Pasifika Talanoa by a traveled ITaukei Fijian

A place to share my thoughts and reflections

Tumblr ↗

  • The Covenant We Cannot Set Aside

    Yadra vinaka Nirmal Singh Cheema,

    I rarely respond to social media, but your post warrants an iTaukei perspective.

    I read it with respect. Your appeal for equal dignity, accountability, and a Fiji where no citizen feels inferior is sincere and morally serious. Many iTaukei share that aspiration.

    Yet your argument is framed in civic-nationalist terms, leaving little room for Fiji’s indigenous foundations. Perhaps that explains the silence of iTaukei. Silence is not agreement. It may reflect a feeling that our history, identity and relationship with land are missing.

    Your comparison with India is unconvincing. India’s princely states were not Fiji’s chiefly confederacies. Our chiefs represented the vanua — a living relationship between land, people, ancestry, custom and spiritual obligation, not property.

    The Deed of Cession was not a commercial transaction but an agreement between chiefs and the Crown, carrying reciprocal obligations to protect our people, land and customs. Native land was not extinguished. Over 90 per cent of Fiji remains under customary iTaukei ownership. Independence in 1970 did not erase this history. For iTaukei, the modern state’s legitimacy cannot be separated from that inheritance.

    You argue Fiji belongs to all its citizens. In the civic sense, yes. But shared citizenship does not make every claim identical. For iTaukei, land is not merely property. It is ancestry, identity, kinship and spiritual continuity. Our deeper anxiety is cultural and political displacement: the fear of becoming just another ethnic community in our own homeland, expected to relinquish our distinctive place.

    Your call for accountability is legitimate. No institution should be beyond scrutiny. But the BLV is not simply another influential body. It represents the traditional apex of iTaukei leadership and our connection to the vanua. Its removal from the 2013 Constitution was experienced not as reform but as a repudiation of our place in the national order. Its restoration affirms identity, continuity and indigenous dignity.

    You rightly argue that tradition must serve the people. But accountability is not subordination to a civic state whose legitimacy is defined without indigenous history. For iTaukei, tradition is part of the foundation upon which the state rests.

    Chiefly authority is not autocracy. A chief’s standing depends on relationships, service and the confidence of the people. Threats of violence must be condemned, but individual statements should not define the BLV as a whole.

    Your account of Indo-Fijian suffering during the 1987 and 2000 coups is powerful. That suffering was real and deserves acknowledgement. But the iTaukei experience must also be acknowledged. Those coups were justified as indigenous protection, yet many iTaukei ask what they gained. The consequences included weakened institutions, damaged investor confidence, fractured communities and diminished trust. Fears about land, identity and political security were real, even when elites exploited them.

    Your question — “What had we done to deserve this?” — is understandable. But another deserves equal consideration: “What have we gained?” Fiji cannot move beyond competing grievances without confronting both honestly.

    Your appeal for equal citizenship is noble. The difficulty arises when indigenous rights are presented as privileges balanced against equality. Protections for iTaukei land, culture and traditional institutions are not concessions granted by the state. They arise from a prior relationship with land and historical commitments inherited by governments. Recognising these rights need not diminish the dignity of other citizens. Equality does not always require identical treatment where histories and obligations differ.

    Your strongest observations concern iTaukei families struggling with poverty, housing, education and opportunity. These are central tests of whether indigenous institutions are fulfilling their responsibilities. Tradition must not excuse inequality within iTaukei society, just as indigenous rights must not justify inequality between citizens.

    But your argument risks alienating iTaukei when it treats tradition and indigenous institutions principally as obstacles to overcome. A shared future cannot be built by asking one people to set aside the foundations of their identity to prove national loyalty.

    The choice before Fiji is not between indigenous recognition and equal citizenship. It is whether we can build equal citizenship on a foundation that acknowledges our history, honours the iTaukei and protects the rights of every citizen.

    The covenant cannot be set aside simply because the language of modern citizenship has changed. Nor should it be invoked to deny the legitimate aspirations of other communities. It must remain a shared responsibility: to protect the vanua, uphold the dignity of all citizens, and ensure neither history nor equality is weaponised against the other.

    This is not a rejection of your vision for Fiji, Nirmal. It is an invitation to build upon an understanding of history — not only the citizenship we share today, but also the covenant from which our nationhood emerged.

  • The Video Is Not the Scandal. Our Appetite Is.

    Fiji needs an honest conversation about voyeurism, pornography, sexual abuse and the meaning of integrity.

    The real test of our values is not how loudly we condemn a private act. It is whether we respect another person’s dignity when we have the power to expose it, the opportunity to exploit it, and an audience willing to reward us for doing so.

    The controversy surrounding an intimate video, reportedly released inadvertently, has become an online spectacle. I have empathy for the embarrassment and distress such an incident has caused. The couple deserve fairness, dignity and an opportunity to explain what happened. The circumstances must be established before judgments are made.

    But personal empathy must not distract us from a much larger problem staring at us.

    We have become a nation of voyeurs, mistaking access to someone’s private life for a public right to consume it.

    The video circulates. Screenshots multiply. Moral police emerge. People condemn what others watch, download and forward. We turn humiliation into entertainment, then congratulate ourselves on our morality.

    We call ourselves God-fearing and family-first. Yet are we willing to confront the gap between our professed values and our private behaviour? Fiji has been associated with striking levels of online pornography consumption, although figures frequently circulated warrant verification. The contradiction deserves more than sensational headlines.

    When an intimate video surfaces, is our outrage genuinely moral? Or are we offended by the exposure while fascinated by the content?

    Our hypocrisy is not simply sexual desire. It is voyeurism disguised as virtue.

    The questions of integrity

    A lawyer has posed questions that deserve serious consideration: Where is the code of conduct for parliamentarians? What does integrity mean? Must the public make noise before those in authority act? And who are you when no one’s watching?

    The Fiji Times today reports that the Prime Minister is awaiting an explanation, while the allegations remain unverified. That is an important distinction. A viral video is not, by itself, proof of misconduct. An apparent mistake is not proof of deliberate wrongdoing. But neither should embarrassment place legitimate questions beyond scrutiny.

    Was the footage posted through an account administered by the Minister or, was there unauthorised access? What responsibility, if any, arises from the circumstances? These questions require evidence, a fair opportunity to respond and the consistent application of relevant standards.

    Integrity is not a declaration of good character. It is demonstrated through honesty, responsibility and accountability, especially when the truth is uncomfortable. The public deserves neither a rush to judgment nor selective silence.

    Yet accountability does not require us to watch the video. We can demand answers without forwarding intimate material. We can scrutinise public office without turning private humiliation into entertainment.

    Privacy is not immunity from legitimate scrutiny; equally, public interest is not a license for voyeurism.

    Our larger national problem

    Fiji’s challenge extends far beyond one video. Sexual abuse, violence against women, coercion and the objectification of women demand sustained attention. Pornography alone does not explain these problems, and watching it does not automatically make someone abusive. But we must examine the attitudes and behaviours we normalise, particularly when they diminish consent or encourage sexual entitlement.

    We tell our young women to protect family honour while excusing our young men with the familiar refrain, “boys will be boys.” We preach purity but neglect consent. We protect reputations more fiercely than victims.

    Fiji has seen the devastating consequences of intimate images being distributed without consent, with victims blamed for the very violations they suffered. That is not morality. It is the transfer of shame from the person responsible for the violation to the person exposed.

    Churches, schools, families and communities must confront this double standard. Teach consent. Challenge coercion. Discuss digital responsibility honestly. Protect survivors. The media must investigate matters of genuine public interest without becoming a distribution network for intimate images.

    And before forwarding such material, each of us should ask: Am I informing the public, or merely enlarging someone’s humiliation?

    The next video will come. The machinery is already in place: a smartphone, a curious audience and a forwarding button.

    We cannot pray on Sunday, scroll on Monday, shame someone on Tuesday, and congratulate ourselves on our morality.

    The couple deserve fairness. Legitimate questions deserve answers. But Fiji deserves something more: an honest reckoning with the culture that makes sexual exposure a spectacle while leaving sexual abuse, consent and our own complicity insufficiently examined.

    The video is not the whole scandal. Our appetite is. Our voyeurism is. And our refusal to recognise ourselves in the crowd watching, may be the greatest hypocrisy of all.

  • Reflections on Justice, Memory, and the Spaces Between

    The Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Judge Navi Pillay earlier today, brought me back to a reflection on the lifelong journey toward peace. Her work—including chairing the UN inquiry into Israel’s conduct in Gaza—embodies a principle shaped by decades of service: those who exercise state power bear a special responsibility to protect human life, and when they fail, accountability must follow.

    My understanding of Jerusalem began in a Honiara church in 1962. I imagined a heavenly city of golden streets, where the divine touched earth so completely that no shadow could exist. In 1979, I walked its ancient streets, touched the Western Wall, followed the Via Dolorosa. I bought an “Israel Is Real” T-shirt—not as politics, but as wonder. I was young enough to think touching those stones meant touching something beyond human conflict.

    Then came the bombings at Rashidiyah in South Lebanon and the massacres at Sabra and Chatila in Beirut. Those names became wounds. Four years at UN headquarters exposed me to the strategic calculations behind Middle East decisions. I learned the distance between public declarations and private deliberations, between the language of peace and the realities of conflict. Innocence was not lost; it was tested. Holy land remains land, subject to ambition, fear, and failure. Golden streets gave way to checkpoints, walls, occupation.

    Across peacekeeping missions in Lebanon and Sinai, and three decades of UN service, I have lived between youthful idealism and difficult experience. I have stood at checkpoints with Israeli soldiers and shared breakfast with Palestinian fathers. One lesson endures: the enemy is not an entire people. It is the refusal to recognize another’s humanity.

    Here Judge Pillay’s work matters beyond any single conflict. Accountability is not vengeance; it is a precondition for durable peace. States can protect or persecute, uphold rights or extinguish them, build institutions or destroy lives on a vast scale. That power brings obligation.

    International law exists because power cannot judge itself. Its purpose is not to erase political differences or deny history’s complexities, but to establish standards by which conduct can be judged. Without accountability, justice becomes selective, and peace risks becoming merely the absence of resistance rather than the presence of dignity.

    As a Christian who has worked extensively in predominantly Muslim environments, I learned that service demands more than taking sides. It requires seeking truth beyond propaganda and listening to those whose suffering challenges our assumptions.

    Consider an mother mourning her Israeli son in Ashkelon and another mourning her Palestinian daughter in Khan Younis. Their circumstances differ, but their grief is real. Their humanity is equal. The moment we decide one mother’s suffering matters less, we compromise the principles we claim to defend.

    Experience has not weakened my convictions; it has made them more exacting. I can condemn Hamas’s attacks on civilians while questioning the proportionality of Israel’s response. I can honor Jewish historical trauma while rejecting its use to justify Palestinian suffering. I can affirm Israel’s right to exist while scrutinizing its government’s actions. These are not contradictions. They reflect a consistent principle: every human life has equal worth, and no historical grievance grants an unlimited license to destroy another people’s future.

    Consistency is not neutrality. Holding all parties to principled standards does not mean pretending they have equal power, bear identical responsibilities, or have committed equivalent acts. It means refusing to let political allegiance determine whose rights matter and whose violations deserve scrutiny. Justice must weigh context, evidence, power, and responsibility without surrendering to the powerful.

    The child who imagined Jerusalem as heaven now understands that its holiness cannot rest on geography alone. Its moral meaning must be measured by how people treat one another there. Perhaps the divine is encountered less in ancient stones than in justice, mercy, and humility practiced among those who walk them.

    Peace is not a destination. It is a discipline: the daily choice to recognize another’s humanity, even when fear and anger make that difficult. Land is not made holy only by past events, but by choices made upon it today.

    My journey continues. I no longer seek a heavenly city so much as a future in which Israeli and Palestinian children see one another as neighbors rather than enemies. That would be a miracle worth pursuing. It begins with moral courage: the courage to hold power accountable, speak uncomfortable truths, and refuse convenient silences.

    Judge Pillay’s career reminds us why that courage matters. Justice cannot guarantee peace, but without justice, peace remains fragile and incomplete. May we follow that example—not by abandoning our convictions, but by applying them consistently, especially when difficult.

  • The Age Question: Fiji’s Gerontocracy and the Limits of Constitutional Reform

    Introduction: A Constitution That Exempts Its Author

    Just last month, Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka told a PINA summit that the proposed 2026 Constitution would disallow him from standing in the next election. He is 78 years old, has already served two non-consecutive terms as PM, and the CRC recommended a retirement age of 75 and a strict two-term limit for the office he holds. Under those proposals, Rabuka would be doubly disqualified—by age and by term count.

    Yet the Constitution (Amendment) Bill 2026, tabled by Rabuka’s own government, omits both limits for the PM. Under section 112, the only eligibility requirement is that the PM must be a member of the House of Representatives. The provisions “do not prescribe a maximum age or restrict the number of terms a person may serve.”

    This is the central paradox of our constitutional moment. A PM who acknowledges that age and term limits would rule him out has tabled a Bill that ensures they will not. The question is not whether Fiji needs age limits—the CRC and ordinary citizens have already answered that. The question is whether our political class will ever bind itself to the same standards it sets for others.

    The CRC’s Proposals: A Mandate for Renewal

    The CRC did not invent the age question. It inherited it from a public weary of a political architecture dominated by the elderly. It recommended that the PM serve no more than two four-year terms and retire at 75. These were not arbitrary numbers. They emerged from nationwide consultations in which citizens explicitly linked political leadership to the demographic realities of a nation whose median age is 28.

    The CRC’s proposals are “laudable elements” that provided democratic and accountability safeguards. Their removal from the Bill is a “significant downgrade.” The CRC did its work. Our political class simply refused to accept their findings.

    Rabuka’s Personal Stake: The Incumbent as Beneficiary

    The omission of PM limits is not abstract. It is personal. Rabuka turned 78 this year. He has already served twice as PM. He has publicly stated that he personally believes a two-term limit is “a good provision.” He has acknowledged that the CRC’s proposals would rule him out. Yet the Bill he tabled ensures he can seek another term.

    Rabuka has invoked the 2013 Constitution’s anti-discrimination clause on grounds of “health, age and other factors” to argue that age caps may be unconstitutional. This is legally defensible. But it sits awkwardly alongside his stated personal support for term limits—and his own admission that the CRC proposals would bar him. A PM who says one thing and legislates another has made the age question not just a matter of policy, but of credibility.

    A Wider Pattern: The Opposition Is Not Immune

    The gerontocracy problem transcends party lines. Former Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry, now in his eighties, continues to lead the Fiji Labour Party—a party founded on the principles of workers’ rights and generational renewal. Chaudhry first became Prime Minister in 1999, more than a quarter-century ago. His continued leadership illustrates that the culture of indefinite incumbency, is not confined to the governing coalition. It is a structural feature of our politics that that is perpetuated.

    This matters because it undermines the comforting narrative that age limits are a partisan issue—a tool for the opposition to constrain the government. In reality, the political class as a whole has demonstrated a reluctance to relinquish power. The FLP, which once represented the dispossessed, now mirrors the same gerontocratic tendencies it once opposed. If the opposition cannot renew itself, how can it credibly demand renewal from the government?

    The Missing Conversation: Term Limits for MPs

    While the CRC addressed the PM’s tenure, it remained silent on term limits for ordinary MPs. This is a critical omission. If the goal is genuine generational renewal, capping the PM alone is insufficient. A political culture that allows indefinite incumbency at the backbench level perpetuates the same culture of waiting that frustrates young aspirants.

    Consider the practical reality: a politician can serve as an MP for decades, accumulating wealth, seniority and patronage without ever facing the prospect of forced retirement. This entrenches incumbency advantage and makes it nearly impossible for new entrants to compete. A three-term limit for MPs—whether consecutive or lifetime—would create regular openings, ensuring that Parliament remains responsive to the demographic realities of our nation.

    This proposal is not without precedent. The National Youth Council has called for four dedicated youth seats and 30 per cent youth representation within party structures. But reserved seats are a palliative. Term limits for MPs would be a structural remedy, ensuring that power circulates rather than accumulates. It is a conversation we must have, even if the CRC chose not to initiate it.

    Public Opinion: A Citizenry Ahead of Its Leaders

    The public has been clear. The National Youth Council’s Ms Laisani Sapo, called for retirement age rules for politicians similar to those for civil servants, who retire at 60. “There should be fairness in public office as well since ordinary civil servants work until 60 before they have to retire,” she said.

    Navua resident Nimesh Sharma told the CRC that while most workers retire around 60, politicians continue contesting elections into their 60s and beyond. He proposed a maximum age limit of 65 for elected office.

    These are not radical demands. And they have been consistently ignored by a political class that prefers to discuss limits in principle while refusing to enact them in practice.

    The Counterarguments: Age as a Blunt Instrument

    The case against age limits is not without merit. An analyst argued that “leadership should not be judged by age alone,” noting that experienced politicians understand campaigning and strategy developed over years. A retirement age of 75 is arbitrary—it would bar a sharp, healthy 84-year-old while potentially permitting a declining 74-year-old.

    Unity Fiji leader Savenaca Narube, who is in his early 70s, opposes term limits entirely, saying “I do not see any reason why a term for a PM… to be limited at all.”

    These are legitimate concerns. But they miss the structural point. The problem is not that individual older politicians are unfit. The problem is that indefinite incumbency creates a culture of waiting—a culture in which younger politicians are told to serve their time, to angle for favour, to wait for old men to step aside. Age limits are not a judgment on individual capacity. They are a structural mechanism for forced renewal.

    The Deeper Problem: Rules Without Enforcement

    The most important lesson of our constitutional moment is not that age limits are desirable. It is that written rules mean little if our political class refuses to be bound by them. The CRC recommended limits. The public supports limits. The PM says he personally supports limits. But the Bill omits limits.

    This is not a failure of constitutional design. It is a failure of political will. You can write any rule into a constitution. But if the people who hold power are the same people the rule would constrain, the rule will not be enacted—or if enacted, will not be enforced.

    The ultimate test of any age limit proposal is not whether it can be written into law. It is whether it can be enforced against the interests of those who currently hold power. Until our political class demonstrates a genuine willingness to bind itself to the same standards it sets for others, proposals like these will remain aspirational rather than transformative.

    Conclusion: The Question Beneath the Question

    Our age question is not really about age. It is about power—who holds it, who inherits it, and who is told to wait. The CRC’s proposals and the Bill’s omissions have made this explicit. A PM who would be disqualified by his own Commission’s recommendations has ensured that those recommendations will not apply to him. An opposition leader in his eighties continues to head the party of workers. The pattern is systemic.

    The deeper question is not whether Fiji should have age limits. It is whether our political architecture can ever be reformed from within by those who benefit from its inequities. Reform comes from pressure—from influential institutions, youth movements, civil society and from the public.

    The age question is a symptom. The disease is a political culture that treats power as a possession rather than a trust. Until that changes, no constitutional provision—however elegantly drafted—will make Fiji’s leadership reflect the youth of its people. The conversation must expand beyond the Prime Minister’s office to encompass every seat in Parliament. Only then can we claim to have addressed the question of generational renewal with the seriousness it demands.

  • The Nation’s Long Memory: Governments Pass, Fiji Remains

    Dobs Tukana asks who really plans Fiji. The deeper question: who really learns for Fiji? A National Planning Commission may help, but the larger issue is whether governments learn from experience.

    Every government—this one and those that follow—should study reviews, commissions, constitutional reviews, audits and inquiries. Not through the electoral lens: Does this embarrass us? Can we blame the last government? Can we postpone it? But through the long lens: What challenges does it reveal? What must change regardless of who governs? What does it mean for the Vanua, institutions and the next generation? What lessons must never be lost when governments change?

    The first is political management. The second is national stewardship.

    Our electoral cycle is four years; a nation’s life is measured in generations. Government should plan for the next generation, not the next election.

    The pattern is familiar. A commission consults and reports; some recommendations are adopted, others ignored. An inquiry exposes failure, then is shelved. An investigation uncovers red flags, but those flags become truths to avoid rather than confront. Names change. The cycle does not.

    Each time, Fiji loses institutional memory, and the next government risks starting from zero. Citizens pay—in wasted resources, declining trust, poor infrastructure, delayed land administration and weak institutions.

    This is not about one government. Office creates an illusion of superior wisdom. Politics does the same.

    An election gives a government authority to govern. It does not give it ownership of the country. Power is not a trophy or a weapon. It is a trust. Government is a custodian, not an owner. It holds the country in trust for those who elected it—and for those not yet born to vote.

    Power should be judged not simply by what it achieves in office, but by what it leaves behind. A promise to citizens is a responsibility, not a slogan.

    Parliament must never become a private club. MPs are elected to represent citizens and exercise public power on their behalf, not to become an insider class. Citizens must be heard before decisions affecting them are made. Accountability cannot stop at Parliament’s door.

    The deeper danger is government believing it owns the truth while citizens are expected to be grateful rather than heard. Speeches cannot correct that. Institutions must require governments to listen, explain, remember and account.

    Every review, inquiry and commission should be treated as a national diagnostic, not a political weapon. Governments should formally respond to recommendations, explaining what they accept, what they reject and why. Parliament should track implementation. Independent institutions should report publicly. Findings should inform national planning, budgeting and policy. We should build humility into the system, not depend on ministerial humility.

    Water, land, housing, infrastructure, the economy, education, the environment and people are not silos; they are parts of one national system. Planning must see the whole.

    A National Planning Commission could provide that long view—connecting economic planning with infrastructure, land, housing, transport, skills, employment, environmental sustainability and iTaukei aspirations, while reporting publicly to Parliament.

    Our system has brought Fiji this far, but parts were designed for another era. It is like running a modern vehicle with an old engine. The answer is not to stop it, but to redesign the engine while keeping the country moving.

    Such a commission must not become another ministry or an elite club. It must be independent, accountable and connected to citizens, with multidisciplinary membership—planners, economists, engineers, social and environmental specialists, experienced practitioners, and national institutions and realities, including the BLV where appropriate. No single profession can design a nation.

    Nor should any government forget what previous governments learned. The real test is not whether a government accepts a report that praises it, but whether it studies one that challenges it. It must accept what is right, explain what it rejects, implement what citizens need, and preserve the lessons for those who come after.

    Governments come and go. Fiji and the Vanua remain. Let every government treat every review, inquiry, commission and audit as part of our nation’s collective memory.

    Study it. Publish the response. Implement what is right. Explain what is rejected. Measure success not by the next election alone, but by what remains for the next generation.

    A government must read the signs—not only polls and headlines, but the times and the country’s needs.

    That is how a nation remembers. That is how a nation learns. That is how a nation plans. And that is how Fiji becomes more than the sum of its governments.

  • The Hormuz Case in Multipolar Perspective

    Michael Froman’s NYT piece below on chokepoints is a lucid exercise in economic statecraft. He argues that Iran “overplayed its hand” in Hormuz, that its leverage is a “wasting and transitory asset,” and that chokepoints work best as deterrents. The mechanisms he cites—rerouting, substitution, diversification—are real, and his warnings about erosion deserve a hearing. But the framework beneath them rests on a premise: that the international system still has a centre, and that centre is the US.

    Froman’s model is hub-and-spoke. The dollar is the benchmark, the “most potent” chokepoint, against which Iran’s geography and China’s rare earths are measured and found wanting. His warning to Washington is “do no harm.” This is hegemonic-stability logic. It treats US primacy as the default and deviations as self-inflicted wounds.

    That assumption no longer holds. Kishore Mahbubani has repeatedly argued that Western domination of world history is over and that the world is already multipolar. The evidence is striking: the dollar’s share of reserves has fallen from over 70% in 2000 to 57% today; China settles roughly 28% of bilateral goods trade in renminbi, up from 11% in 2017; and the EU’s GDP, once seven times China’s, is now roughly equal. These are today’s operating conditions, not future trends. They are the ground on which any serious chokepoint analysis must now stand.

    Once the system is plural, Hormuz looks different. Iran’s closure was not a deterrent failure but a positional play. Froman concedes that Iran “shifted the primary focus of negotiations with the US from its nuclear, missile and regional aspirations to the reopening of the strait itself.” That is a strategic gain: a middle power forcing a superpower to negotiate over the middle power’s leverage rather than the superpower’s agenda.

    The strait has not returned to normal. Roughly 60% of regional crude still transits it. Pipelines and alternative ports exist, but Froman admits they “could be vulnerable to Iranian missiles and drones,” and more than oil moves through the waterway. Iran’s selective blockade—tolls, throttled traffic, selective access—is graduated and sustainable below the threshold of declared war. Iran need not win a military confrontation; it need only remain a credible disruptor. That is leverage, even if it is costly leverage.

    Nor is Iran playing on only one board. The US may still play the dollar, but Iran plays geography—and chess. Its Houthi allies hold Bab el-Mandeb at the Red Sea’s southern mouth. Together, Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb form an asymmetric dual chokepoint: one throttles the Persian Gulf, the other strangles the Suez route. The Houthis need no navy, only drones, missiles, and a willingness to absorb retaliation. The result: surging freight rates, soaring insurance, and diverted Western shipping and assets. Tehran has turned a non-state actor into a deniable, sustainable, cheap extension of its coercive reach. This is not a weak hand overplayed. It is a weak hand multiplied by geography—and geography in a multipolar system is never solely American.

    Chokepoint erosion is not symmetrical either. Froman calls the dollar durable because “there’s no viable alternative.” In a multipolar system, the question is not whether one rival replaces the dollar, but whether a mosaic of alternatives is emerging. Mahbubani’s 7-7-7 Security Council reform—Brazil, China, EU, India, Nigeria, Russia, US—is a metaphor. The issue is not who becomes hegemon next, but whether the architecture becomes structurally plural. The dollar may remain first among equals, but first is not sole.

    Froman’s “self-harm” warning also reads differently. He locates US vulnerability in tariffs, deficits, and debt. Those matter. The deeper self-harm is refusing to listen—to engage rising powers as equals, to reform institutions that no longer reflect power. Western marginalization is not mainly a policy error; it is a structural consequence of insisting the system still revolves around the United States. That refusal is not a tactical mistake; it is a strategic blind spot.

    Iran did not overplay its hand. It played a weak hand well—then found a second. It converted geography into narrative leverage, showing Beijing, Moscow, and the global South that Washington will weaponize the arteries of the global economy when it suits. That framing compounds: middle powers diversify not because they love Iran, but because they fear a hegemon treating interdependence as a cudgel. The lesson is not that Iran is winning; it is that the game has more players.

    US power is not spent, by any stretch of the imagination. The dollar remains central; the US economy remains innovative. But centrality is not unipolarity, and durability is not monopoly. Froman asks whether Washington can preserve its chokepoints. The urgent question is whether Washington recognizes that it is no longer the only player holding one. Hormuz has not returned to normal. Neither has the system Froman’s framework assumes.

  • One Ship, Same Ocean: Race, Belonging and the Fiji We Can Build Together

    The most revealing thing about Paula Manumanunitoga’s “earth oven” post is not the profanity. It is the history behind it.

    A union leader threatening to roast people while defending chiefs triggered outrage. Some saw racism. Others asked: why is defending our chiefs racist? Both questions matter. Defending the dignity of chiefs is not racism. Nor is recognising the vanua, chiefly institutions or iTaukei identity. But threatening “you and your kind”, is not indigenous dignity. It is where legitimate grievance becomes hatred and defending identity becomes intimidation.

    Barack Obama observed that racial anger is real and powerful, and that condemning it without understanding its roots, only widens the chasm. Fiji needs that honesty: understand anger without surrendering to hatred.

    For many iTaukei, chiefs are inseparable from the vanua, ancestry, land and collective memory. The abolition of the BLV was experienced not as institutional change but as an assault on who we are. That wound remains.

    Indo-Fijians carry wounds too. Their ancestors did not choose to come as indentured labourers; they were brought through a colonial system. Many families have lived here for five or six generations. They endured indenture, coups and periods when their belonging was questioned. They are not guests.

    To say Indo-Fijians are here because chiefs permitted them to remain turns citizenship into a favour and belonging into a conditional contract. That cannot be the basis of modern Fiji.

    But equal citizenship must also make room for indigenous identity. Fiji can be a plural republic with indigenous foundations. These are not contradictory. iTaukei society existed long before British rule or the 2013 Constitution. Our languages, customs, chiefly institutions and relationship with the vanua did not begin with the modern State. Acknowledging that, is not racism. It is history.

    History must be understood in both directions. Indo-Fijians need to understand why chiefs matter, why land is more than an asset, and why the vanua is not just a constituency. iTaukei must understand the Girmitiya experience: the humiliation of indenture, the struggle to build lives, and the pain of being told to “go back” to a country many Indo-Fijians have never known as home.

    Language can be a bridge. Learning iTaukei and respecting its dialects, is not submission. It is respect. It says: I understand I am living in a house whose history began before I arrived.

    Our deepest problem is not simply race. It is belonging, power and trust.

    In 1874, our chiefs ceded sovereignty to the Crown with expectations about protecting our people, customs and land. Independence transferred political authority to a Fijian State but did not resolve the relationship between indigenous authority, land, chiefly institutions and the modern State. That unfinished business helps explain why leaders repeatedly mobilised indigenous insecurity. The coups did not resolve the iTaukei question. They exploited it and damaged the whole country.

    The current constitutional debate must go deeper than immunity. Those who overthrow or undermine elected governments cannot expect permanent immunity. But removing immunity alone will not heal Fiji. We must ask why coups became possible, why indigenous defense resonated so deeply, and why the vanua, chiefly authority and the State remain unsettled.

    This is where the wise exercise of power matters. Power is not merely the ability to command. It is knowing when power should be restrained, shared and exercised for the common good.

    Now we face another danger: digital amplification. Social media did not create our grievances; algorithms magnify them. Bots manufacture outrage. AI produces distortions. Platforms reward provocation over reconciliation. We risk becoming addicted to algorithmic anger, mistaking screens for reality and the loudest online voice for the voice of the nation.

    Look up from the screen. The person beside you is your neighbour, colleague, friend or child — not the caricature from an angry post.

    Fiji is one ship. The iTaukei are one of its cabins. Other communities have their own cabins, each carrying history, identity and responsibility. No cabin can ignore the others. Same ocean. Same storm. One ship.

    But a ship is also a home. The iTaukei cabin is the first home, built on the vanua before others arrived. Recognising that first foundation does not make everyone else a guest. It means understanding whose house we are in and respecting its foundations. Once aboard, we share the journey. If the ship goes down, there is no separate lifeboat for race.

    Fiji can be a plural republic with indigenous foundations — a Pasifika democracy where history is remembered without becoming a weapon; where indigenous identity is recognised without becoming racial ownership; and where equal citizenship does not require erasing the first people.

    No erasure of the first people. No guests. No racial ownership of citizenship.

    Know whose house you are in. Respect its foundations. Understand the wounds of those who came before you. Look up from the screen. Then help sail this ship called Fiji, together.

  • An Open Letter to the Prime Minister

    Ni yadra vinaka, Turaga PM,

    Au nuitaka ni o ni bulabula vinaka tiko. You have known me long enough to forgive plain speaking. So I will be plain.

    You have lived through our modern political history from the inside—the coup, the immunity, the return, the coalition. You know what these cycles have cost us. You also know what many learn only after holding high office: power changes the dynamics around those who possess it. People defer. Institutions grow cautious. Advice becomes agreeable. Sometimes those in power mistake the ability to decide for the wisdom to decide well.

    Knowledge and wisdom are not the same thing. Wisdom is what we do when history places a difficult choice before us. It is knowing not only how to exercise power, but when to restrain it, when to share it, and when to trust others with its consequences. Sometimes that requires putting the nation above ourselves and our immediate political interests. I believe we are at such a moment now.

    Some have used harsh words about you. That is not my way. We do not curse our elders. But we do expect them to listen. The trust deficit surrounding our constitutional debate is real. It is not about your experience; it is about what that experience teaches us to do now.

    Our people have borne the heaviest cost of our cycles of instability—lives, livelihoods, and trust. We have watched constitutions arrive promising peace, only for questions of accountability to remain unresolved. We should therefore be careful about calling immunity the price of stability. Stability purchased with silence is not peace. It is unresolved history buried beneath the surface.

    Both the RFMF and the BLV have expressed concerns about blanket immunity. They spoke from their institutional responsibilities: one charged with national security and the Constitution, the other with safeguarding indigeneity. The CRC also addressed the issue and recommended removal of blanket immunity. Yet the present provisions retain and extend significant protections.

    You have said the intention is not to create immunity. But constitutional arrangements must be judged by their effect, not stated intention. That is why the Supreme Court’s 2025 opinion matters. The Court removed a legal barrier understood to restrict Parliament’s ability to alter these protections. The question remains: what kind of accountability should our new Constitution provide?

    CRFMF has publicly indicated the military does not wish to rely on the protections available to it. He has raised concerns about arrangements that could perpetuate the conditions that have historically drawn the military into political intervention. That is not a threat. It is a warning from history. And you, of all people, know that history.

    So I ask you plainly: Will you step up?

    Stepping up does not mean deciding the answer for the people. It means creating the conditions in which the people can decide knowingly. It means considering whether the question of immunity should be separated in the referendum, so citizens can express their views without accepting or rejecting the Constitution as a single package. It means listening to the RFMF’s proposal for a conditional, disclosure-based approach, alongside the CRC’s options. Most importantly, it means trust.

    The wise exercise of power is not measured by how much a leader accumulates or how many institutions he influences. It is measured by what he chooses not to do with that power. You have good people in your government. You have the experience to understand that constitutional protection and political stability are not necessarily the same thing. A Constitution can protect institutions while still requiring accountability from those who exercise public power.

    And this is perhaps the most important question for any leader who has lived through our history: when you have the power to shape the rules, do you shape them to protect power—or to protect the people from the abuse of power?

    You can still choose what kind of legacy this moment will leave. History will remember 1987. That cannot be changed. But history will also record what you chose to do in 2026. You could be remembered simply as the charismatic man who carried out the first coup, or as the elder statesman who, having lived through our cycles of intervention and immunity, helped the country move beyond them.

    That choice is not mine to make for you. Nor should it be made by your party, Government, the military, the BLV, or anyone else.

    Fiji is watching. The RFMF has spoken. The BLV has stood. The referendum is coming.

    Will you step up?

    That is your question to answer. And the nation will remember the answer you give.

    As ever,
    Your trusted adviser

  • The Arrogance of Power: Technology, Contempt and Comfort in American Wars

    The Pentagon dispute reported by WaPo over Trump’s first war of his second term—and what it foreshadows about the challenges of the Iran war—is more than a bureaucratic quarrel. It exposes a recurring pathology in American warfare: the US repeatedly wins tactical and technological battles, while losing the strategic and human terrain.

    The pattern runs from Vietnam through Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq to the Houthis and Iran. Its roots lie in an arrogance of power that mistakes technological superiority for understanding.

    Four failures reinforce one another: the cult of technology over human judgment; the corruption of metrics; contempt for partners; and the confusion of material comfort with military capability.

    Precision Without Understanding

    The US military-intelligence complex excels at measuring what machines can see—satellite imagery, signals intelligence, drones and increasingly, AI-generated targeting data. What it struggles to measure is often more important: clan loyalties, political grievances, cultural nuance and how people actually experience foreign military power.

    Human intelligence is slow, difficult and dangerous. Yet it is indispensable.

    The 2026 Iran war, including the Minab school strike that killed more than 120 children, illustrates the danger. Outdated intelligence, compressed planning and reliance on automated systems converged in a catastrophic failure of judgment.

    Technology did not cause the failure by itself. The deeper problem was believing technology could compensate for insufficient human understanding.

    That illusion is becoming more dangerous as AI enters the decision-making chain. Consulting an AI system about how an adversary might react is not intelligence. It is prediction built on existing information—and potentially existing assumptions. When algorithms begin reinforcing the confidence of those already convinced they understand the battlefield, technology automates hubris as efficiently as it automates targeting.

    When Metrics Replace Meaning

    Vietnam’s infamous body-count strategy created the illusion that measurable destruction represented progress. Today, body counts have been replaced by more sophisticated metrics: targets struck, sorties flown, drones deployed, enemy formations degraded and forces trained.

    The pathology is the same.

    Washington could count battalions trained in Afghanistan. It could not count the humiliation caused by night raids, cultural insults or the accumulated resentment of soldiers treated as inferiors. It could count bombs dropped on the Houthis. It could not measure the legitimacy lost when civilians were killed.

    War is ultimately a contest of political will, not spreadsheets.

    Contempt Is an Intelligence Failure

    I saw first-hand the condescending attitude some Americans displayed toward Afghan counterparts. It mattered.

    Green-on-blue attacks were often explained as Taliban infiltration or inadequate vetting. Sometimes they were. But some were grievance-driven and rooted in humiliation.

    Mock a soldier’s religion, language, courage or competence and you do more than offend him. You validate the narrative.

    The US response often intensified the problem: biometric screening, surveillance, restricted contact and “guardian angel” measures treated Afghan partners increasingly as potential threats. These precautions saved lives, but they also deepened the very divide they were intended to manage.

    A partnership cannot survive without dignity.

    Comfort Is Not Capability

    America also tried to build partner armies in its own material image—air-conditioned barracks, regular meals, equipment, salaries and logistical support. But amenities cannot substitute for ownership, legitimacy and purpose.

    Afghan soldiers were given beds but not ownership; equipment but not legitimacy; salaries but not always a compelling national mission.

    US soldiers can fight with extraordinary effectiveness despite their comforts because those comforts sit within a larger architecture: national purpose, professional leadership, unit cohesion, logistics and institutional identity.

    The lesson is not that comfort makes soldiers weak. It is that comfort without ownership creates dependency.

    The Strategic Bill

    The Houthis and Iran have exposed the limits of US power. Washington can destroy infrastructure and kill targets. It cannot bomb legitimacy into existence.

    Years of counter-insurgency against technologically inferior opponents also created complacency. Ukraine’s inexpensive drone warfare, the resilience of the Houthis and Iran’s capacity to absorb punishment have challenged the assumption that US technological advantage guarantees strategic dominance.

    The US remains enormously powerful. But power has limits.

    It can destroy buildings faster than it can build institutions. It can kill leaders faster than it can understand societies. It can train armies faster than it can create legitimacy.

    That is the real lesson from Vietnam to Iran.

    America did not get these wars wrong because it lacked power. It got them wrong because it misunderstood what power is for—and what power cannot buy.

    Technology cannot replace human intelligence. Metrics cannot replace judgment. Money cannot buy loyalty. Comfort cannot manufacture purpose. And contempt is not merely a moral failing; in war, it is an intelligence failure.

    The most dangerous military is not necessarily the one with the most sophisticated weapons.

    It is the one that can hit the wrong target faster and with greater confidence.

  • Fiji’s Counter-Terrorism Strategy: Strong on Paper, Blind to the Enemy Within

    The drug crisis is no longer merely a law-and-order problem. It is a test of institutional integrity, national sovereignty and the survival of the social fabric that holds Fiji together.

    Fiji launched its National Counter-Terrorism Strategy 2026–2030 earlier this week. It speaks of operational readiness, emergency response, critical infrastructure protection, legislation, training and inter-agency cooperation. These are necessary measures for any responsible nation.

    Yet as our security planners prepare for threats from outside, a more immediate danger demands equal urgency: the growing possibility that transnational drug networks are exploiting weaknesses within our own institutions.

    The distinction matters. A nation can prepare for external threats while becoming vulnerable from within. Indeed, the most dangerous adversary may not be one that storms our gates, but one that quietly purchases access to the people entrusted with guarding them.

    Consider what has emerged this week. The entire 39.5 kilograms of cocaine, valued at approximately $31 million, associated with a high-profile drug case was found missing from the Suva High Court exhibit room, with flour discovered in the remaining bars. Police have confirmed the exhibits were tampered with and are investigating. Six people with access to the room have been identified as persons of interest, according to media reports. The investigation must establish who was responsible and how this happened.

    Whatever the investigation ultimately reveals, the implications are profoundly disturbing. If drugs held as evidence in a court of law can disappear and be replaced with flour, what does this say about the safeguards protecting our justice system?

    This is not simply a question of missing cocaine. It is a question of whether institutions entrusted with upholding the law can reliably protect the very evidence upon which justice depends.

    The concern extends beyond the courts. Drug-related charges involving police officers, allegations of corruption within public institutions, attempted breaches of military armouries and reports of drug consignments arriving through international networks raise serious questions about the resilience of our security architecture. Reports of cocaine washing ashore on remote islands add another dimension to our maritime vulnerability.

    Each incident requires proper investigation. None should be treated as proof of a single coordinated conspiracy. But taken together, they demand a national response that looks beyond individual arrests and seizures to the institutional weaknesses that organised criminals may exploit.

    My concern is that we may be underestimating the nature of the threat.

    In February 2023, Fiji authorities were already confronting transnational criminal networks linked to methamphetamine originating in Mexico. Fiji has since faced repeated major drug seizures and growing concern about the penetration of international trafficking networks into local communities. 

    The danger is not confined to the drugs themselves. International criminal networks bring money, intimidation, weapons, recruitment and the capacity to corrupt. They do not need to take over a country by force if they can acquire influence through bribery, fear and compromised loyalties.

    A Caribbean friend who watched criminal networks undermine the security of his own islands once warned me: “Bodies will start to be found floating in the sea and, guns will follow.”

    His words have stayed with me, particularly as we confront disturbing incidents involving drugs, unexplained deaths and questions about the integrity of our security institutions. Such incidents must not be casually linked without evidence. But neither should we wait for a pattern of escalating violence to become undeniable before acting.

    The lesson from countries overwhelmed by organised crime is that institutional compromise can precede open violence. By the time criminal networks become powerful enough to intimidate entire communities, the damage to public trust may already be extensive.

    Fiji must not assume that we are immune.

    The Government’s counter-terrorism strategy recognises that transnational criminal networks can create pathways that terrorists may exploit. That connection is important. But the wider drug crisis requires sustained attention in its own right, whether or not criminal activity meets the definition of terrorism.

    We therefore need to ask some difficult questions.

    Have recruitment procedures and background checks for police and military personnel been strengthened to detect possible criminal infiltration? Are there effective systems for identifying unexplained wealth, conflicts of interest, suspicious financial transactions and compromised loyalties among personnel in sensitive positions? Are similar safeguards operating within the judiciary, customs, ports, airports and other public institutions?

    And when warning signs emerge in villages, hospitals, churches, schools or government departments, who brings those fragments of information together before they become a national crisis?

    These are not accusations against our institutions as a whole. They are legitimate questions of national security, demanding clear answers from those responsible for protecting the public.

    Fiji needs an intelligence capability that connects information across institutional boundaries, identifies emerging threats and enables timely, lawful action. The Government should assess whether a Fiji Intelligence Service should be constituted, resourced and empowered to fulfill that role, including identifying links between organised crime, corruption and threats to national security.

    Intelligence must not become a political instrument. Its purpose must be to protect Fiji, not protect those in power. Independent oversight, clear legal authority and accountability are essential if such a capability is to command public confidence.

    We must also examine our dependence on foreign security partners. Cooperation with Australia, New Zealand and other partners can provide valuable expertise, intelligence and operational support. But partnership must strengthen our own capacity to understand and respond to threats within its borders. Sovereignty means more than flying our flag; it means possessing the institutional competence to protect our people and make informed decisions about our national security.

    I am particularly concerned for us, the iTaukei.

    Our young people, villages, families and customary structures are among the things most at risk when the drug trade takes root. The Vanua has sustained generations through obligations of kinship, reciprocity, collective responsibility and care for one another. Drug dependency, criminal recruitment, intimidation and corruption threaten to erode those bonds further from within.

    The reported rise in HIV infections associated with injecting drug use adds a grave public-health dimension. This crisis requires prevention, treatment, rehabilitation and support for affected families alongside effective policing. Our young people must be offered a future beyond addiction, exploitation and organised crime.

    This is not merely a law-and-order challenge. It is a struggle over the kind of society Fiji will become.

    Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka and his Government must demonstrate that they understand the scale of the challenge. That means strengthening internal vetting, protecting whistleblowers, investigating corruption without fear or favour, securing evidence, monitoring vulnerable entry points and coordinating intelligence across agencies. It also means ensuring that communities can report concerns safely and that drug prevention and rehabilitation receive sustained attention.

    The counter-terrorism strategy is welcome. But a strategy is only as effective as the institutions implementing it. Protecting electricity, water, ports, airports and telecommunications is important. Protecting the integrity of the institutions responsible for governing and safeguarding those assets is equally vital.

    When cocaine disappears from a court exhibit room, the alarm should reach far beyond the courthouse. It should reverberate through every ministry, every security agency and every office entrusted with public confidence.

    Fiji cannot afford complacency. Nor can we afford to confuse the announcement of a strategy with the achievement of security.

    We voted for leadership that would protect our people, uphold the law and place the national interest above political convenience. That responsibility now demands more than reassuring statements and investigations after the damage is done.

    The question is no longer simply whether Fiji can defend itself against threats from outside.

    It is whether we have the courage, discipline and political will to confront the vulnerabilities within.

    The drugs are here. The institutional warning signs are before us. The time to act is now, before the rot spreads further.