Abstract
In this chapter Norton shows how the deep ethnic differences between Fijians and Indians have been successfully managed and negotiated in a way that accommodates both groups. This is dependent upon historic particularities rather than universalistic principles.
The author reflects on the election process and the notion of chieftainship in Fiji. He also examines chieftainship and the control of militant ethnicity as well as the role of chiefs in the political economy of colonial Fiji. He considers the chiefs’ role in inter-ethnic relations before considering three models for nationhood.
In closing, the author questions whether, in the future, the chiefs will continue to act as conciliators or whether they will align with aggressively ethnic styles of leadership, which in the past they have helped to subdue.
Table of Contents
This chapter went to press after the most remarkable parliamentary elections in Fiji’s history gave victory to the People’s Coalition, a loose alliance between the predominantly Indian Fiji Labour Party and two Fijian parties, the Fijian Association Party and the Party of National Unity, which massively defeated a coalition of the Fijian SVT and the Indian NFP, led by Rabuka and Reddy. For the first time Fiji has an Indian prime minister, Labour’s leader Mahendra Chaudhry, who heads a cabinet with a majority of Fijian ministers. Rabuka was returned to parliament, but resigned to accept the chairmanship of the Council of Chiefs.
The defeat of Rabuka’s government was caused mainly by an unprecedented political fragmentation among the Fijians. There was widespread disaffection over the failure of the government to improve living standards and economic opportunities, and resentment at Rabuka's personal role in the constitutional reform which many of this opponents denounced as a betrayal of the promise of his coups. One of the starkest ironies of the elections was the Labour Party’s gain from Fijian ethnicist opposition to the constitutional reform to which the party had, in its universalist ideology, been so radically committed.
To some extent, Labour’s victory also reflects the widening of a popular base of shared inter-ethnic interests at a time of growing anxiety and anger about economic conditions, and there is potential in these concerns for a strengthening of the party’s multi-ethnic character. But Labour depends most on an unstable alliance of groups with contradictory agendas. Chaudhry must contend with the ever-present potential for ethnic conflict within his coalition on such sensitive matters as land reform where he aims to improve the security of the Indian tenants, and over rivalries for cabinet and other government posts.
Some aspects of the election aftermath reinforce my argument about the significance of the chiefs in contemporary political process. Fiji's president, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, refused a request by the Fijian Association Party, Labour's principal partner, that its own leader, Adi Kuini Speed (widow of the overthrown Dr Bavadra) be appointed prime minister. Chaudhry warmly acknowledged Mara's decisive influence in persuading the FAP to accept his leadership, and he sought to dispel Fijian anxieties ‘about my intentions and those of my government’ in a speech to a specially convened meeting of the Council of Chiefs. It was clear that Chaudhry viewed the occasion as crucial for strengthening the legitimacy of his leadership of the nation. In its fullsome rhetoric of respect, his address to the chiefs echoed that of Jai Ram Reddy, which had facilitated the constitutional reform. Chaudhry reaffirmed Reddy’s ‘assurances…that all communities…look to this great venerable institution for leadership and guidance in the good governance and well-being of our nation’ (Fiji Times, 14 June 1999:22–3). He promised to protect and advance indigenous interests and to consult with the chiefs.
As chairman of the Council of Chiefs, Rabuka, still a potent icon of ethnic power and therefore well-suited for the office despite his lack of chiefly rank, will have an enhanced capacity to encourage Fijians to either oppose or cooperate with Chaudhry’s government—at times to be a focal point of ethnicist resistance, and sometimes a mediator encouraging accommodation. In this respect Rabuka’s new position may resemble that which leading chiefs have long taken in the national political arena. The crisis of expiring Indian farm leases, aggravated by Fijian resentment of the election outcome and threatening the national economic well-being, might prove to be his first challenge in this role. Some chiefs reacted against the Labour triumph by declaring that leases in their districts would not be renewed: ‘Fijians have given up the political control of their native land. They are not prepared to give up anything else. They will now be reluctant to share with others’ (Tui Wailevu, Daily Post, 23 June 1999).
A principle of shared national citizenship is a necessary condition for equitable development to meet basic human needs. In Fiji, the achievement of such a principle, still problematic nearly 30 years after political independence, must be based on the ideological and institutional management of deep ethnic difference. The centrality of chieftainship in framing Fijian ethnic identity has favoured this by constraining conflict with Indians and facilitating agreements for sharing land and political power. My theme refutes a commonly held view that the chiefs have been an obstacle to national integration.
Fijian chiefs and chiefly councils, as they were partly refashioned into ‘neo-traditional’ instruments of colonial rule, have been depicted in modernist academic discourse in terms of self-serving ‘aristocratic’ interests. Some writers have interpreted the military coups as primarily supporting the interests of ‘the eastern chiefly élite’ who stand in the way of unity among ordinary Fijians and Indians. These characterisations, mainly by political scientists, have misrepresented the social character of the Fijian élites who benefited from the coups (mostly commoners) and misled us about the place of chiefly leadership in shaping foundations for a nation state (Robertson and Tamanisau 1988; Lawson 1991; Sutherland 1992). While chiefs can certainly be said to have ‘vested interests’ (for example a privileged share in land rents), to focus attention on these will not illuminate the chiefs’ significance in Fijian group and ethnic identities and in inter-ethnic accommodation. Anthropologists and historians have studied chiefs in the context of Fijian culture and administration (Nayacakalou 1975; Walters 1978; Sahlins 1981; MacNaught 1982; Kaplan 1988). They, too, have largely ignored the inter-ethnic context and some agree with the above characterisation of the chiefs (Howard 1991; Kaplan 1993). My discussion will focus on the paradoxical duality of modern Fijian chieftainship in both affirming and mediating the ethnic divide.
For indigenous Fijians today, the value of chieftainship is reinforced by its potency in symbolising an idealised traditional way of life in communal attachment to the land, in contrast with the often denigrated money-based modern lifestyles to which individuals and households are increasingly drawn. This contradiction has long been intensified by the profound ethnic divide. The Indians’ superiority in commercial enterprise has both created economic opportunities for Fijians and provoked their resentment. The ethnic anxieties gave chiefs, and the state institutions empowering them, political strength, and significance as guardians of cultural identity, enabling them to keep their pre-eminence in leadership for many years after the introduction of the popular vote, often co-opting trade unionists and other potential challengers (Norton 1990). For all Fiji’s economic modernity, its extensive urbanisation, and the marked predominance of commoners in leadership and administration today, the chiefs still embody the most potent cultural capital where matters of ethnic interest are seen to be at stake and for the legitimation of political leadership.
While chieftainship is the strongest expression of Fijian ethnic difference, it is always potentially accommodating, not antagonistic and excluding. Indeed, many Indians are disposed to view Fijian chieftainship favourably, because Indians need chiefs for the containment of ethnic conflict, no less than chiefs need Indians to shore up their popular relevance as the symbolic anchor of ethnic identity. To understand the part chiefs have played in the control of ethnic conflict we must link the culture and the development of modern political economy, for it is particularly in this linkage that chieftainship acquired its conciliatory function.
The national importance of the chiefs was underlined by an unprecedented event in the recent negotiations to reform Fiji’s constitution. The principal Indian political leader was invited to speak before that bastion of Fijian ethnic identity and privilege—the Bose Levu Vakaturaga, the Great Council of Chiefs, comprising 50 Fijian chiefs from the 14 provinces. Jai Ram Reddy’s address helped secure the chiefs’ assent to a proposal agreed between Fijian and Indian politicians to change the post-coup constitution which heavily discriminated against the Indians. The proposal, later endorsed by parliament, will allow political representation in proportion to ethnic demography, a bi-partisan cabinet, and special powers for the Council of Chiefs.1
The Council of Chiefs is the strongest embodiment of Fijian ethnic identity and power, as a central presence in the nation. Originating in the assembly of chiefs who ceded their islands to the British Crown, it was formalised by the early governors to facilitate indirect rule and to select Fijian representatives for the colonial parliament. By the end of the colonial era its membership had been broadened to include commoner leaders who had emerged in modern contexts. After the army coup, it was remade in its old form as an almost exclusively chiefly council. Although the meetings are solemnly publicised to the nation as affirmations of indigenous tradition, there is also a modern corporate tone: important looking men in suits and ties assembling at Suva’s main convention centre with their smart briefcases. There are a few women, several of the highest rank.
The Council is a forum where aggressively racial opinions are sometimes voiced, and national leaders sternly questioned. However, as part of the institutional framework of ‘the Fijian way of life’ it also provides direct and vicarious experiences, which, by enhancing Fijian convictions of political and cultural strength in relations with other ethnic groups, have encouraged acceptance of the concessions their leaders make to those groups. This strength embodied in the council stands in a balancing relation to non-Fijian economic advantages.
The invitation to Jai Ram Reddy to speak before the Council was organised by the then Prime Minister, Sitiveni Rabuka, who once expelled Reddy and his colleagues from parliament at gunpoint. Before introducing Reddy, Rabuka urged the chiefs ‘to think of the other communities’: ‘International law has given us [Fijians] the right to self-determination…to administer our own affairs and to protect our interests…But equally under international law…we also have an obligation to look after the minority communities’. He called for ‘a common vision of Fiji…united in our diversity…bound together by a commitment of love and care for each other…’ (Fiji Times, 7 June 1997:2).
Reddy’s speech began with a moving declaration of respect and unity: ‘The grandson of an indentured labourer answers the call of the Bose Levu Vakaturaga…And together we keep an appointment with history…to put the final seal on a troubled era and to open a new chapter of hope’. He addressed his hosts as ‘the chiefs not just of the indigenous Fijians, but of all the people of Fiji’. He spoke of how the ancestral chiefs had overcome their conflicts and laid the foundations for the modern nation in the Deed of Cession: ‘Just as [they] were called to bind together a divided people…so is this great council…called upon again…to be a foundation of unity for the islands your ancestors set on the road to modern nationhood’. In suggesting the development of a ‘partnership’ between Indian and Fijian, Reddy assured the chiefs that ‘we honour your place, and the place of your people, as the first inhabitants of Fiji…We seek not to threaten your security but to protect it…For in your security lies the basis for our own’ (Fiji Times, 7 June, 1997).
The occasion was widely acclaimed in Fiji as a defining event, not just in the process of post-coup rapprochement, but for the larger quest to construct a political community reconciling the principle of indigenous primacy with multi-ethnic government. It affirmed the place of chieftainship in inter-ethnic accommodation, projecting for the national consciousness an image of complementarity and mutuality across difference.
The chiefs’ approval of reform muted the voice of ethnic chauvinism. There were protest rallies by the ‘Viti National Union of Taukei Workers’ and the ‘Indigenous Rights Movement’, one speaker warning that ‘the lewe ni vanua [the people of the land] will now turn against their chiefs, because they have betrayed the indigenous peoples’ trust’ (Fiji Times and Daily Post, 9 June, 1997). But the most significant feature of these challenges was that very few people took part.
The potential for a chauvinist challenge to his leadership had nonetheless inhibited Rabuka during his dialogue with Reddy. He swung repeatedly between ethnic and national visions, earnestly affirming a goal of power sharing, but later declaring he could only agree to change if it strengthened Fijian dominance. His popularity in the Fijian constituency remained based on his charismatic warrior action in pursuit of this power, but under the pressure for reforms, he has been trying to re-make himself as a national leader. As a commoner he has no basis of legitimacy for inter-ethnic ‘bridging’ actions, therefore he has had to rely on the chiefs to validate the compromise with Indian leaders, just as he depended on them to ratify his coup and secure his first regime, and to constrain the ethnic chauvinism inflamed by that crisis (Norton 1990). The Council of Chiefs later endorsed a new constitution and authorised the political party through which Rabuka has ruled.
At issue in all these episodes is the control of cultural capital, the discourses and relationships with which affirmations of ethnic identity can be made and manipulated. Discourses to rival modern chieftainship in the assertion of Fijian identity have usually remained marginal voices, despite stressful economic and social changes evidenced in urbanisation, rural land shortages, and local landowner protests, that might be expected to energise stronger expressions of ethnic militancy. A major reason for this is that chiefs remain firmly positioned in the hierarchical relationships of traditional groupings which continue to be at the centre of most Fijian social and cultural life (Norton 1993). The most progressive political group to challenge Rabuka has been careful to show its respect to chiefs. Although initially promoted as the party that would appeal to educated urban commoners on issues linking them with non-Fijians, it relies on traditional relationships and provincial loyalties for election campaigning. Prominent chiefs are among its most vocal leaders, and its commoner leaders have been quick to reprove Rabuka for insufficient consultation with the Council of Chiefs (Norton 1994).
What is most remarkable about Fiji is not that the popular interests shared across ethnic difference have yet to be given an effective political voice, but that antagonistic ethnic movements have not emerged more strongly than they have. The predominant pattern in the expression of ethnic difference and opposition has been an asymmetric complementarity and accommodation, rather than an antagonistic schism. Two factors have especially contributed to this. First, land sharing has been pivotal in shaping inter-ethnic relations at grassroots and national levels. It is an ongoing negotiable relationship, in which chiefs have played a major part. Second, the cultural logics and social forms of Fijian political life, centring on chieftainship, have constrained antagonistic ethnicity and facilitated conciliatory dialogue with Indian leaders.