of the Mahendra Chaudhry Labour Coalition
government's rule in perspective. The government has survived this long
because of the backing of Ratu Mara. The government is in crisis right now
because other indigenous Fijian groups are challenging Ratu Mara's
authority. Rabuka has recently acknowledged this: the real struggle is
amongst indigenous Fijians, and it is continually masked by the rhetoric of
a racial conflict between indigenous Fijians and Indo-Fijians.
The impoverishment and disaffection of indigenous Fijians is not a result of
12 months of leadership by an Indo-Fijian. It is the result of thirty
fraught years of modern indigenous Fijian leadership that have sacrificed
the economic and cultural well-being of a people for the advancement of a
few.
Speight's ignominious entry into the national and international limelight is
but a symptom of the complex contradictions and competing interests facing
indigenous Fijian society today. George Speight has not only kidnapped a
democratically elected Prime Minister and his cabinet; he has taken hostage
much of the hope and potential Fiji had at the turn of the century to become
a nation united. Already, Western provinces have announced that if Speight
succeeds, they would prefer to secede and create an independent nation of
their own. So when the present crisis at Fiji's House of Parliament in
Nasese passes, as it inevitably will, the question will remain: what is
Fijian nationalism when there is not a single unified indigenous Fijian
nation?
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