The colonial legacy for ethnic relations in post-colonial Fiji has two dimensions. Most obvious is the reinforcement of the ethnic divide marked by persisting differences and inequalities in economy, culture, and social relations. In political life these differences have outweighed people’s shared interests as workers, farmers, and consumers. The other colonial legacy, less recognised, is the one with which the post-colonial political process has now strongly reconnected: cultural codes and social structures that facilitate mediation and accommodation across difference.

The colonial rulers encouraged the development of a chiefly élite enjoying a privileged position in the state and embodying core values of indigenous Fijian culture. Yet chiefly political privilege has not inevitably been equated with Fijian ethno-nationalism. On the contrary, the formation of the chiefly élite facilitated the growth of a national political economy, and inhibited potentials for antagonistic ethnicity. The significance of the chiefs in the national political process has been their paradoxically dual position as, on the one hand, ethnic boundary markers and rallying figures in the occasional affirmation of indigenous Fijian solidarity in opposition to Indians, and on the other hand, as mediators of that division, reconcilers of the conflicting demands of ethnic and national arenas. This accommodation was favoured precisely by the manner in which Fijian ethnic identity and leadership were constituted from the late colonial period on the basis of the privileged relation between chieftainship and the state.

Of the four principal chiefs who dominated the Council of Chiefs and Fijian political leadership after Sukuna’s death, only Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara survives. Both he and the late Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau played a crucial part in moderating the impact of the Taukei Movement and the military coups. Elected political leadership is now dominated by commoners or people of relatively low traditional rank. Yet the chiefs, particularly as the Council of Chiefs, still hold considerable power as the most potent source of legitimacy for the policies and actions of leaders and as holders of prerogatives in the state under the reformed constitution. They will control appointments of the president and vice-president, and of nearly half the seats in an upper house where they will hold veto power.

Of course, the circumstances of ethnic relations today are very different from those in which the forms of Fijian leadership and ethnic identity I have been describing were shaped. The inter-ethnic role of the chiefs was linked with a pattern of complementarity supported in large part by a substantial ethnic separation in economy. There is now an increasing competition for jobs, land, and other economic resources. A critical question for Fiji’s future is whether the chiefs will continue to act as conciliators, or whether, as this competition intensifies, they will align with the aggressively ethnicist styles of leadership they have in the past helped to subdue.