Tag: news

• 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 Many Fijians dismiss the Great Council of Chiefs as an outdated governance model, but they are wrong.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?

  2026.06.11

• The Poison Tide: Why Fiji Cannot Afford to Wait Any Longer

  The evidence is no longer circumstantial. It is no longer whispers in police stations or rumours in village halls. It is crystalline meth washing up on the shores of Moce. It is cocaine packages drifting onto the reefs of Ogea. It is a shipping captain’s desperate plea for surveillance. And it is the measured, courageous voice of the Turaga Bale na Tui Nayau, Ratu Tevita Uluilakeba Mara, telling us plainly: our present responses are not effective enough.

  Let me say what needs to be said. What the Tui Nayau said with dignity, I will say with urgency bordering on rage.

  Fiji is losing. And we are losing because we are still having the wrong conversation.

  The Pattern We Ignore

  Read carefully what is happening on the other side of the Indian Ocean. In South Africa’s rural interior, Mexican cartels have done exactly what they are now attempting in our Pasifika waters. They scouted. They tested. They found corruption. They found weak enforcement. They found isolated communities without the tools to resist. And then they built.

  Four major meth labs linked to Mexican criminals in two years. Remote farms. Protected operations. Police who “don’t see” what is happening under their noses. A game of whack-a-mole that the cartels are winning.

  The Sinaloa Cartel does not need to defeat the Fiji Navy. It only needs to find one compromised officer. One corrupt official. One village too tired, too poor, too afraid to say no. And then the poison flows.

  The Tui Nayau has seen this coming. His proposal for strengthened village by-laws, for small boats and communications equipment, for a dedicated coast guard presence in Lau waters—this is not parochialism. It is strategic foresight born of lived reality. During the 1980s and 1990s, naval patrols were routine. Now they are reactive. Medical evacuations and search-and-rescue missions. By the time we respond, the cargo is already ashore. Already distributed. Already destroying.

  What the Shipping Captain Saw

  Uluilakeba Fleet’s social media post should have been a five-alarm fire in every government ministry in Suva. Instead, I fear it was scrolled past.

  Three to five-metre swells for three weeks. Drugs dislodged from “designated secured pick-up points at sea.” Packages confirmed as cocaine by testing in Suva. An astounding number of yachts and pleasure vessels operating with apparent impunity.

  Where is the Fiji Navy? That is not a rhetorical question. That is a citizen demanding accountability.

  These yachts do not sail thousands of miles across the Pasifika for the scenery. Not all of them. Some of them are tenders to a trade that is already inside our house. And if we do not have the maritime surveillance to know which is which, then we do not have sovereignty. We have an illusion of it.

  The State of Emergency Question

  I have written this before, and I will write it until I am blue in the face or until someone in authority listens.

  The advice the Prime Minister is receiving—that a State of Emergency will scare off tourists—is not merely wrong. It is dangerously, catastrophically naive.

  Tourism is our economic driver, yes. But what kills tourism? A decisive headline saying “Fiji Gets Tough on Drugs”? Or the slow, cumulative rot of a destination where backpackers are robbed, where families feel unsafe after dark, where the word spreads on social media and international news that paradise has a needle in its arm?

  Tourists are not fools. They will forgive a temporary, targeted, visible crackdown on criminal networks. They will not forgive a government that lets the poison spread because it was afraid of a bad quarterly report.

  Consider also the wider context. The turmoil in the Persian Gulf is already driving up airline tickets and hotel rates. An external slowdown in travel is coming whether we act or not. So why not use this window—while global attention is fragmented, while competitors are also struggling—to do what Fiji desperately needs? To clean house. To send a signal. To say: we are serious.

  A State of Emergency is not a panic button. Used wisely—with precision, with sunset clauses, with a focus on intelligence-led operations rather than blanket restrictions—it is a scalpel. It cuts out the cancer without killing the patient.

  The Existential Threats Are Converging

  I have said before that Fiji faces three existential threats: the drug crisis, HIV, and the impending energy crisis.

  They are not separate. They are the same fire burning in different rooms.

  The drug trade brings money. Money corrupts. Corruption compromises our health system, our police, our borders. Compromised borders let in more drugs. More drugs fuel addiction. Addiction fuels the spread of HIV through shared needles, through the sex trade that follows the narcotics economy, through the collapse of family structures that once protected our youth.

  This is not alarmism. This is epidemiology. This is criminology. This is what every country that walked this road before us has learned at unbearable cost.

  The Tui Nayau’s proposal for empowered village constabularies, for communication equipment and fuel, for a genuine partnership between the Vanua and the state—this is the only model that works. Because the state cannot be everywhere. But a grandmother in a village on Moce who knows every boat, every stranger, every change in the rhythm of her community? She is surveillance that no cartel can evade.

  Unless she has no radio. Unless she has no boat. Unless she has been told, by years of neglect, that no one in Suva cares what she sees.

  What “Start in Jerusalem” Means

  Real leaders start where the fire is hottest. They start in Jerusalem.

  Jerusalem is not Suva. It is not the Cabinet room. It is not the Tourism Fiji boardroom.

  Jerusalem is Lau. It is the child on Moala who finds a floating package and does not know what it contains. It is the young iTaukei man offered a sum of money that would feed his family for a month, asked only to “watch” a boat. It is the police post on an outer island with no fuel for patrols, no working radio, no backup for hours or days.

  Start there. Not with a press release. With boats. With fuel. With authority for village constables to act. With a coast guard presence that is sustained, not symbolic. With a State of Emergency that targets the networks, not the symptoms.

  The Cost of Delay

  South Africa did not wake up one morning with Mexican cartels operating four major meth labs on its soil. It happened slowly. One compromised official at a time. One isolated farm at a time. One prosecution that fell apart because a witness was “unavailable” at a time.

  The Tui Nayau is telling us that the same pattern is visible in our waters. He is offering partnership. He is offering the Vanua as a first line of defense. He is asking for the tools to protect his people.

  What possible justification is there for denying him?

  If we wait until the drugs are in every secondary school in Viti Levu, until our HIV rates rival the worst in the Pasifika, until a tourist is murdered in a deal gone wrong, until the ABC and the BBC run the story we cannot outrun—then no State of Emergency will save us. No PR campaign will restore us. No apology will bring back what we lost.

  A Challenge to the National Security Council

  The Tui Nayau is right. The National Security Council must take responsibility for this crisis. It cannot remain a coordinating body that produces reports. It must become a command structure that produces results.

  The Prime Minister must consider to do three things immediately:

  First, accept the Tui Nayau’s proposal in full. Not a pilot project. Not a feasibility study. Implementation. Boats, radios, fuel, training, authority. Now.

  Second, declare a targeted, temporary State of Emergency focused exclusively on maritime drug trafficking and the corruption that enables it. Sunset it in six months. Make it renewable only on evidence of results.

  Third, request immediate technical assistance from partners like the Australian Federal Police, the DEA, and the New Zealand Customs Service—not for them to do the work, but to help Fiji build the intelligence capability we desperately lack.

  The Generation at Stake

  Tourism will come back. Resorts can be rebuilt. Reputations can be restored. But a generation lost to addiction and criminal networks? That is permanent.

  Every young Fijian pulled into this trade is not a statistic. They are someone’s son. Someone’s daughter. Someone’s hope for a future that is not defined by poison, by needles, by the slow death of everything their ancestors built.

  The sea has long sustained our people, the Tui Nayau said. It must not be allowed to deliver poison to our children.

  We stand ready to assist, he said. We ask in turn to be given the means to do so.

  He has done his part. He has spoken with courage and clarity.

  Now the question is whether the rest of us—the Prime Minister, the National Security Council, Parliament, every Fijian who reads these words—will do ours.

  The tide is rising. Not the salt tide. The poison tide.

  We can act now. Or we can explain later to our grandchildren why we did nothing while the sea brought ruin to their shores.

  Choose.

  2026.06.08

• Borrowed Time – Tough Choices Fiji Can’t Keep Putting Off

  While President Trump insists “talks with Iran are going well,” the US attacked a fuel tanker near Kharg Island. Iran retaliated against targets in Bahrain and Kuwait. The Strait of Hormuz remains shut. And here in Fiji, we are beginning to feel the painful threshold of the coming fossil fuel crisis.

  Trump lives in a Washington bubble where words still matter. But Hormuz doesn’t negotiate. Oil tankers burn or sit idle. The only thing that will reopen that strait is an Iranian decision—not a White House press release. And certainly not an Israeli foreign minister’s spin about a war that Israel nudged the US into, selling it as a quickie. But quickies never provide any satisfaction.

  For Fiji and the Pasifika, this is no longer a foreign war. It is a domestic energy emergency.

  Our Pasifika neighbours face the same vulnerability. No regional fuel reserves, no strategic buffer. If shipping lanes are disrupted further, the entire Blue Pasifika feels the pain together. But Fiji, as the regional hub, must lead. Not with speeches, but with action.

  A major newspaper warned last month that the world is on “borrowed time” because of the growing energy crisis. Seventy-six countries have already taken emergency action. Fiji isn’t on that list—yet. But if we wait until we are, only damage control will be left.

  Global oil demand is far outpacing supply. Stockpiles are draining fast. Fiji has no real fuel reserves. Our economy is fragile. Our power grid already struggles at peak times. Already, families are paying double for bus fares. Market vendors are raising prices because transport costs have exploded. Small businesses are one blackout away from closing for good.

  Government must get off its high horse. The National Security Council (NSC) should now be meeting weekly, track global oil markets, and issue binding orders. Silence right now is negligence.

  Here is what the government must consider seriously—before the crisis forces its hand:

  1. Mandatory work from home – All non‑essential public workers should work from home at least three days a week. Private sector should follow. Every car kept off the road saves fuel immediately.

  2. Cut traffic aggressively – Alternate day driving based on odd/even licence plates; bus lanes on the Suva‑Nausori corridor with cheaper fares; restrict fuel sales for non‑essential trips if shortages hit; vehicle pool mandates for government fleets, including ministers.

  3. Planned power cuts, not random chaos – EFL must prepare load shedding now. Publish a clear rotating schedule in newspapers, on social media, by SMS. Example: “Your area loses power 8am–6pm Tuesday and Thursday.” Hard, but predictable. Hospitals, water pumps, and the airport must be exempted. Predictability saves lives and food.

  4. Government must lead by example – Every ministry: AC at 24°C minimum, lights and equipment off after hours, shift work to daylight hours. You can’t ask families to sacrifice while government lights burn all night.

  5. Four‑day work week for non‑essential sectors – Work four longer days, shut down completely on the fifth. No commuting, no lights, no AC.

  Outer islands and rural areas – Fuel shipments to Vanua Levu, Taveuni, Lomaiviti, Lau, Kadavu, Yasawa, and Rotuma could become irregular. Pre‑position fuel and essentials now. Every district needs a local emergency plan, not waiting for Suva.

  Tourism – Hotels must publish backup plans. Tourists will cancel if they hear of chaos. Acting now protects jobs and foreign income.

  State of Emergency – The mix of energy, drugs, HIV, and NCD crises now calls for a State of Emergency. Not military rule, but legal power to act fast: work‑from‑home mandates, driving limits, load shedding schedules, conservation orders—without parliamentary delays. We did it for COVID. This is just as urgent.

  What ordinary Fijians can do now – Start vehicle pooling. Turn off appliances at the wall. Freeze water bottles—if power goes, they keep your fridge cold for hours. Talk to your neighbours. Community preparedness is our secret weapon.

  Beyond individual action, consider the economic ripple: every week of delayed action pushes more families into poverty. The cost of diesel for fishing boats has already doubled in some areas. If we wait for a full-blown shortage, the price of fish, root crops, and imported rice will spiral beyond reach for thousands of Fijian households. Acting now is not just about lights—it is about food security.

  The war is at a stalemate. The ceasefire shows no sign of moving to the next stage. Negotiations are checkmated. Tit‑for‑tat attacks illustrate the chaos that will return without serious goodwill on both sides. Iran has geography and time. The US has the watch and its midterm elections.

  Fiji must act like it. We are living on borrowed time. The only question is: will our government make these hard decisions before the lights are flickering and the pumps are dry?

  Act now. Because borrowed time runs out faster than anyone expects.

  2026.06.08

• Fiji’s Silence is a Sentence: Why We Must Follow PNG’s Lead on the Porn Crisis

  We call ourselves the “Happiness Capital of the World,” yet behind our closed doors, a silent pandemic is devouring the innocence of our children. Fiji has a shameful, unspoken secret: a sexual abuse crisis so rampant that it has become normalized. And while we bury our heads in the sand, Papua New Guinea is actually doing something.

  PNG’s regulator has moved to block over 1,000 explicit websites. Love it or hate it, Port Moresby has admitted a truth Suva refuses to utter: that the fire hose of violent, hardcore pornography is fueling the epidemic of assault.

  Before we clutch our pearls about “freedom,” let’s look at the forensic evidence in our own police dockets. Just this week, “a teacher from a prominent boarding school has been convicted on six charges of rape involving students.” The court heard that he “lured them to his residence on various occasions and forced them to perform sexual acts.” This is not an outlier. This is a pattern. Year after year, the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre reports that the majority of rape victims are children. Children. Often abused by someone they trust.

  We wring our hands about discipline, about family breakdown, about alcohol. But we refuse to discuss the 24/7 online classroom teaching predators how to dehumanize, and teaching boys that violence is intimacy. Where did that teacher learn that his authority extended to his students’ bodies? We may never know. But we do know that in virtually every child sexual abuse material case prosecuted in the Pasifika, unlimited, unfiltered access to porn was the gateway. It normalizes the abnormal. It turns vulnerability into a genre.

  PNG’s move is not a silver bullet. Blocking websites is like locking a door while leaving the window open—determined users will use VPNs. And yes, the public supports it, but support is not a strategy.

  However, the courage of the move is what Fiji lacks. PNG is willing to look uncomfortable. Fiji, meanwhile, hides behind “tourism-friendly” optics and a culture of respect that too often silences victims to protect the powerful. Judge Justice Usaia Ratuvili found the complainants “to be credible witnesses” and ruled that “their evidence was consistent and reliable.” That a judge had to explicitly affirm the credibility of schoolchildren testifying against their teacher tells you everything about the wall of doubt victims face here.

  We cannot arrest our way out of this. We need prevention. And prevention means admitting that the pornography available to any Fijian child on a $50 smartphone. If a parent won’t sit their child down to talk about consent, the internet will. And the internet is teaching rape.

  It is time Fiji got serious. Not by blindly copying PNG, but by launching a national, multi-pronged war: digital literacy in every school, a public health campaign on porn’s neurological harm, and yes—regulating the digital sewage flooding our islands.

  Until we treat online explicit content as the public health hazard it is, we are not a happy country. We are a crime scene waiting to happen. The teacher from Tailevu is now a convict. How many more will follow, raised on a diet of virtual violence before committing the real thing?

  The question isn’t whether blocking 1,000 sites will save PNG. The question is: why hasn’t Fiji even tried to save one?

  2026.06.08

• The Fall of the Old Guard and the Emergence of a New West Asian Order

  The post–World War II order is dead. What rises in its place will be shaped by conflicts still raging, diplomatic gambits still unfolding, and economic policies still being written. Nowhere is that truth more stark than in West Asia, where the Iranian regime—by sheer geographic presence and the endurance of a disciplined civilization—has survived the US-Israeli war and retains control over the Hormuz Strait.

  Less than a decade ago, Western strategists could sketch West Asia’s power map with reasonable confidence. Egypt commanded the Arab world’s political weight. Saudi Arabia and the UAE anchored the Gulf’s economic might under an American security umbrella. Iraq and Syria were containment zones for Iranian influence. Today, that map has been tossed aside. The region’s center of gravity is no longer in the Arab heartland. It sits in Ankara and Tehran. The Gulf monarchies that Washington counted on as pillars of a “rules-based” order, have been exposed as brittle dependents—caught in a conflict they did not choose and could not control.

  The war that backfired

  The US-Israeli war against Iran, supported tacitly by the GCC, was supposed to cripple Tehran’s power. Instead, it has hastened a slow-motion transition that strategists had been tracking for years: the emergence of Iran and Turkey as West Asia’s indispensable powers. Worse, the same miscalculation has diminished the Quad as a meaningful counterweight to China and accelerated Beijing’s rise as Asia’s pre‑eminent power. A war intended to restore American deterrence has done precisely the opposite.

  Let’s be clear about what was already happening before February 2026. The regional redistribution of power was visible. The Gulf states—Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE—had leveraged their hydrocarbon wealth into a model of economic integration: advanced technology, logistics, tourism, finance. That “Gulf model” offered a post‑oil future while keeping Washington invested in their security. But it rested on a fragile assumption: that American protection would remain reliable and that the Gulf could insulate itself from geopolitical storms. The war shattered both assumptions.

  As Tehran retaliated against American bases across the Gulf, the very facilities designed to shield the GCC became magnets for attack. Gulf states found themselves in a security trap—unable to join the war offensively for fear of escalation, yet unable to prevent their territory from becoming a battlefield. Their strategic restraint, born of necessity, signaled to every regional actor, that the American security guarantee is conditional at best.

  Western commentators warned that if the Iranian regime survives and retains even limited control over the Hormuz Strait, it would amount to a strategic defeat for the US, Israel, and the Gulf states. After months of war, the regime has not fallen. Tehran has demonstrated it can punish Gulf economies at will—targeting energy facilities, disrupting the Strait, launching sustained drone and missile campaigns—while Washington struggles to articulate a political endgame.

  The unintended rise

  The war’s most consequential effect has been to accelerate the ascent of Iran and Turkey as the region’s indispensable powers. For Iran, survival is victory. Despite relentless airstrikes, the regime has retained control over the Strait, through which a fifth of global oil passes. More importantly, Tehran has shown it can impose costs on the Gulf directly, forcing a reconsideration of alignment with Washington. The GCC, through their restraint, have signaled that they now view Tehran not as a regime to be eliminated but as an unavoidable permanent stakeholder in any future regional order. That is a profound shift: the Arab Gulf’s long‑term calculation now includes Iran at the table, not just as an adversary to be contained.

  Turkey’s rise has been quieter but equally significant. Ankara welcomed the ceasefire and warned against steps that would destabilize Iran, recognizing that instability in Iran would immediately sharpen Turkish anxieties about Kurdish militancy, refugee flows, and border security. By positioning itself as a stabilizing power and a diplomatic interlocutor, Turkey has enhanced its regional standing while avoiding the costs of direct involvement. In a multipolar West Asia, Ankara’s strategic autonomy—its ability to move between NATO, Russia, and regional actors—has become a valuable asset.

  The Quad’s quiet fade

  These shifts have not occurred in isolation. The same American resources consumed by the Iranian war have been drawn from the Indo‑Pasifika, with direct consequences for the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue. Since his return to the White House in 2025, President Trump has refused to participate, leaving the Quad leaderless and degrading its geostrategic value. The downgrade from a leaders’ summit to a foreign ministers’ meeting in New Delhi this week, was a stark indicator of waning US political commitment.

  The Quad is now diminished politically and strategically. Its erosion is not accidental; it reflects a deeper logic. China’s strategy of “managed equilibrium” seeks not to dismantle the Quad by force but to weaken its cohesion, lower its political profile, and encourage accommodation in Washington. As the US becomes preoccupied with West Asia and its European allies face their own pressures, Beijing’s diplomatic space expands. US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth’s speech at the Shangri‑La Dialogue this week—calling for “partners, not protectorates” and warning that “the era of the United States subsidising the defense of wealthy nations is over”—sounded less like a reassurance to allies than a notice of retrenchment.

  China has been quick to exploit the opening. Where the Quad has stalled, Beijing has advanced bilateral arrangements—with Indonesia, with the Gulf states, across Central Asia—that quietly extend its influence without the confrontational rhetoric of a formal alliance. The war on Iran, as Chinese state media has noted, is undermining supply‑chain resilience across the Asia‑Pasifika and exposing the contradictions in Washington’s simultaneous pursuit of two distant theaters.

  No plan, no order

  The post–World War II order has come to an end. The war in West Asia has not merely confirmed that verdict; it has written the first chapter of whatever comes next. By launching an ill‑defined campaign against Iran without a credible political endgame, Washington has accelerated the very realignments it feared: the rise of Iran and Turkey as the region’s gravitational centers; the exposure of the Gulf states’ dependence on an increasingly unreliable protector; and the quiet fading of the Quad as Asia’s preferred counterweight to China.

  The new global architecture will not be designed in Washington, Riyadh, or Jerusalem. It will be contested in the Hormuz Strait, on the Turkish‑Iranian frontier, and in the boardrooms where Gulf investors decide whether to bet on the dollar or the renminbi. Geography has reasserted itself, and the lack of strategic thinking in Western interventions has merely hastened its return. The question now is not whether the old order is gone. It is whether anyone has a plan for what replaces it.

  2026.05.30

• The Civilizational Blind Spot: How the US and Israel Miscalculated Iran

  The war with Iran was sold as a quick decapitation—a replay of Venezuela, where a brittle regime would crumble under the first real shock. Instead, it became a strategic catastrophe. The US and Israel believed they were targeting a government. They discovered, too late, that they were confronting a civilization.

  Iran is one of the oldest, most resilient civilizations in human history. The Persians have fought wars for three thousand years, survived invading hordes, and revived every time. This insight—obvious to any student of history—was entirely absent from US and Israeli war planning.

  The False Analogy: Iran as Venezuela

  Weeks before the conflict, Netanyahu briefed Trump on a promise: a quick, easy war. Decapitate the leadership, the regime collapses, victory declared. Trump bought it. The premise was that Iran was a hollow shell like Venezuela. But Venezuela is a 19th-century nation-state. Iran is heir to Cyrus the Great and millennia of resistance. No invader has ever erased Persia.

  When decapitation strikes failed, Washington was surprised. Instead of weakening, Iran gained a powerful burst of energy. A civilization under existential threat does not send armies into hopeless battles. It strikes the global economy’s jugular: the Hormuz Strait.

  The Strait That Broke the War

  Iran had warned for years it could close the strait. The US and Israel bombed nuclear facilities while leaving this obvious lever unaddressed. Within days, Iran imposed de facto control. Oil prices spiked. Suddenly, Trump’s overriding concern—November’s midterm elections—became Iran’s primary bargaining chip. Iran is not waiting for a military knockout. It is waiting for an electoral clock.

  The Unraveling Alliance

  The US and Israel are no longer in unison. Trump, facing domestic pressure, desperately wants an off-ramp before November. Israel insists on finishing the job but cannot. This war is fundamentally between Iran and Israel. The US was dragged in by undue Israeli influence and, Washington embraced the Venezuela fallacy. You cannot decapitate a civilization. You can only bleed against it.

  Businessmen Negotiators

  The final insult: Trump appointed businessmen Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff as negotiators. Their expertise is real estate, not Persian history or Shiite theology. They expected to out-haggle Iran. Instead, Iran holds the upper hand—because when a civilization feels existentially threatened, it does not negotiate from weakness. It waits. It plays the long game.

  As one seasoned observer put it: “Any other country would have surrendered from day one. Iranians didn’t surrender. In fact, they retaliated very strongly.” That is not bravado. That is three thousand years of muscle memory.

  Conclusion: The Cost of Forgetting History, Felt Even Here

  The US and Israel launched this war believing Iran would fold like a house of cards. Instead, Iran closed the Hormuz Strait, kept its economy afloat, and forced Washington to beg for a way out. The magnitude is undeniable: a civilization was underestimated, and the global order is paying the price.

  But this price is not paid only in Washington or Tel Aviv. Even here in Fiji—thousands of miles from the Persian Gulf—we are already feeling the direct effects, and we will continue to feel them long after the fighting ends. The closure of the Hormuz Strait has sent energy costs soaring. Imported goods, from food to fuel to manufactured basics, have become dramatically more expensive. Inflation presses down on every Fijian household. Our small island economy, already vulnerable to global shocks, has no shield against a war we did not choose and cannot influence.

  This should be a wake-up call. The era of stable fossil energy flowing through chokepoints controlled by distant powers is over—at least for now. It is time for Fiji to look seriously at alternative energy sources, as China has shown. Beijing understood years ago that strategic vulnerability follows the oil tanker. Today, China leads the world in renewable energy—not out of environmental idealism, but out of hard-nosed strategic, visionary calculation. Fiji can learn from that. What we lack is the political will to accelerate the transition.

  The Iran war has reminded every nation without its own oil fields of a simple truth: when great powers clash over civilization and empire, small countries get crushed by the wake. The only defense is resilience. And for Fiji, resilience means less reliance on fossil fuel. The Americans and Israelis miscalculated Persia. Let us not miscalculate our own future. The war will end. The lesson should not.

  2026.05.24

• Between Two Giants: Can the Pasifika Still Navigate Her Own Course?

  Between Two Giants: Can the Pasifika Still Navigate Her Own Course?

  The news from Vanuatu lands like a stone dropped into still water. Prime Minister Jotham Napat announces that his cabinet has approved a strategic cooperation pact with China—while simultaneously confirming that Vanuatu is “ready” to sign a stripped-back Nakamal Agreement with Australia. In the same breath, he accuses both Beijing and Canberra of “undermining” his country as they jostle for supremacy.

  This is not diplomacy as we once understood it. This is the sound of a small nation trying to keep its balance while two titans wrestle on its deck.

  For those of us watching from Fiji and across the Pasifika, the question is no longer whether geopolitical rivalries will reach our shores. They are already here. The question is whether we will meet them as scattered islands—or as a united ocean.

  What Does This Mean for Pasifika Solidarity?

  Let me be blunt: Pasifika solidarity is under greater strain today than at any point since decolonisation. Not because we have stopped caring for one another, but because the incentives for going it alone have never been stronger.

  When China offers a bilateral deal—infrastructure, financing, a seat at a very different table—it does not come with a requirement to consult your neighbours. When Australia offers security cooperation and police training, it speaks directly to a single capital city’s fears. Both powers understand a basic truth: it is easier to negotiate with one small country than with a regional bloc.

  The result is what we are seeing in Vanuatu. A subterranean arm wrestle, as a recent ABC report called it. Neither great power wants to be seen as heavy-handed. But both are placing their chips on individual nations, not on the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) as a collective voice.

  This does not mean Pasifika solidarity is dead. It means it is being tested—and so far, we are failing the test. We speak of a “Blue Pacific Continent” in grand declarations, but when the moment comes to coordinate our responses to external security pacts, we act as separate jurisdictions. Vanuatu makes its own calculus. Solomon Islands makes another. Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Tonga—each calibrates its own balance.

  That is not solidarity. That is fragmentation dressed in polite regional language.

  Are We Being Quietly Isolated and Targeted Individually?

  Yes. And the word “quietly” is doing important work here.

  No foreign power will announce that it intends to divide the Pasifika. That would be counterproductive and diplomatically ruinous. But the effect of bilateral competition is precisely that: division by seduction.

  China does not need to weaken the PIF. It simply offers deals so attractive that small nations feel they cannot afford to wait for a regional consensus. Australia, in response, deepens its own bilateral security architecture—the Pasifika Policing Initiative, the Step Up, the new defense cooperation agreements. Neither is overtly hostile to regionalism. But neither makes regionalism their priority.

  The danger is not that we will be conquered. The danger is that we will be managed—treated as a collection of strategic real estate rather than as a civilisation of peoples with our own aspirations.

  Look at the language. “Infrastructure and capacity building,” says China’s embassy. “Security and resilience,” says Canberra. Both are true. Both are also covers for strategic positioning. And the small nation caught in the middle—Vanuatu, in this case—ends up doing something that would have been unthinkable a generation ago: signing two competing pacts with two competing powers, while publicly accusing both of undermining it.

  That is not sovereignty. That is survival swimming.

  Is Our Own Nationalism Preventing Us from Uniting Under a Common Front?

  This is the hardest question, because nationalism in the Pasifika is not a dirty word. We fought for our independence. We built identities out of colonial borders that were never ours to begin with. Our national pride is real and earned.

  But that same nationalism—when it becomes narrow, when it prioritises the immediate deal over the long-term regional interest—becomes a trap.

  Consider: What would a united Pasifika front look like in the face of great power competition? It might look like a collective moratorium on bilateral security pacts without regional consultation. It might look like a shared negotiating position on infrastructure financing, so that China and Australia and the United States bid against each other for regional projects, not for individual allegiances. It might look like a PIF that has real enforcement power over its members’ foreign engagements.

  We have none of that. Instead, we have what one diplomat once called “the tyranny of smallness”—the belief that each of us is too small to act alone, and therefore each of us must cut the best bilateral deal we can, and to hell with the neighbourhood.

  That is not nationalism in service of our people. That is nationalism as self-cancellation. It leaves every one of us weaker, because Beijing and Canberra know that they can play Port Moresby against Suva against Port Vila against Honiara.

  Are We Selling Ourselves Short for the Now, the Next Election Cycle, for Intergenerational Prosperity?

  Now we arrive at the deepest wound.

  I wrote earlier this week, about China’s thirty-year plan for renewable energy, about the US’s inability to think beyond the next election—is not just a story about superpowers. It is a mirror held up to our own politics.

  How many of our national energy strategies extend beyond the next budget cycle? How many of our foreign policy choices are driven by the need for a headline rather than a generation? When a prime minister signs a strategic pact with China, is that a carefully considered step in a fifty-year vision—or is it a response to a domestic political problem that will be forgotten in eighteen months?

  I do not ask this to single out Vanuatu. Every Pasifika nation, Fiji included, has made short-term calculations that mortgaged long-term autonomy.

  The tragedy is that the great powers do think long-term. China’s engagement in the Pasifika did not begin yesterday. It began with fishing agreements, with small infrastructure loans, with diplomatic courting that seemed harmless a decade ago. Now those relationships have matured into security pacts and strategic partnerships. Australia, belatedly waking up, is scrambling to play catch-up with its own long-term Pasifika strategy.

  Meanwhile, we in the Pasifika are still debating the next election.

  Intergenerational prosperity is not a slogan. It is the sum of every decision we make today about who we ally with, what infrastructure we build, what energy systems we rely on, and whether we sell access to our waters, our ports, our data cables, and our loyalties for short-term gain.

  The Chinese have a saying: “If you do not plan for a hundred years, you cannot plan for even one.” We are not planning for ten.

  What Does This Mean for National Aspirations and Our Common Pasifika Bond?

  A national aspiration is not just about sovereignty in the abstract. It is about the concrete ability of a people to determine their own future—to feed their children, to educate them, to keep them safe, and to pass on an inheritance larger than the one received.

  Our common Pasifika bond—the thing that makes us more than a scattering of islands—is the understanding that no one of us is safe until all of us are. A climate disaster does not respect borders. A debt crisis in one capital affects lenders’ willingness to lend to all. A security pact that gives one nation’s ports to a foreign navy changes the strategic calculus for every neighbour.

  That bond is being tested not by external enemies, but by our own failure to invest in it.

  Vanuatu’s double-pact strategy is understandable. When two giants are arm-wrestling on your table, you try not to get crushed. But understandable is not the same as sustainable. The long arc of history suggests that small nations caught between great powers eventually have to choose—and that the act of choosing fractures them internally and regionally.

  And Then Some: A Way Forward

  I do not want to end on despair. There is a way forward, but it requires three things we have so far lacked.

  First, a regional foreign policy framework with teeth. The PIF must evolve from a talking shop into a coordinating body where members agree—voluntarily but credibly—to consult before signing major security or strategic pacts with external powers. This is not about blocking any nation’s sovereignty. It is about recognising that a pact with China in Port Vila affects Suva, Nuku‘alofa, and Apia. That recognition must be institutionalised.

  Second, a long-term economic vision that reduces our vulnerability. We chase great power deals because we lack capital, infrastructure, and resilience. China and Australia offer what we need. But we will always be supplicants until we build regional pools of investment—a Pasifika Development Bank with real resources, regional energy grids, shared undersea cables, and collective bargaining for everything from vaccine procurement to aviation fuel.

  Third, a renewal of the Pasifika conversation at the grassroots. Our leaders sign pacts in capital cities. But our people—in villages, in outer islands, in the diaspora—must debate what kind of future we want. Do we want to be the playground of great powers? Or do we want to be the navigators of our own destiny, as our ancestors were when they crossed this ocean without GPS or foreign aid?

  Vanuatu’s Prime Minister Napat says both Beijing and Canberra are “undermining” his country. He may be right. But the deeper undermining—the one we do to ourselves—is the belief that we cannot unite, that our nationalism must be narrow, that the next election matters more than the next generation.

  Conclusion: Who Shall Be Captain?

  Vanuatu is determined to be its own captain. I respect that. Every Pasifika nation should be its own captain.

  But being a captain does not mean ignoring the other vessels in the fleet. It does not mean sailing into a storm alone because a foreign power promised safe passage. It means knowing that in the vast Pasifika, no boat survives long without its neighbours.

  The question before us is not whether we will engage with China or Australia or the United States. We will, and we should. The question is whether we will do so as Pasifika—with a common front, a common voice, and a common commitment to the generations who will inherit the choices we make today.

  If we cannot answer that question together, then the giants will answer it for us. And we will not like their answer.

  2026.05.20

• TLTB Statement:

  CLARIFICATION ON LAND OWNERSHIP AND MINERAL RIGHTS IN FIJI

  TLTB notes that many views and comments have been shared on social media platforms regarding land and land ownership in Fiji. TLTB intends to demystify land ownership in Fiji to clear up misconceptions, particularly regarding the rights of iTaukei landowners.

  The starting point of the discussion must be on the different land tenure types in Fiji, of which there are three: iTaukei land, Freehold land and State land

  iTAUKEI LAND

  The iTaukei Lands Act 1905 defines “iTaukei land” as land which is neither State Land nor subject of a State grant nor iTaukei grant, but includes:

  (a) All vacant land, including such land declared as vacant land under section 19 of the iTaukei Lands Act 1905

  (b) All land set aside by proclamation under section 18 of the iTaukei Land Trust Act 1940

  (c) All extinct mataqali land vested in the Board under section 19 of the iTaukei Land Trust Act 1940

  iTaukei Land is owned by the respective iTaukei owners and administered by TLTB for the benefit of the iTaukei owners under the iTaukei Land Trust Act 1940. About 91% of Fiji’s landmass is iTaukei land.

  FREEHOLD LAND

  Freehold lands in Fiji are Crown grants and represent absolute ownership of land in perpetuity (estate in fee simple). Lands which were sold prior to Fiji’s cession to Great Britain in 1874 required validation by the Lands Claims Commission in 1876. All validated sales were issued with a Crown Grant. A total of 1582 Crown Grants covering an area of 152,815 hectares thus became “freehold land”. Some Grown Grants have since been purchased or acquired by the State. These lands are now known as “State Freehold Lands”.

  About 6% of Fiji’s landmass is freehold land.

  STATE LAND

  Under section 2 of the State Lands Act 1945 “State lands” means all public lands in Fiji including foreshores and the soil under the waters of Fiji (including all inland waters such as

  rivers and streams) which are for the time being subject to the control of the state and all lands which have been or may be hereafter acquired by or on behalf of the State for any public purpose.

  State land is owned by the State, administered by the Department of Lands, and leased/licensed under the State Lands Act.

  Myth: land below “three feet or six feet underground” is owned by the State

  Fact: if land is iTaukei land or freehold land, the respective iTaukei owners and registered owners of freehold land have full ownership rights, including to land more than six feet below the ground.

  There are no provisions in law that differentiate between ownership of land above or below six feet from the surface of the land.

  The misconception likely arises from applying mineral ownership to land ownership in Fiji.

  Under the 2013 Constitution and the Mining Act, the State owns all minerals in Fiji – regardless of whether they are found on iTaukei land or freehold land. Minerals include all precious metals and precious stones. Also, under the Petroleum (Exploration and Exploitation) Act 1978, all petroleum is owned by the State.

  What this basically means is that, while ownership of minerals and petroleum is reserved to the State, the owners of iTaukei or freehold lands have full rights to their lands regardless of depth.

  Currently, under the Fair Share of Mineral Royalties Act 2018, landowners receive 80% of mineral royalties, with the State retaining 20%. However, this percentage applies to the royalty that is paid to the State under the Mining Regulations 1966. The rates currently prescribed under the regulations are as follows:

  1. For bauxite or iron ore – at the rate of 3% of their value

  2. For any other mineral – at the rate of 5% of their value.

  This means that landowners will only get 80% of the 5% royalty paid to the State, for example, on the value of gold extracted. TLTB is of the view that royalty currently paid to the respective owners is neither a “fair share” nor does it represent an equitable return of their land.

  TLTB SUBMISSION ON LEGISLATIVE REVIEWS

  The TLTB has made submissions to the Fiji Law Reform Commission on the review of the State Lands Act and Mining Act for:

  1. An amendment to the definition of “State lands” to exclude foreshore, and soil under inland waters, so that full ownership rights are reverted to the respective iTaukei owners

  2. An amendment to the Mining Act for full ownership of minerals to be returned to the respective iTaukei land and qoliqoli owners

  TLTB is also making submissions to the Constitution Review Commission on the review of the 2013 Constitution on the matters above.

  TLTB MANAGEMENT

  Decolonising the Land: A Response to TLTB’s Clarification above:

  The TLTB management deserves a measure of commendation. Earlier today, it issued a public clarification on land ownership and mineral rights—an unusual step for an institution that has historically preferred opacity. The statement correctly dismantles the myth that the State owns land below six feet. It correctly notes that iTaukei and freehold landowners own their land to any depth. And it correctly observes that the so‑called “Fair Share” of mineral royalties is neither fair nor a share: 80 percent of a 5 percent royalty on gold value is; in plain arithmetic, 4 percent of the value. The TLTB even admits this is inadequate.

  That admission is rare. It should not go unremarked.

  But let us not mistake a single candid paragraph for a conversion. The TLTB statement, read in full, reveals an institution that still resides in the past—still pleading with the State for amendments, still accepting the premise that colonial laws are the only framework available, still issuing press releases in English to landowners who speak iTaukei. If TLTB truly intended to “demystify” land ownership, it would have issued the statement ena vosa vakaviti as well. The language of the iTaukei landowner is not legalese. It is not the dialect of Suva boardrooms. It is the voice of the koro, the mataqali, the Vanua. That the TLTB chose English alone tells you whose comfort it prioritises.

  The clarification that clarifies nothing new

  TLTB has told us what the law says. But the law itself is the problem. The iTaukei Lands Act of 1905. The Native Land Trust Act of 1940 (now the iTaukei Land Trust Act). The State Lands Act of 1945. These are colonial statutes, written by British administrators to serve a colonial economy—to make native land available for European plantations, to control the movement of labour, to keep the indigenous population contained and compliant. TLTB is a creature of that era. Its very structure—a board appointed by the minister, a CEO who answers to the board, a welfare fund that deducts money from landowners without their consent—is a colonial trust model, designed to manage natives, not to empower them.

  The TLTB’s statement acknowledges that the current mineral royalty regime is unfair. Then it says: “TLTB has made submissions to the Fiji Law Reform Commission… for amendments.” Submissions. Amendments. This is the language of petitioners, not of trustees. Imagine a freehold landowner discovering gold on their property. Would they write a submission asking the government to please allow them to keep their own minerals? Of course not. They would assert ownership. They would go to court. They would demand. The TLTB, by contrast, asks permission from the very State that wrote the laws, that dispossess iTaukei of their subsoil wealth.

  Decolonisation is not amendment

  TLTB is trapped in a reformist mindset. It believes that tweaking a percentage here, redefining “State lands” there, will eventually deliver justice. That is a delusion. Colonial laws do not become just through amendment; they become just through abolition. The 2013 Constitution itself declares that all minerals belong to the State. That is not a minor clause. That is a fundamental expropriation of iTaukei property. The TLTB’s response is to ask for a review. But the Bose Levu Vakaturaga—the true shareholder of iTaukei land—should not be asking. It should be demanding. It should be preparing legislation that vests full mineral ownership in the landowners; with the State as a licensing partner, not the owner.

  The same applies to foreshores and the soil under inland waters. TLTB says it has asked for an amendment to exclude these from “State lands.” Why ask? Why not assert? Because the TLTB does not see itself as the agent of iTaukei sovereignty. It sees itself as an administrator of a colonial estate. That is the institutional mindset that must die.

  The language of the Vanua

  I return to the language of the statement. The TLTB issued it in English—fluent, legalistic, correct. But the iTaukei landowner, the mataqali member in a remote village, does not read English legal prose. They listen to radio. They hear announcements in the vernacular. If the TLTB genuinely wanted to “demystify” and “clear up misconceptions,” it would have issued the statement in iTaukei on the same day. It would have sent divisional estate officers to explain the difference between land ownership and mineral rights in valevakoros/village halls, not in a press release aimed at Suva journalists.

  The failure to do so is not an oversight. It is a reflex. The TLTB still communicates upward—to the government, to the media—rather than downward to the 400,000 landowners it claims to serve. That is the habit of a colonial trust, not of an indigenous empowerment body.

  What real decolonisation looks like

  Genuine decolonisation of iTaukei land administration requires three acts, none of which the TLTB has proposed:

  First, the repeal of all colonial land statutes—the iTaukei Lands Act, the iTaukei Land Trust Act, the State Lands Act, and the Mining Act—and their replacement with a single, iTaukei‑drafted, constitutionally entrenched Land Sovereignty Act that vests full ownership (including minerals, foreshores, and water columns) in the landowning units, with the State exercising only regulatory powers for safety and environment.

  Second, the transformation of the TLTB itself: not through amendments to its board composition, but through a new institution—call it the Fijian Land Trust Council or whatever the Vanua through the BLV decides—that operates under a hard cap of 10 percent administration, with the President as its Chair, with no sitting minister on the board, and with a statutory obligation to issue all public communications in both English and iTaukei.

  Third, the immediate, unconditional public audit of the $26.1 million welfare fund, with the results published in the vernacular, and every cent of unaccounted money returned to the landowners with interest.

  The TLTB’s statement does not mention any of this. Instead, it asks for amendments. It asks for reviews. It speaks of “submissions.” That is the posture of a supplicant, not a sovereign.

  Conclusion: praise where due, but not silence

  Let me be clear: I commend the TLTB management for acknowledging that the current mineral royalty is not a “fair share.” I commend them for correcting the six‑feet myth. But commendation is not endorsement. A broken clock is right twice a day. The TLTB can issue a correct statement and still be the wrong institution for the job.

  The iTaukei have waited eighty‑five years for TLTB to serve them. It has not. It issues statements in English, asks for amendments, and calls that progress. It is not progress. It is the sound of an old machine trying to sound new.

  The time has come to decolonise not just the laws, but the institution itself. No more pelicans. No more ministers as chair. No more English‑only statements to landowners who speak iTaukei. And no more asking permission for what is already ours.

  The Vanua is watching. The land remembers. And we have waited long enough.

  It is time to wake up.

  2026.05.15

• Beyond the Fear of the Word: Why Indo-Fijians Need to Understand iTaukei Communalism

  In Fiji, the word “communalism” has become a ghost at the feast. It is invoked with a shudder—usually by urban, educated, multiracial progressives, who see it as the opposite of national unity. For many Indo-Fijians, communalism evokes the coups of 1987, the 1990 constitution’s guaranteed parliamentary majority for indigenous Fijians, and the lingering suspicion that in any crisis, blood will speak louder than citizenship.

  But here is a difficult truth: communalism is not going away. And more importantly, for the iTaukei, it is not merely a political preference. It is a philosophy of survival, identity, and dignity. To demand that iTaukei abandon their communal framework is, in effect, to demand that they cease being iTaukei. That is neither realistic nor just.

  The question, then, is not whether communalism should exist. The question is whether Indo-Fijians can learn to read it correctly—not as a threat, but as a different grammar of belonging. And whether, in that reading, a new kind of national conversation becomes possible.

  A Lesson from Philadelphia: Anger Is Not the Enemy of Understanding

  In March 2008, at the height of a presidential campaign that had already broken racial barriers, Barack Obama stood before a nation deeply divided over the inflammatory sermons of his former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Obama could have condemned Wright and moved on. Instead, he did something rare. He acknowledged the roots of Wright’s anger—the generations of racism, segregation, and neglect that had shaped black churches. Then he also acknowledged the resentment of working-class white Americans who felt they had watched their jobs and communities disappear.

  He said: “The anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.”

  Fiji can learn from this. Indo-Fijian anger about coups and the fear of being permanent outsiders—that anger is real. iTaukei anger about land alienation, cultural erosion, and the feeling of being strangers in their own ancestral home—that anger is also real. Neither can be wished away by a constitution or a national slogan. The first step toward a more perfect union is not to suppress communal anger, but to listen to what it is actually protecting.

  What Communalism Actually Means in iTaukei Life

  Let us strip away the political caricature. For an iTaukei villager in Ra or Cakaudrove, communalism is not a doctrine imposed by a nationalist politician. It is the daily reality of veilomani (mutual care), solesolevaki (shared labor), and veivuke (assistance). It is the mataqali (land-owning unit) holding together families who have tilled the same soil for generations. It is the yavusa deciding together whether to lease grazing land to a sugar farmer or to reforest a watershed.

  When iTaukei speak anxiously about “land” or “custom” or taukei (owners of the land), they are not speaking about property deeds in the Western sense. They are speaking about Vanua—a word that means land, but also people, also custom, also the spiritual presence of ancestors. To be iTaukei is to be in relationship with the Vanua. That relationship is inherently communal. No iTaukei stands alone before the state. They stand within a web of obligations and inheritances.

  What iTaukei communalism seeks is recognition—that their ancestral way of organizing society has a legitimate place alongside the individualist, contract-based, market-driven logic that arrived with colonialism and sugar, and is now embedded in the imposed 2013 constitution.

  Why Indo-Fijians Often Misread Communalism as Exclusion

  The misunderstanding is understandable. Indo-Fijian history in this country is a story of individual and family survival. Arriving as girmitiyas between 1879 and 1920, Indo-Fijians had their communal bonds systematically broken by the colonial plantation system. They rebuilt them—through panchayats, through mandalis, through temples and sangams—but those bonds were always voluntary associations, not ancestral birthrights.

  Indo-Fijians feel they do not belong but have overhwelming economic power. Are they willing to share these in a genuine manner that embraces being Fijian, in the iTaukei sense? iTaukei have seen their land and culture stripped away. Neither grievance cancels the other. As Obama put it: “We can condemn a statement without condemning the person. We can acknowledge the pain of a community without endorsing every word spoken in that pain.” Indo-Fijians can reject ethno-nationalist politics while still understanding the pain behind iTaukei communalism. iTaukei can reject the bitterness of some Indo-Fijian leaders while still understanding the trauma of girmit and its aftermath.

  What Thoughtful Understanding Looks Like

  To “understand” iTaukei communalism does not mean agreeing with every iTaukei political demand. It does not mean accepting racial discrimination or supporting the abolition of the common roll. It means three things.

  First, understanding that iTaukei communalism is primarily defensive, not aggressive. The fear that drives most iTaukei anxiety is that globalization, land sales, tourism development and climate displacement will erode the Vanua until nothing is left. When an iTaukei elder insists on communal land tenure, they are trying to prevent a future where their grandchildren sell the last piece of ancestral soil for a resort and a second-hand SUV. Indo-Fijians, who have no ancestral land base of their own, can afford to see land as a commodity. iTaukei cannot.

  Second, understanding that communalism and multiracial democracy are not mutually exclusive—but they do require new institutions. Switzerland manages three languages and two religions through a federal system that gives cantons significant cultural autonomy. Belgium has been held together for decades by sophisticated power-sharing arrangements. Fiji has never seriously attempted a consociational model—one that guarantees iTaukei communal representation alongside common-roll seats, with iTaukei vetoes on matters of culture and land. Instead, we have swung between iTaukei-dominated ethnocracy (1987–2006) and a “one man, one vote” system (2013 onward) that many iTaukei see as imposed without addressing their existential anxiety. A thoughtful Indo-Fijian might ask: Is there a middle way that protects my vote and their Vanua?

  Third, understanding that iTaukei communalism contains wisdom that Indo-Fijians might actually need. The global climate crisis is going to devastate Fiji’s coastal villages and sugar belts. Individualist responses—buying your own higher ground, insuring your own assets—will fail. Survival will require veivuke: collective decisions about relocation, resource sharing, and mutual obligation. iTaukei have been doing this for centuries. Their communal structures, adapted wisely, could become Fiji’s resilience architecture. Indo-Fijians who dismiss communalism as backward are walking away from a toolkit that might save their grandchildren.

  The Path Forward: From Fear to a More Perfect Union

  Obama concluded his Philadelphia speech with a simple, powerful image: “I have never been so naive as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle. But I do believe that we can get beyond them if we work together.” He did not demand that anyone leave their identity at the door. He asked only that each side extend the same grace to the other that they would claim for themselves.

  No one is asking Indo-Fijians to stop being Indo-Fijian. No one is asking iTaukei to stop being iTaukei. What thoughtful understanding asks is this: Stop seeing each other’s communalism as a zero-sum threat.

  When an iTaukei speaks of the Vanua, an Indo-Fijian could learn to hear “home” rather than “hierarchy.” When an Indo-Fijian speaks of individual enterprise, an iTaukei could learn to hear “aspiration” rather than “greed.” These translations are not easy. They require humility, patience, and the courage to sit in discomfort.

  But the alternative is what Fiji has known for too long: a politics of mutual suspicion where each community waits for the other to weaken. That is not a nation. That is a ceasefire.

  The Bose Levu Vakaturaga could be one space for this translation. A reformed parliamentary system, with genuine protections for both communal and individual rights, could be another. But no institution will work if the heart is not willing—if we refuse to see that, as Obama put it, “we may have come on different ships, but we are all in the same boat now.”

  Indo-Fijians do not need to embrace communalism. They need to understand it—as a living, breathing, wounded, hopeful expression of iTaukei humanity. And in that understanding, perhaps, discover that their own survival is not separate from the survival of the Vanua. It is the same ocean, same shore, same storm.

  The difficulties will pass. But only if we stop rowing against each other, and start rowing toward the same horizon.

  2026.05.13

• Toxic by Default: Why Fiji Must Wake Up to our Social Media Crisis

  Acting DPP Nancy Tikoisuva delivered a sobering reality check this week: social media posts do not move the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. “We only respond to evidence – admissible evidence,” she said. Hearsay and online chatter do not count in a court of law.

  But beneath that legal clarity lies a deeper crisis. If social media is not a court, what is it becoming? For Fiji, the answer is alarming. Against a backdrop of escalating drugs, HIV and NCD crises, our online spaces have devolved into an “outlaw country”—a toxic swamp of hate, scams, and anonymous trolling. As one observer put it, “every person for himself and herself.” The question for the National Security Council (NSC): Should the digital realm be policed for our national sanity? The answer is my view is, yes.

  The unseen threat to national cohesion

  Prime Minister Rabuka rightly stated that national security now includes digital systems and psychological well‑being. Social media toxicity is not a nuisance—it is a security threat. Hate speech, doxxing and coordinated harassment erode our social fabric, traumatise individuals and substitute mob rule for the rule of law. The damage to our collective Pasifika psyche is as real as any drug bust.

  Consider the real‑world consequences. Young Fijians are self‑harming after online pile‑ons. Families are torn apart by viral lies. Witnesses to serious crimes refuse to come forward because they fear being named and shamed on Facebook before they ever reach a police station. The DPP’s office cannot act on a screenshot—but the damage is already done. This is not a moral panic; it is a public health and security emergency dressed in digital clothing.

  The Singapore solution: a blueprint for the Pasifika

  Australia and Indonesia have banned under‑16s from social media. But Fiji should study Singapore’s more comprehensive model. Singapore’s Protection from Harassment Act (POHA) criminalises online harassment, stalking and doxxing, with extraterritorial reach and penalties up to 12 months’ jail. Its Online Criminal Harms Act (OCHA) lets authorities swiftly disable criminal content.

  Most relevant is Singapore’s new Online Safety (Relief and Accountability) Bill (OSRA) , launched this year. It creates an Online Safety Commission with real teeth: binding takedown orders, account restrictions, and the power to unmask anonymous abusers. Victims of deepfakes, doxxing and sexual harassment get a one‑stop agency. Platforms that refuse to comply face criminal sanctions. And statutory torts let victims sue abusers, group admins and platforms directly. Singapore removes anonymity as a shield and places legal duties on those who run online spaces.

  Why does this matter for Fiji? Because our current Online Safety Commission has publicly admitted it lacks the legal authority to remove harmful content or compel platforms to act. A victim can report a death threat, but the Commission’s hands are tied. Singapore showed that strong laws do not kill free speech—they kill impunity. In the three years since POHA was strengthened, Singapore saw no decline in legitimate expression, but a measurable drop in organised online harassment campaigns.

  A mandate for the National Security Council?

  Fiji is not starting from scratch. A taskforce aims to bar under‑16s by year’s end, and Minister Tabuya admits the current Online Safety Act lacks “teeth.” But a ban on children does nothing for today’s toxic adult spaces. The NSC must urgently study the Singapore model and recommend a multi‑layered approach:

  1. Empower the Online Safety Commission – binding takedown notices, fines for non‑compliant platforms, and investigative powers without waiting for police.

  2. Criminalise anonymity for abusers – compel platforms to reveal perpetrators’ identities upon reasonable suspicion of criminal harassment.

  3. Duty of care legislation – hold group and platform administrators legally liable if they knowingly allow hate speech to thrive.

  Concluding

  The DPP’s warning is stark: the court of public opinion is lawless. When we allow social media to become a toxic dumping ground without consequence, we undermine the police, the courts and the rule of law. Protecting the national psyche is now as vital as protecting our borders. Without urgent, enforceable laws along Singapore’s lines, Fiji’s digital future will remain a lawless frontier—damaging our collective soul one hateful post at a time. The National Security Council meets to address threats. It is time they recognised that the most pervasive threat today is not at the border. It is in the palm of every Fijian’s hand.

  2026.05.12