Pasifika Talanoa by a traveled ITaukei Fijian

A place to share my thoughts and reflections

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Tag: history

  • The Illusion of Protection: Why Fiji’s Constitution Must Restore Indigenous Land Safeguards

    The Fiji Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Commission has done what too many institutions have been afraid to do: it has told the truth about the 2013 Constitution’s treatment of iTaukei land rights. Those protections, the Commission declared, are “nothing more than an illusion.”

    This is not hyperbole. It is a statement of constitutional fact.

    When Ms. Alefina Vuki addressed the Constitutional Review Commission and exposed the fundamental contradiction between Section 28 and Section 27, she laid bare a deception that has been hiding in plain sight. Section 28 appears to prohibit the alienation of iTaukei land. Section 27 then hands the State sweeping powers to acquire that very land for “national development.” One hand gives. The other takes away. And the landowner is left holding a paper promise while the bulldozers arrive.

    The safeguards we lost

    Under the 1997 Constitution, laws affecting iTaukei land and affairs could not be altered without strict consensus mechanisms. The Bose Levu Vakaturaga had a role. Entrenched provisions required more than a simple majority. There was a recognition that iTaukei proprietary rights were not ordinary legislation to be amended at the whim of whatever government held power.

    The 2013 Constitution stripped all of that away. Today, the iTaukei Lands Act 1905, the Native Land Trust Act 1940, the Fisheries Act, and every other instrument protecting iTaukei resources can be amended or repealed by a simple parliamentary majority. No consultation with traditional landowners is required. No consent must be sought. The BLV, once the guardian of iTaukei interests, has no constitutional role in the process.

    This is not governance. This is expropriation by procedural convenience.

    The international obligation we ignore

    Fiji has signed the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). It has committed to the principle of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC). These instruments require that indigenous peoples be consulted in good faith on matters affecting their lands, resources, and traditional livelihoods.

    Yet our Constitution contains no such requirement. A parliamentary majority can authorise mining, logging, or land acquisition without a single iTaukei leader being asked for their view. The FHRADC is correct: this violates Fiji’s international obligations. But more than that, it violates the covenant our chiefs made in 1874—the promise that our lands would be protected, not pillaged.

    The practical consequences

    This is not an abstract legal debate. It has real consequences for real people.

    When the Land Use Decree of 2010 created a land bank allowing government to lease iTaukei land for up to 99 years, no iTaukei governance body existed to scrutinise the terms. When the VKB was digitised by a foreign commercial team, no customary authority was consulted on the rules embedded in the system. When mining concessions are granted, the landowners are often the last to know and the least able to negotiate.

    The removal of entrenched safeguards has created a system where landowners are poor in their own land—holding 87% of the country’s land area but representing 75% of Fiji’s poor. This is not coincidence. It is the predictable outcome of a constitutional framework that treats indigenous property rights as a suggestion rather than a guarantee.

    What must be restored

    The FHRADC has recommended re-inserting the 1997 Constitution’s entrenched safeguard clauses, adapted to Fiji’s current single-house parliament. This is the minimum requirement. But I would go further.

    First, the Deed of Cession must be restored as the foundational document of our constitutional order. It is the only instrument that ever genuinely protected iTaukei proprietary rights, and its exclusion from the 2013 Constitution was an act of historical erasure.

    Second, the BLV must be given a constitutional role in any legislation affecting iTaukei land, resources, or traditional affairs. Not a veto—I am not arguing against parliamentary sovereignty. But a requirement that the chiefs be consulted, their views recorded, and their consent sought before any parliament can alter the legal framework governing iTaukei existence.

    Third, Section 27 must be amended to require Free, Prior, and Informed Consent from affected iTaukei communities before any compulsory acquisition of land for “national development.” The State’s developmental aspirations should not come at the expense of indigenous peoples’ rights. The two can be balanced, but only if the balance is written into the Constitution itself.

    The argument against illusion

    Some will argue that such provisions are undemocratic, that they privilege one community over others, that they entrench ethnic division. These arguments misunderstand what is being proposed.

    The iTaukei are not seeking special privileges. We are seeking the fulfillment of a promise made in 1874, renewed in every constitution until 2013, and broken by a document drafted under military decree. Protecting indigenous land rights is not ethnic favouritism. It is the recognition that some rights are so fundamental that they should not be subject to the shifting tides of political majorities.

    The FHRADC has done Fiji a service by naming this illusion. The question now is whether the CRC will have the courage to dispel it.

    A covenant renewed

    The Deed of Cession was a covenant of trust. Our chiefs trusted the Crown to protect iTaukei existence. That trust was broken. The 2013 Constitution was imposed, not negotiated. It reflected the priorities of those who drafted it, not the rights of those who live under it.

    We now have a chance to write a new compact—one that restores entrenched safeguards, recognises customary law, gives the BLV its proper place, and ensures that iTaukei land rights are not an illusion but a constitutional reality.

    The FHRADC has shown us the truth. The question is whether we will act on it.

  • The Spear Turns: Why the RFMF’s Call for Accountability Is Fiji’s Most Courageous Act of Statesmanship

    For nearly four decades, Fiji has lingered in political purgatory. We have constructed, as RFMF Commander Major-General Ro Jone Kalouniwai so poignantly observed, a house “whose walls were built to protect the architects of rebellion, rather than the citizens of this nation.” But on Thursday, in a moment destined for the annals of our history, the very institution that once wielded the spear of political intervention voluntarily extended the olive branch of justice.

    Through its unprecedented submission to the Constitution Review Commission, the Republic of Fiji Military Forces has accomplished what no government in our post-1987 era has possessed the moral fortitude to do: it asked to be held accountable. By calling for the removal of the “Mark of Impunity”—the constitutional shielding of past acts from legal scrutiny—the RFMF has demonstrated not only institutional maturity but has also shamed our political class into confronting a truth they have long and carefully avoided.

    The Courage of Self-Examination

    Let us be clear about the gravity of this moment. The Commander RFMF acknowledged that this proposal carries “real cost.” He admitted that by stepping out from behind legal protections, the men and women of the RFMF, place themselves at legal risk and risk being perceived by some within the ranks as committing a “breach of loyalty.”

    This is not the language of politicians seeking to placate the electorate; it is the language of selfless leaders willing to sacrifice their own safety for our national soul. How many of our political leaders, who have enjoyed the protection of these very immunity clauses, have demonstrated such self-sacrifice? The military is effectively declaring: “If we have erred, we are willing to face the courts.” This stands in stark contrast to our political establishment, which has often treated the constitution, as a shield for the powerful rather than a sword for the powerless.

    A Defining Moment for Government

    The RFMF has now passed the ball to the government’s court. For years, successive governments have operated behind the very clauses the military now seeks to abolish, often arguing that disturbing the immunity provisions would threaten stability—that we must choose between “justice” and “peace.” Today, that argument no longer holds water. The RFMF—the very institution whose past actions justified those fears—has declared that such fears are no excuse for inaction.

    This is the government’s moment to rise. It must now match the RFMF’s moral courage with its own political will. Rather than clinging to legal loopholes or treating the immunity clause as a convenient shield, our government has a historic opportunity to demonstrate that it governs not for the comfort of the powerful, but for the conscience of our nation. Commander RFMF has shown that institutional survival should never be purchased at the expense of the national soul. The government must now show that political survival should not be either. The challenge is clear: will the government embrace the truth that justice is a precondition for lasting stability, not a threat to it?

    A Mandate from the Bose Levu Vakaturaga

    This move aligns seamlessly with the calls of the Bose Levu Vakaturaga, which has advocated for truth and reconciliation rooted in indigenous tradition. In many ways, the RFMF is finally providing the institutional backbone to a moral imperative that iTaukei society—through its traditional structures—has always understood: you cannot move forward until you have made peace with the past.

    The RFMF’s proposal to replace blanket immunity with conditional immunity, tied to full public disclosure through a strengthened truth and reconciliation process, is a masterstroke. It does not seek vengeance; it seeks truth. It offers a pathway that honours international standards of justice while respecting the unique cultural and historical context of Fiji. It is a proposal that prioritises the nation over the institution—and it calls on government to do the same.

    Redefining Patriotism

    Commander RFMF’s assertion that the “survival of any single institution can no longer be purchased at the expense of this nation’s soul” is a rebuke to the entire political class, past and present. It redefines what it means to be a patriot. For far too long, patriotism in Fiji has been defined by which coup you supported or which political party you belonged to. The RFMF is now suggesting that true patriotism is the willingness to subject yourself to the same laws as the ordinary citizen—to step off the pedestal and stand in the dabibi with the people you are meant to serve.

    The Path Forward

    The Constitutional Review Commission now faces its greatest test. Will it show the “moral courage” that Maj-General Kalouniwai has urged? And will the government, in turn, embrace the Commission’s recommendations rather than shy away from them?

    The RFMF has given the government and the Commission the perfect cover to do the hard but right thing. There is no longer an excuse that “the military will not allow it”—the military is leading the charge. If government and Parliament fail to act, it will not be protecting the nation from instability; it will be failing the citizens who have been denied justice for generations. The government must meet this moment with the same boldness shown by the RFMF. It must see this not as a political liability, but as the greatest chance in a generation to forge a Fiji where the law applies equally to all, and where peace is built not on silence, but on truth.

    The RFMF has shown us that true strength is not the ability to seize power, but the humility to relinquish it. Now, the government must show that true leadership is not the ability to hold power, but the wisdom to use it for redemption. The alternative, as Commander RFMF warned, is a “nation of perpetual drifting”—a cost that our children and grandchildren should never have to bear.

    The spear has turned and is showing government the way. The question is: will our government dare to till the soil?

  • The Neo-Feudal Lords: Why Nation-States No Longer Rule

    We have crossed a silent threshold. Today, the top ten billionaires possess more combined wealth than the bottom 40% of humanity. Their net worth dwarfs the GDP of the majority of the world’s nations. Figures like Musk, Bezos, and Arnault do not merely own companies; they own the infrastructure of reality—global communications, satellite surveillance, AI training data, and supply chain logistics. They are not citizens of any single country; they are policy arbitrageurs, migrating their capital and legal identities across borders faster than any sovereign can legislate.

    A billionaire today can launch more rockets, influence more voters, and shape more global market sentiment than the presidents of 150 nations combined. The modern state has become a tenant in its own house, paying rent to the ultra-wealthy in the form of tax holidays and deregulation.

    The Ghost of a Moral Congress

    It was not always this way. There was a time—specifically, the post-WWII decades—when the United States Congress exhibited a fierce, moral sovereignty. In the early 20th century, President T. Roosevelt’s trust-busting apparatus dismantled Standard Oil, physically fracturing a monopoly that threatened democratic governance. In the 1970s, even as oil shocks rattled the West, lawmakers seriously entertained windfall profit taxes, daring to reclaim national resources from corporate hoarders.

    Why did they succeed? Because there was a bipartisan consensus that political legitimacy superseded commercial accumulation. Antitrust laws were weapons of the people.

    Today, that congressional spine has atrophied into a gelatinous state. The Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, effectively legalized bribery, transforming campaign finance into a legalized auction house for legislation. Politicians no longer “represent” districts; they “service” portfolios of donors. The same Congress that once broke up oil empires now kowtows to fossil fuel lobbies while the planet burns. The US regulatory state has been captured—not by ideology, but by the sheer gravitational weight of billionaire-funded think tanks and Super PACs.

    The Pasifika Reality: Fiji’s Coup by Cash

    This is not only an American tragedy. It is a Suva reality.

    In Fiji, the “fall of everyone else” is palpable. The nation stands on the frontlines of climate annihilation—rising tides threaten to swallow villages, and ocean acidification decimates fisheries that have sustained communities for millennia. Yet, where is the fierce resistance to extractive industries?

    Local politicians, enticed by the promise of luxurious campaign lifestyles and foreign investment carrots, increasingly find themselves drafting policy not for the Vanua (the people and land), but for luxury resort magnates, deep-sea mining prospectors, and foreign real-estate speculators. The very land that holds customary title, is quietly encircled by billion-dollar deals that benefit a few offshore holding companies.

    In Fiji, as in the West, the moral authority that once shielded public goods is eroding. Instead of holding mining conglomerates accountable for reef destruction, politicians parrot corporate talking points about “economic growth.” Instead of safeguarding water sources and subsistence agriculture, they offer tax-free zones to transient billionaires who treat the islands as exclusive playgrounds, not homelands.

    The Plutocratic Myth of Meritocracy

    As Chrystia Freeland brilliantly exposes, the elite believe they deserve their power. They are the “working rich”—obsessive, brilliant, global. But this is the ultimate intellectual con. Their wealth is not purely earned; it is extracted through regulatory loopholes, algorithmic rent-seeking, and the systematic weakening of labor unions. The playing field is not level; it is tilted so steeply that the middle class is sliding off.

    When an itaukei gonedau competes against a subsidized foreign trawler or when a local small-business owner competes against a tax-avoidant global conglomerate, it is not a free market. It is a feudal system with digital accounting.

    The Urgent Question

    If the US—the historic beacon of anti-trust morality—can no longer tame the robber barons, what hope for small island states? The answer lies in Freeland’s unspoken warning: Nationality is obsolete for the rich, but mandatory for the poor. The wealthy can buy citizenship in Malta, hide cash in the Caymans and influence policy in Washington and Suva simultaneously.

    We must face a brutal truth: democracy is currently a subsidiary of the rich. Until citizens in every corner—from the streets of New York to the villages of Viti Levu—reclaim the narrative that sovereignty belongs to the people, not the balance sheet, we will continue to be vassals in a global oligarchy.

    The question is not whether billionaires run the world. They do. The question is whether we still have the moral congress—in our parliaments, our communities, and our voting booths—to take it back. Or will we quietly accept that the fall of everyone else is simply the price of admission to their gilded age?

  • The Quiet Revolution: How China’s White Paper on Global Governance Signals a Fundamental Shift in World Order

    Introduction

    The release of China’s White Paper on global governance reform represents far more than a diplomatic gesture or policy statement. It marks a watershed moment in the long arc of international relations—one that signals the definitive end of an era defined by Western hegemony and the beginning of a multipolar order that the Global South has long demanded but never possessed the power to achieve. For those of us who have spent decades serving in United Nations missions across the most challenging postings in the developing world, this document does not read as a threat or a power play. It reads as recognition—belated but welcome—of demographic, economic, and political realities that the West has chosen to ignore for far too long.

    What makes this moment particularly significant is not merely the content of the White Paper itself, but the sophistication with which China has approached the project of reimagining global governance. Where the United States built its soft power through cultural exports, educational exchange, and the moral authority of its founding ideals, China has taken this model and elevated it to a strategic level that the West, in its complacency, has failed to anticipate. The White Paper is not propaganda; it is architecture—a blueprint for a new international order that speaks directly to the aspirations of nations that have emerged since the founding of the United Nations.

    The Soft Power Paradox: How the West Lost Its Moral Authority

    The Democracy Perception Index reveals a stunning reversal: for the first time, the United States is viewed more negatively than both Russia and China across nearly one hundred countries. This is not an accident of public relations or a temporary dip in popularity. It is the cumulative result of decades of inconsistent foreign policy, the imposition of conditionalities that prioritize Western interests over local development, and the stark hypocrisy of a system that preaches democracy while practicing hegemony.

    The West developed soft power organically, through the appeal of its values, the quality of its institutions, and the promise of a better life. But soft power, like any form of influence, requires maintenance. It demands consistency between word and deed. When the United States invades Iraq on false pretenses, when it abandons climate commitments, when it threatens tariffs against nations seeking economic alternatives, it does not merely damage its reputation—it fundamentally undermines the credibility of the entire rules-based order it claims to uphold.

    China has observed this erosion with the patience of a chess master. Rather than directly challenging American leadership, Beijing has positioned itself as the defender of sovereignty and development rights against a system that has become increasingly arbitrary and self-serving. The White Paper does not mention the United States by name because it does not need to. The implication is devastatingly clear: the existing order is structurally flawed, and its failures are not the result of any single administration but of fundamental problems that cannot be resolved through cosmetic reforms.

    The Global South’s Long Wait for Recognition

    For those of us who have worked in UN field missions across Africa, Southeast Asia, West Asia, and South Asia, the language of the White Paper resonates with the voices we have heard for decades. In village meetings in post-conflict zones of West Africa, in negotiations with fragile governments in South Asia, in the halls of UN agencies where developing nations struggle to be heard, the same themes emerge: representation without power is meaningless, sovereignty is non-negotiable, and development cannot be dictated from afar.

    The Global South is not a monolith. Its interests are diverse, its political systems varied, its grievances specific. Yet certain priorities unite these nations: climate security, access to development, and freedom from external imposition. These are not radical demands. They are the basic requirements of dignity and self-determination that the post-WWII order promised but never delivered.

    As one South African observer noted, even incremental gains in representation are valuable for many Global South countries. This speaks to a deeper truth: for nations that have been systematically excluded from the levers of power, any movement toward inclusion represents progress. The White Paper offers this movement, not as charity, but as principle. It argues that the current system, built around US and European power during an era of colonialism and Cold War politics, no longer reflects the realities of a world where economic dynamism has shifted decisively toward Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

    China’s Strategic Patience: The Long Game of Institutional Reform

    What distinguishes China’s approach from previous attempts at global governance reform is its dual-track strategy. As the White Paper demonstrates, Beijing is simultaneously pushing for reform of existing institutions while building parallel structures that offer genuine alternatives. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and the expanding BRICS framework are not mere gestures; they are functioning institutions that provide developing nations with options they never had before.

    This is where the West’s underestimation of China becomes most dangerous. The assumption that these institutions are inferior, or that they will fail to achieve the standards of Western-led organizations, reflects the same hubris that led the United States to dismiss China’s economic potential in the 1990s. Just as China transformed its domestic economy through strategic planning and patient execution, it is transforming global governance through methodical institution-building.

    The White Paper’s call for UN reform, particularly Security Council expansion, is carefully calibrated. China knows that immediate transformation is unlikely, but it also understands that the trajectory of power is shifting inexorably in its favor. By 2050, one in four people globally will be African. The demographic weight of the Global South is becoming impossible to ignore. China is positioning itself to be the natural leader of this new demographic reality, not through coercion, but through partnership and the provision of alternatives that serve the interests of developing nations.

    The West’s Self-Inflicted Wound

    The most remarkable aspect of this transformation is how little resistance the West has offered to its own decline. The Trump administration’s threats of tariffs against BRICS nations, its disregard for multilateral institutions, its open hostility to the very concept of international cooperation—these actions have done more to advance China’s cause than any diplomatic campaign Beijing could have devised.

    As one Chinese commentator observed, Donald Trump’s behavior “paints to the tune of the Chinese music” by providing evidence that the current international system is not working. The White Paper’s credibility rests not on its rhetoric but on the observable reality that the United States has become an unreliable partner, abandoning commitments, threatening allies, and demonstrating that its leadership serves narrow interests rather than global stability.

    The question of whether the US can be rehabilitated in the eyes of the Global South raises difficult considerations. Certainly, a recommitment to inclusive multilateralism, genuine climate action, and respect for sovereignty could restore some measure of trust. But as one American commentator noted, US intentions remain ambiguous, shaped by domestic politics that increasingly prioritize isolationism over engagement. The damage may already be done, and the window for rehabilitation may be closing faster than many in Washington realize.

    The Pasifika Perspective: A Region Long Overlooked

    Having spent years serving in UN missions across the Pacific and other developing regions, I have witnessed firsthand the consequences of Western neglect. Small island states, facing existential threats from climate change, have been repeatedly marginalized in global climate negotiations. Development assistance has been conditional, inconsistent, and often insufficient. The “rules-based order” has offered little protection against rising sea levels or economic exploitation.

    For Pasifika nations, China’s vision of a multipolar world is not an abstraction. It is the recognition that their voices matter, that their survival depends on global cooperation, and that the existing system has failed to deliver. The White Paper speaks directly to these concerns, offering not just rhetoric but institutional alternatives that address concrete needs.

    This is why the Pasifika and the broader Global South are likely to engage with China’s initiatives not out of ideological alignment but out of practical necessity. When the only offer on the table comes from a nation that treats you as an equal partner, it is rational to accept it, regardless of that nation’s internal political system.

    Conclusion: The Inevitable Reset

    Significant change is inevitable, even if the path and beneficiaries remain uncertain. This is both the strength and the challenge of the current moment. The old order is crumbling, but what will replace it is not yet fully formed. China’s White Paper offers a vision, not a detailed roadmap. Its success will depend on implementation, on the willingness of Global South nations to engage, and on the West’s response.

    What is clear is that the era of Western dominance in global governance is transitioning. The OECD, the G7, and the WEF can view BRICS and China’s initiatives with skepticism or hostility, but they cannot reverse the demographic, economic, and political forces that are reshaping the international system. The West’s tendency to underestimate China’s capabilities and determination has been a consistent theme of the past three decades, and each time, this underestimation has proven costly.

    The White Paper on global governance is not the end of the story. It is the beginning of a new chapter—one in which the Global South finally claims its place at the table, not as supplicants seeking permission, but as equal partners shaping a future that serves all of humanity. For those of us who have worked in the trenches of international development, who have seen the suffering caused by inequitable systems and the hope that arises from genuine partnership, this is a long time coming. The reset is not only important but necessary. The question is not whether it will happen, but how—and whether the West will have the wisdom to adapt rather than resist.

  • Fatal Vital Signs: Why Fiji’s Sugar Industry Must Be Allowed to Die

    By the numbers, our sugar industry is no longer a struggling patient—it is a corpse kept warm by political ventilators. Under the previous regime, the Fiji Sugar Corporation bled $543 million in losses. Since the Coalition took over in 2022, it has haemorrhaged a further $106 million—achieved despite a $200 million government debt write-off. Production languishes at 1.33 million tonnes, far below the 1.5 million tonnes required to justify the current $85-per-tonne subsidy.

    When an industry loses a billion dollars across two decades, requires constant taxpayer top-ups, and fails to achieve economies of scale, it is not a commercial enterprise—it is a charity case. Yet we persist, primarily because of politics.

    The ICU Delusion

    Sugarcane farming has devolved into a “mom-and-pop” hobby. The children of farmers have fled to tourism hubs and supermarket packing sheds; they refuse to endure backbreaking labour for cents on the dollar. Traditional knowledge was deliberately not passed on, because parents wanted their children to escape the drudgery. We now face an aging farmer base with no succession plan.

    Meanwhile, the land lies fallow. One encounter with a tenant selling leased TLTB land for $100,000 an acre—land choked with para grass, no road access, no power—exposes the speculative fantasy propping up this industry. It is not farming; it is waiting for a payout.

    Politics Over Economics

    The National Farmers Union has dug in, demanding the government negotiate directly with them and threatening to boycott the 2026 harvest unless a $60-per-tonne delivery price is met. This is political hostage-taking, not economic negotiation. The union refuses to acknowledge global realities where Brazil, Australia, and India have mechanized and driven prices into the dirt. Instead, they demand ever-higher subsidies while resisting structural reform.

    Proposals to legislate maximum production and nationalize idle farms are equally misguided. We cannot cure an industry by forcing farmers into it with legal coercion. If you have to threaten farmers with nationalization to make them farm, the industry is already comatose.

    The Unforgivable Sin

    The most damning aspect is the opportunity cost. Why is the Fijian taxpayer pouring hundreds of millions into an unviable crop, while iTaukei non-sugar farmers receive virtually nothing?

    Consider the structural inequity:

    · The State subsidizes cane growers (predominantly Indo-Fijian lessees) to the tune of $85 to $106 per tonne, guaranteeing an income regardless of global market prices.

    · Meanwhile, iTaukei landowners receive paltry, below-market rent via the TLTB—paid late, undervaluing their ancestral inheritance.

    · iTaukei farmers who wish to diversify into ginger, turmeric, kava, or vegetables receive a fraction of government attention and none of the guaranteed subsidies sugar farmers enjoy.

    This is not just economic failure; it is a profound governance failure and a breach of fiduciary duty to the traditional custodians of the land. We are using public funds to trap one community in generational debt while another sees its land utilized for pennies on the dollar. The $105 million annual loss is effectively a transfer of wealth from the general taxpayer to a politically influential, shrinking minority of sugarcane growers. Landowners are left with degraded soil and cheap rent, while the Minister smiles and tells farmers in Labasa to “diversify”—without providing the capital that sugar subsidies so wastefully absorb.

    The Do-Not-Resuscitate Order

    It is time to issue a DNR order for the sugar industry. We must stop confusing nostalgia with national interest. The government should initiate a managed wind-down:

    1. Cease the Subsidies: Announce a three-year sunset period. No more taxpayer top-ups. Let the global market price dictate the farm-gate price. If it is unviable, it dies.

    2. Compensate Transition: Use the money saved from annual $100M+ losses to fund a massive vocational training programme for all farmers—sugarcane growers, iTaukei landowners, and non-sugar farmers alike. Teach them commercial alternatives, aquaculture, or agro-tourism.

    3. Empower the Landowners: Rewrite the TLTB framework to give landowners autonomy to form agricultural corporations, develop commercial plazas, and lease to productive ventures—not just sugar monoculture.

    For 56 years, politicians have deceived farmers to secure their votes, promising salvation while presiding over decline. The NFU and the Labour Party cannot be allowed to hold the nation hostage over a crop that no longer pays its way.

    Fiji does not need to produce raw sugar for the world. Fiji needs to produce prosperity for all its citizens. That starts by pulling the plug on a dying industry and directing resources toward the living, breathing farmers—iTaukei and otherwise—who are ready to grow something more valuable than a colonial relic. The time for bold, uncomfortable decisions has arrived. The sugar industry is on ICU, and for the sake of our rural economy, we must let it go.

  • A Decade After Brexit: Reflections from a French Farmhouse

    Nine years ago, in the heart of French wine country, a group of friends gathered for what was supposed to be a week of simple pleasures. 

    The rural district of Les Marronniers is the kind of place where time moves differently. Vineyards stretch toward the horizon, stone farmhouses hold centuries of stories, and the air carries the scent of earth and aging oak. It was there, in our friend Helena Eversole’s typically French farmhouse, that far-flung friends reunited for a week of wine, dining, and reminiscence.

    But as dusk settled each evening and bottles of local Bordeaux were uncorked, our conversations drifted from shared memories to the question of Brexit.

    The Leave campaign had promised something seductive: “Take back control.” For millions, that slogan spoke to unease about where the globalized world was headed—tighter borders, reclaimed sovereignty. For others, Brexit meant a transformed Britain: a “Singapore-on-Thames,” a deregulated, low-tax competitor ready to strike trade deals with the wider world.

    Around Helena’s table, lively discussions went late into the night. One saw liberation. Others warned of isolation and economic self-harm. “We’ll be free,” one friend insisted. “Free to make ourselves poorer?” another countered. Neither could predict just how right—and how wrong—they would both turn out to be.

    A decade on, the data tells a sobering story. Published economic research estimate that Brexit reduced Britain’s GDP by upto 8% by 2025 and a 15% drop in trade. As The Economist argued, “Brexit lingers like a toxin in the economy’s bloodstream”

    The promised Singapore never materialized. Britain under Thatcher had prospered by shaping free trade rules. But now, as the world fragments into competing blocs, Britain has “fallen through the cracks.” When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, another cost emerged: British defense firms have been largely shut out of the EU’s rearmament programme. Brexit’s cost was never just economic.

    Harder to measure is the cost of what Britain didn’t do—years consumed by revolving-door leadership and endless debate over how to leave. Meanwhile, public sentiment has soured. The share of Britons who say Brexit is worse than expected has nearly doubled.

    Yet Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, now leads national polls, eroding Labour and Conservative dominance. Brexit continues to define voting lines, with Reform appealing to older, less-educated voters driven by cultural anxiety.

    The lesson of the past decade is that there are no clean exits and no clean returns. Reversal is unrealistic. Some advocate a Swiss-style arrangement—a patchwork of treaties to align with the EU on trade, science, and security. Britain would become a rule-taker rather than a rule-maker. Imperfect, but perhaps necessary.

    I think back to Les Marronniers—the long dinners, the clinking glasses, the discussions stretching late into the night. None of us sensed that the world was shifting. Old certainties were crumbling. And Britain had chosen to walk away from its nearest neighbors.

    Helena’s farmhouse had stood for centuries. It had seen France and Britain fight, and it had seen them reconcile. As we sat there in 2017, we wondered what the future held.

    A decade on, the question remains. But the debate has shifted. It is no longer about whether Brexit was right or wrong. It is about what comes next—for Britain and for the millions who will live with the consequences for years to come.

    The vineyards endure. The wine still pours at Helena’s Les Marronniers farmhouse and the conversations continue.

  • The Solidarity Debt

    When the decapitation strikes came, the Western assumption was clinical: remove the head, and the body collapses. Instead, Iranians who had recently protested did not celebrate—they rallied. This was not an endorsement of the Supreme Leader; it was an assertion of civilizational sovereignty. From Alexander to the Mongols, from the British to the Americans, invaders have misread internal fractures as weakness, only to discover that Persian identity, Shia mourning culture, and a deep distrust of foreign domination form an alloy, no missile can shatter.

    The West views Iran through the regime; Iranians view it through the lens of Iran. Survival, however, is not legitimacy. The people set aside grievances over justice, freedom, and economic despair to face a common enemy. That sacrifice was a down payment on a promise: We stood by you; now stand by us.

    The $300 billion the West dangles is beside the point. Iran’s true wealth is human—engineers, poets, women, diaspora—but trapped in a siege mentality that equates internal reform with capitulation. The regime’s paradox is cruel: to protect the nation from foreign domination, it has domesticated a form of internal domination that alienates the very citizens who just proved their loyalty.

    Consider Fiji. Tourism publicists have long known that our strength is not merely our coral reefs, but the living culture, warmth, and dignity of the iTaukei. Travelers return speaking not of beaches alone, but of the warmth of our smiles, lovo feasts, and genuine hospitality no resort can manufacture. Yet internal empowerment has historically lagged external recognition. The nation must learn what our promoters already know: strength lies in elevating its indigenous population, not sidelining them as a backdrop.

    The same applies to Iran. Its true potential is not missiles, nuclear thresholds, or regional proxies. It is the engineers who kept the internet running during cyberattacks, the women who organized neighbourhood defense networks, the ethnic minorities who defended borders they are often told do not belong to them. They are not subjects to be policed; they are the nation’s enduring asset. Outsiders—whether Western strategists or Chinese investors—already see their value. The regime’s task is to see it first.

    If Iran honours its civilization, it must recognize that its greatest threat today is not the US or Israel, but the gap between external resilience and internal stagnation. Post-war solidarity is fleeting. If not seized to address economic decay, social restrictions, and political exclusion, it will curdle into bitterness more potent than pre-war protests.

    Realizing Iran’s potential requires three shifts, all flowing from valuing its people:

    First, economic renewal—unleash the private sector, tech startups, and diaspora returnees as partners, not potential dissidents. Iran cannot rebuild on oil rents alone.

    Second, civic integration—the Kurds, Baloch, and Azeris are pillars, not minorities to be managed. True peace requires constitutional recognition of this mosaic, just as Fiji’s path to stability is through acknowledgement and entrenchment, not erasure, of its indigenous people.

    Third, a new social contract for women—they defended the nation while demanding their place. The regime cannot ask them to die for the flag and then deny them the right to live freely under it. Like Fijian women, they are the architects of the next generation.

    History will not judge Iran by whether it survived a foreign onslaught—empires have survived before. It will judge whether Iran used that survival to become a nation that does not need to suppress its own people to repel its enemies. The West’s colonial mindset assumes reform comes from outside; true reform must come from within, born of the same defiant spirit that just repelled aggression. Iranians are the nation. The regime must prove it belongs to them, not above them.

    Just as Fiji’s publicists grasped that our islands’ magic lies in our indigenous people, Iran’s rulers must grasp that its true strength lies in its own citizen who chose solidarity over fragmentation. The window is narrow. If the regime mistakes wartime loyalty for permanent acquiescence, it repeats the fatal error of every empire that misread its own subjects. But if it seizes this moment—making peace with its own people, recognizing them as its greatest asset—Iran will not just survive. It will thrive as a sovereign civilization, finally at peace with itself.

    That is the peace that matters. That is the favour that must be returned.

  • The Silly Season Has Arrived Early

    Fiji is scheduled to hold its next election latest by February 2027. That is, if it happens at all. This is not idle speculation. Events entirely outside government control may well alter that timeline entirely.

    Consider the perfect storm forming on the horizon: an ongoing Gulf war causing global energy disruptions and shortages; a Tier 1 Super El Niño predicted for 2026 with potentially devastating weather impacts; a converging crisis of drugs, HIV, and non-communicable diseases; an economic meltdown that could deliver a COVID-like shock; and the very real prospect of a State of Emergency declaration. Any one of these could destabilise electoral preparations. All of them together? That is not merely a doomsday scenario—it is a trajectory any close observer of Fiji’s political, economic, environmental and social condition, would recognise.

    Yet the deeper problem is not the external shocks. It is our collective refusal to imagine something better.

    The Western liberal democratic model grafted onto Fiji has, in my view, never been a comfortable fit. But rather than build a truly Pasifika democratic framework—one that thinks outside the imported box and looks toward a visionary future—our leaders cling to what they know. Perhaps that is unsurprising when so many of them rose to prominence in the last century. But where are our new political leaders? The 2013 Constitution does not encourage independent thinking or cultivate new talent. It is a strongman’s document, built for an autocrat at the expense of potential. To call for fresh leadership while that constitution remains immovable, is to display a certain national naivety.

    The Bose Levu Vakaturaga understands this perfectly. That is why it insists on working within the existing system to secure its autonomy. Many Fijians dismiss the Great Council of Chiefs as an outdated governance model, but they are wrong. The iTaukei remain a largely traditional population, with all the nuances of belonging that non-iTaukei either fail to grasp or are conveniently blind to. The Fiji First party tried systematically to downgrade—if not eradicate—the chiefly system and iTaukei traditions. It did not succeed. But that does not mean later iterations of that same impulse, or individuals carrying that torch, have given up. Sadly, too many urban iTaukei—whether educated or simply misguided—have bought into this notion entirely.

    And so we enter the silly season, even before the writs are issued.

    This week’s Dialogue Fiji State of the Economy debate, gave political rivals the chance to critique the government’s projections and lay out their own economic policies. But we have such short memories. The previous regime made us live in fear of speaking, of criticising, even of sneezing. Dialogue Fiji itself felt that wrath. When that regime was defeated in December 2022, the nation was euphoric. We celebrated their demise with glee. We allowed the opposition that defeated them to form a bloated coalition—but that was beside the point. The Fiji First regime was gone. We voted for change. And we got it.

    Then we were let down. The visionary, mature, experienced, caring leadership we expected never materialised. The coalition’s selfish decision to grant themselves a massive pay raise, undressed whatever political virtues they claimed. Even their truest supporters felt the disappointment.

    Since then, they have shot themselves in the foot repeatedly: the lack of experienced political advisors; the Commission of Inquiry blunder and its ongoing fallout; the cynical embrace of figures from the previous regime’s innermost circle; the absence of a functioning National Security Council or a National Security Adviser; the palpable disrespect toward the Bose Levu Vakaturaga and iTaukei aspirations. The list goes on. Yes, they have done genuine good as well. But their worst instincts have consistently outweighed their best efforts, making their achievements look lethargic and their concern feel like an afterthought. They have seemed distant, living inside their own tinted Prado bubble.

    So here we are at the beginning of the silly season: the good, the bad and the ugly.

    If we learn one thing, let it be this: we must choose our politicians wisely. Not the loudest. Not those with the flashiest social media presence or the smoothest delivery. We must choose those who actually believe in and deliver what they promise. And if they do not, we must vote for those who convince us they will.

    There are far too many wannabe politicians without the experience or professional attributes to back up their ambitions. Too many carrying baggage from previous lives that should give us all pause. That someone has a social media following does not make them a leader. We must stop being a gullible electorate and start thinking critically—about vision for our children and grandchildren, about the future of the iTaukei, our aspirations and about the future of Fiji as a nation.

    Let me return to this week’s State of the Economy dialogue. It brought together political rivals, state officials and economists to debate our economic health ahead of the national budget. They spoke about economic factors in isolation—without any discussion of the looming energy crisis, the projected Tier 1 El Niño weather pattern, the drugs and HIV and NCD crises robbing us of our next generation, or the ‘people drain’ of the PALM and NEC schemes emptying Fiji of its young population. They talked about the ‘now’. Not a single intergenerational vision for the nation was offered. All short-term thinking. No vision.

    If these are Fiji’s next political leaders, the nation is truly doomed. So I will leave you with the only question that now matters, the one that hangs over every crisis, every empty promise, every short-term calculation: Where are our next generation’s political leaders?

  • Baghdad, 2003 – Tehran, 2026: The 30‑Year Dream That Became a Quagmire

    Sitting and reflecting in my Canal Hotel office in Baghdad in early 2003, I knew the war was inevitable. Over 150,000 troops massed on Iraq’s borders. Saddam stalled with weapons inspectors, but it didn’t matter. The war came.

    A colleague shared an Algerian newspaper’s opinion piece, translated by our UN linguist. Its thesis: Why War is Inevitable. The author toured the Middle East, dismissing each nation—Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the Gulf, Saudi Arabia—with the same phrase: “nothing to write home about.” Then came Iraq. Oil, an educated workforce, two great rivers, a formidable army. The only country that could unite the Arab world against the West. Therefore, the West could not allow it to stand. The question posed: What would a post‑war Iraq look like?

    We learned in blood. Hundreds of thousands dead, trillions spent, ISIS born from the ashes.

    Now, June 2026. That same sinking feeling has curdled into bitter confirmation.

    For Benjamin Netanyahu, war with Iran was a 30‑year dream realised. On February 28, with the US alongside, he unleashed a full‑scale attack on the Islamic republic. He persuaded President Trump that regime change was achievable. At last, the existential threat would end.

    It has gone badly wrong.

    The Iranian regime is still firmly in place, still firing missiles. The Hormuz Strait is effectively closed. Iran has hit US bases and Gulf infrastructure—and survived retaliation. Hizbollah shells northern Israel, battles Israeli troops in Lebanon, and has forced over a million Lebanese from their homes. Israel is now bogged down in a Lebanese quagmire, on top of nearly three years of war since October 7, 2023.

    Trump now calls the shots—publicly saying, “I call all the shots. He doesn’t.” He has instructed Netanyahu, in abusive terms, to curtail the Lebanon campaign. The US president is working on a peace deal that would likely leave Iran financially stronger, with residual nuclear capability.

    Netanyahu faces an impossible choice: defy Trump and lose American weaponry and air defenses, or back down and look weak at home, in an election year.

    He has pursued a purely military solution—ignoring political and diplomatic dimensions. Assassinated leaders are replaced. Bombed populations fight harder. You cannot kill your way to security.

    The exiled crown prince, reconstruction pledges, calls for the Iranian people to rise… I have seen this script before. It was called Iraq, 2003. It ended in chaos.

    Now Israel is militarily overstretched, internationally isolated (the International Court of Justice is considering genocide accusations), and locked in a war that has achieved none of its goals. Netanyahu will likely face elections with Iran’s regime still standing, Hizbollah still fighting, and American support falling sharply.

    What strikes me most is the arrogance of repetition. In 2003, the West convinced themselves that Saddam’s removal would unleash democracy across the Middle East. Instead, they unleashed sectarian slaughter, Iranian influence, and a power vacuum that took years to partially fill. Now, the same delusion is being peddled for Iran—only this time, the United States is unwilling to pay the butcher’s bill. Trump wants victory without occupation, regime change without troops, and a peace deal that rewards the very regime he helped attack. That is not strategy. That is magical thinking.

    And what of the Israeli public? After three years of continuous war—Gaza, Lebanon, now Iran—exhaustion is setting in. The northern evacuation zones remain empty. Reservists are burning out. The economy is strained. Yet Netanyahu continues to speak of “total victory” as if it were one more airstrike away. He has silenced debate at home, branded any critic a traitor, and convinced himself that military force alone can solve political problems. It cannot. It never could.

    History did not repeat. It rhymed. And the rhyme is a dirge.

    The author of that Algerian piece asked what a post‑war Iraq would look like. We should now ask: what will a post‑war Israel look like after this 30‑year dream? I fear the answer will be just as grim.

  • The Quiet Coup of the Middle Powers

    For three decades after the Cold War, the world grew accustomed to a simple hierarchy: the United States at the apex, a handful of great powers just below, and everyone else jostling for relevance. That era is ending—not with a summit declaration or a treaty, but with a thousand small recognitions, from Beirut to Brasília, that power is no longer what it used to be. The new geopolitics is being written not by superpowers, but by middle powers with no real power at all. And the West, along with Japan, South Korea, and India, has yet to notice.

    West Asia’s new center holds

    Consider Lebanon. Hezbollah, far from being dismantled by Israeli strikes, will emerge stronger. The militia-turned-political-force has replenished its ranks and proven it can absorb punishment while remaining a veto player in Lebanese politics. What Western analysts once dismissed as a mere proxy is now a permanent feature of the Levant’s power landscape. The Gulf monarchies, for their part, have learned a painful lesson: geography has reasserted itself, and it favors those who stay.

    Europe’s belated awakening

    Across Western Europe, a belated recognition is setting in—what Ukraine already understood two years ago. Geopolitics is no longer a game of great powers alone. Ukraine has fought a superpower to a stalemate not because it is strong, but because it understood that middle powers, armed with resilience, information warfare, and asymmetric alliances, can rewrite the rules. European leaders now speak of “strategic autonomy” and “wartime footing,” but their actions lag. They still await Washington’s permission, still assume the old transatlantic bargain holds. Ukraine knows better: middle powers must forge their own fate.

    The Global South sees clearly

    Outside the Euro-Atlantic bubble, the recognition is already complete. China understands that the unipolar moment is over—not because Beijing says so, but because it has spent a decade building parallel institutions and supply chains that bypass Western-led orders. Brazil has positioned itself as a mediator between North and South, neither accepting Western lectures nor aligning with any bloc. South Africa, through its BRICS chairmanship, has shown that a middle power can set agendas—on climate, debt, and UN reform—that great powers ignore at their peril.

    These three nations do not pretend to rival the United States or China in military or economic weight. What they possess is different: the ability to convene, to block, and to shape debate. In a fractured world, that is power enough.

    Canada’s lonely warning

    At the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier this year, Canada’s prime minister delivered a speech that went largely unnoticed in Washington and Tokyo. Ottawa warned that the postwar liberal order was disintegrating, that middle powers needed new coalitions, and that the old distinction between “great” and “small” had lost meaning. Canada was speaking about itself. But the audience that needed to hear it—the West’s established powers and Asia’s advanced economies—was not listening.

    Japan and South Korea remain locked in a Cold War mindset, viewing security through the lens of the US alliance and treating China as the sole strategic variable. They have not grasped that the real story is not US-China rivalry but the proliferation of autonomous actors who refuse to take sides. India, for all its talk of Vishwaguru, still acts like a rising great power, not a convener of the non-aligned. It has not yet recognized that the future belongs not to the tallest, but to the most agile.

    The transition in real time

    What does this new geopolitics look like? It looks like Iran and Türkiye shaping West Asia while Washington struggles to articulate an exit. It looks like Hezbollah surviving as a state within a state. It looks like Ukraine fighting on without NATO membership. It looks like Brazil, South Africa, and China building parallel trade systems. It looks like Canada warning of a storm no one else sees.

    The mistake of Western, Japanese, South Korean, and Indian strategists is to assume that power still resides where it always has: in arsenals, GDP figures, and treaty obligations. But the middle powers of 2026 know something their predecessors did not. In a world of interconnected crises—climate, debt, migration, pandemics—the ability to block, delay, and refuse is often more decisive than the ability to impose. The United States can still launch a war, but it cannot end one. China can still build infrastructure, but it cannot force compliance. The age of command is over. The age of veto has begun.

    No one is coming to save us

    The quiet coup of the middle powers is not an ideology or a conspiracy. It is simply the arithmetic of a multipolar world. When no single power can dominate, everyone becomes a middle power. The question is not whether this transition is happening—it is already visible from Beirut to Brasília. The question is whether the established powers will realize it before they are rendered irrelevant.

    Canada has realized it. Ukraine lives it. China, Brazil, and South Africa have built strategies around it. But Washington, Tokyo, Seoul, New Delhi, and the capitals of Western Europe still behave as if the old rules apply. They do not. The new geopolitics is being written in real time—not by superpowers, but by those who learned long ago that waiting for permission is a luxury no middle power can afford.