The politics

of race

Politics in Fiji: Studies in Contemporary History.

Edited by Brij V. Lai. Pub lished by the Institute for Polynesian Studies, Brigham Young University, Hawaii Campus, 1986. 161 Pp. ISBN 0 939154 45 5. Price SUS 18.95.

This collection of five related essays is a “survey of the evolution and structure of Fijian politics in the colonial and post colonial period”. Fiji, perhaps more so than any other part of the English-speaking Pacific, has managed to develop a most curious and complex political system which the authors have elaborated upon in readable detail.

Ahmed Ali’s essay on pre independence political change lays the foundation for the book’s theme. The 1874 Deed of Cession “enshrined the doc trine of paramountcy of Fijian interests”, and the task of the colonial government was to function as the “guardian of the indigenes.” The Council of Chiefs became the “official voice of the Fijian people and a channel through which Fijian aspirations and goals were communicated to the colonial regime”. The necessity of creat ing representative institutions for Europeans and Indians be came increasingly apparent.

Brij Lai’s essay on post independence electoral and political development focuses on the major institutions of Fijian governance. The Fiji con stitution “has not ceased to be a controversial issue in Fijian poli tics.” The Westminster model constitution organised the allocation of power and authority among Fiji’s ethnic constituencies, though many Fi jians believed that only a “Fi jian-dominated Alliance gov ernment will protect their herit age and rights.”

By implication then, it has been suggested that the Indians must accept a second-class political position, though the Federation opposition activities would indicate that “it has recognised the dire consequ ences that await the Indians should it ever capture govern ment” According to the 1982 general election results, it seems that their is some credence to

the view that the Fijian attitude to sharing power with others is “hardening.” Land is a “more emotive issue than the distribu tion of political power” and it has become “more acute, cer tainly more politicised” in the last two decades.

“What land is to the Fijians, education is to the Indians, it has been said often in Fiji, though, of course, both com munities need both land and education.” Underlying the policy of positive discrimination in favor of indigenous Fijians, is the “assumption of Indian prosperity and Fijian economic backwardness. ”

Fijians who score lower on university entrance examina tions than their Indian counter parts often receive preferential treatment. Such policies, argues Lai, “distort reality and obscure important internal so cial and economic differentia tion within the two communi ties.”

Indeed, it could be demons trated that many Indians are themselves disadvantaged by poor educational facilities and adverse geographic circumst ances. To promulgate such policies on th*> basis of “bland stereotypes of Indian prosperity and Fijian backwardness is as misleading as it is dangerous. ”

For Ralph Premdas, ethnic politics is “fraught with tension and racial animosity” whereby open expressions of “mutual contempt by members of diffe rent groups are subtle and restrained in daily intercourse, but periodically spill over into public discourse.” Political pro posals for a “government of national unity” between Prime Minister Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara and Jai Ram Reddy, President of the opposition Na tional Federation Party, were initiated on the basis that poli tics which uses “race as the measure for evaluating what is

suitable or unsuitable” for Fiji undermines the legitimacy of existing governing institutions.

Though ethnic identity is still the “dominant force in solidar ity relations”, Premdas is hope ful that an evolving and new generation of “educated Fijians and Indians who are urban based, secular, and in strumental in outlook” will rise to the forefront of political leadership.

Roderick Alley attributes the emergence of party politics in Fiji to the “introduction of novel modes of electoral participa tion, organised political activi ties, and the dawning recogni tion that Fiji would indeed have to stand on its own as a nation greater than the sum of its collective ethnic parts.”

The formative years of the Alliance Party were marked by complications attributed to the fact that the party itself was “not a unitary body with a single membership at large”, but rather composed of “consti tuent structures”. Initial efforts to attract members were inhi bited by the lack of organisa tional procedures and objec tives and the inability of the party to “articulate coherent recommendations as to the spe cifics of the party they were encouraged to join.”

Once the electoral process was initiated, the Alliance party “sought to convey itself as a party of gradualism, authority, legitimacy and above all, mod erate responsibility. ” The party sought only to “strengthen its claim as the true representative of all the communities in Fiji. ”

The Federation party, on the other hand, was organised on clearly perceived assumptions.

Economic insecurity, a lack of political strength, and the unset tled social status and national identity were paramount con siderations in the minds of party members. Its recruitment efforts

were directed in areas where the Indian communities were concentrated.

Robert Norton’s discussion on ethnic divisions and elite competition attempts to analyse political dynamics in terms other than race. Political con frontation and conciliation as a process between opposition parties result in part from the inconsistent characteristics of inequality existing or perceived to exist between ethnic com munities.

Fijians and Indians are not communities in direct competi tion. In Norton’s opinion, com munal conflict arises out of differences between two diffe rent socio-economic systems rather than from different ethnic groups. Thus the process of co-operation and compromise becomes feasible when the political elites come to realise that some accommodation is possible.

Party conflicts are essentially a “contest not between ethnic groups, but between ideologies designs for Fiji either of which people might choose to endorse in some degree.” In a sense then, the problems arise out of the difficulties in “brid ging different socio-economic systems, and making the re sources of one system available to the other without producing political disequilibrium.”

William Tagupa

Ratu Mara: There have been suggestions that he should lead a “government of unity.”