Government, the Bose Levu Vakaturaga and the Church in Our Intergenerational Reckoning
Sugar has a long memory. Across the Caribbean and Latin America, it built fortunes through the dispossession of Indigenous peoples and the exploitation of enslaved Africans. In Fiji, its legacy took a different form: indentured labour, restricted economic opportunities and an economic order shaped by colonial priorities. Today, that legacy extends beyond the plantation and into our food systems, where changing diets and the widespread consumption of sugary and highly processed foods contribute to a growing burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs).
The methods have changed, but a fundamental question remains: whose interests does the system serve and who ultimately bears its costs?
In Fiji, that question places three influential institutions under scrutiny: Government, the Bose Levu Vakaturaga (BLV) and the Church. Each possesses a different kind of authority. Together, they could help shape a future in which the wellbeing of generations yet unborn takes precedence over the interests of the present. The question is whether they will rise to that responsibility.
The colonial roots of an unequal economy
Between 1879 and 1916, more than 60,000 indentured labourers arrived in Fiji from India to work in the sugar industry. Their labour sustained a plantation economy from which the Colonial Sugar Refining Company derived substantial benefits. While the colonial administration preserved most iTaukei landownership, it also restricted indigenous economic opportunities. Indo-Fijian farmers, meanwhile, became central to cane cultivation on leased land.
The resulting economic order was deeply uneven. Indigenous landownership was protected, but access to commercial agriculture, capital and entrepreneurial opportunity remained constrained. Indo-Fijian farmers built livelihoods around leases whose security depended on a system they did not control.
After independence, uncertainty over land leases contributed to the displacement of many Indo-Fijian farmers and the contraction of the sugar industry. The legacy is more complicated than a simple division between winners and losers. Both communities inherited vulnerabilities from an economic structure, that distributed ownership, opportunity and risk unequally.
The deeper lesson is that landownership alone does not guarantee economic empowerment. Nor does participation in an industry guarantee a fair share of its rewards.
Fiji must confront this history without allowing it to harden into permanent ethnic grievance. Our challenge is to build an economy in which iTaukei ownership translates into meaningful opportunity and agricultural communities can prosper.
From the plantation to the plate
Today, sugar presents another challenge. Its consequences are increasingly visible not only in our economy but also in the health of our people.
Sugary drinks, highly processed foods and changing dietary habits contribute to the burden of diabetes, heart disease, kidney failure and other NCDs. These illnesses affect families, strain public health services, shorten lives and diminish the wellbeing of communities.
The parallel with the colonial sugar economy must be drawn carefully. Contemporary food consumption is not equivalent to indenture or slavery. Yet we must ask difficult questions about the commercial incentives and food environments that shape individual choices; particularly when inexpensive processed foods are readily available, while healthier alternatives are less affordable.
When commercial incentives encourage consumption patterns that contribute to preventable illness, the consequences extend far beyond the individual consumer. Families bear the emotional and financial costs. Health services absorb the expense. Children watch parents and grandparents struggle with illnesses that; in some cases, might have been prevented or delayed.
Here lies a troubling contradiction: we seek to sustain an economically important industry while the wider food environment imposes mounting costs on the health of our people.
Government must therefore reconcile economic policy with public health. This means reviewing subsidies and incentives, strengthening preventive healthcare, improving access to nutritious foods and considering measures such as additional taxation of sugar-sweetened beverages. It also means helping farmers diversify into sustainable agriculture and traditional food production.
The objective is not to demonise sugar or the communities whose livelihoods depend on it. It is to ensure that economic activity serves our wellbeing rather than undermining it.
The responsibility of the Vanua
This is where the BLV has a potentially transformative role.
The BLV is not a political party, a Government department or an instrument of any faction. Its legitimacy rests on its relationship with the Vanua and its responsibility to the iTaukei. That responsibility must extend beyond preserving chiefly institutions and customary practices to safeguarding the wellbeing of the people whose lives, give the Vanua its meaning.
What does custodianship mean if the land remains in indigenous hands but families struggle with preventable illness, substance abuse, violence, economic insecurity and the erosion of language and cultural knowledge?
The BLV has an opportunity to articulate a broader vision of iTaukei wellbeing, connecting land, food, health, culture, economic participation and the dignity of ordinary members of landowning units. Food sovereignty, revitalisation of the iTaukei language, protection of women and children and meaningful opportunities for younger generations belong within that vision.
Such a role requires independence. The BLV must be able to speak honestly, including when its concerns challenge Government policy or powerful commercial interests. Its authority cannot rest solely on legislation or constitutional recognition. It must continually earn legitimacy through service to the Vanua.
But independence must not become insulation from accountability. The BLV must remain answerable to the people whose interests it exists to serve, rather than becoming preoccupied with its own status or preservation.
The true measure of chiefly custodianship is not the authority exercised today, but the inheritance secured for tomorrow.
The Church and the moral life of the community
The Church occupies another distinctive position. Its presence in villages and communities gives it a reach few other institutions can match. It shapes moral understanding, family life, community relationships and the way people interpret suffering, responsibility and hope.
That influence carries obligations.
The Church can encourage healthier living, support community gardens, promote food security, counsel families affected by addiction and protect those vulnerable to violence and abuse. It can help communities recognise that caring for the body, the family and the natural environment is inseparable from spiritual responsibility.
But the Church must also examine itself. Denominational rivalry, silence in the face of abuse and an excessive emphasis on material prosperity can undermine its moral authority. Faith should not become a means of blessing accumulation while overlooking the circumstances that leave families vulnerable.
Nor should suffering be treated simply as a private spiritual failure when the conditions contributing to it are social, economic and institutional.
A genuinely prophetic Church must care about both the soul and the conditions under which people live. It must speak not only about salvation beyond this life, but also about justice, dignity and compassion within it.
A covenant between generations
Government, the BLV and the Church should not become extensions of one another. Their responsibilities differ and their independence matters. Yet their distinct forms of authority could become complementary.
Government possesses the legislative, regulatory and fiscal tools to shape our economic and public health environment. The BLV can articulate a long-term vision grounded in the Vanua, customary responsibility and iTaukei wellbeing. The Church can mobilise communities, cultivate moral responsibility and provide practical support where families need it most.
Together, they could help build a social compact that places human wellbeing above institutional self-interest. Such cooperation must extend across ethnic and religious boundaries, because our future cannot be secured by any one community acting alone.
This is not a call to enlarge the power of any one institution. It is a call for each to rediscover the purpose for which its authority should be exercised.
The future of Fiji cannot be measured solely by economic growth, government revenue, institutional recognition or the preservation of inherited status. It must also be measured by whether our children grow up healthier, families live with dignity, communities retain their cultural knowledge and young people inherit meaningful opportunities rather than accumulating burdens.
Sugar once helped organise an economy around colonial extraction. Today, the challenge is broader: to ensure that economic incentives, political decisions, cultural authority and religious influence serve life rather than diminish it.
The bitter harvest of history need not determine the harvest of the future. But change will require more than declarations of goodwill. It will demand institutional courage, public accountability and a willingness to look beyond immediate advantage.
The Vanua is not merely the land we inherit. It is the living relationship between those who came before us, those who stand here today and those yet to be born. We are its temporary custodians, not its final beneficiaries.
Ultimately, the measure of our leadership is what we leave capable of flourishing after we are gone. We must plant trees under whose shade we may never sit.
The future is not simply something we inherit. It is something we owe.
