Tag: philosophy

• The Covenant We Cannot Set Aside

  Yadra vinaka Nirmal Singh Cheema,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  2026.10.12

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  The questions of integrity

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Our larger national problem

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  2026.10.12

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  2026.10.09

• The Sweetness of Power and the Bitter Harvest

  Government, the Bose Levu Vakaturaga and the Church in Our Intergenerational Reckoning

  Sugar has a long memory. Across the Caribbean and Latin America, it built fortunes through the dispossession of Indigenous peoples and the exploitation of enslaved Africans. In Fiji, its legacy took a different form: indentured labour, restricted economic opportunities and an economic order shaped by colonial priorities. Today, that legacy extends beyond the plantation and into our food systems, where changing diets and the widespread consumption of sugary and highly processed foods contribute to a growing burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs).

  The methods have changed, but a fundamental question remains: whose interests does the system serve and who ultimately bears its costs?

  In Fiji, that question places three influential institutions under scrutiny: Government, the Bose Levu Vakaturaga (BLV) and the Church. Each possesses a different kind of authority. Together, they could help shape a future in which the wellbeing of generations yet unborn takes precedence over the interests of the present. The question is whether they will rise to that responsibility.

  The colonial roots of an unequal economy

  Between 1879 and 1916, more than 60,000 indentured labourers arrived in Fiji from India to work in the sugar industry. Their labour sustained a plantation economy from which the Colonial Sugar Refining Company derived substantial benefits. While the colonial administration preserved most iTaukei landownership, it also restricted indigenous economic opportunities. Indo-Fijian farmers, meanwhile, became central to cane cultivation on leased land.

  The resulting economic order was deeply uneven. Indigenous landownership was protected, but access to commercial agriculture, capital and entrepreneurial opportunity remained constrained. Indo-Fijian farmers built livelihoods around leases whose security depended on a system they did not control.

  After independence, uncertainty over land leases contributed to the displacement of many Indo-Fijian farmers and the contraction of the sugar industry. The legacy is more complicated than a simple division between winners and losers. Both communities inherited vulnerabilities from an economic structure, that distributed ownership, opportunity and risk unequally.

  The deeper lesson is that landownership alone does not guarantee economic empowerment. Nor does participation in an industry guarantee a fair share of its rewards.

  Fiji must confront this history without allowing it to harden into permanent ethnic grievance. Our challenge is to build an economy in which iTaukei ownership translates into meaningful opportunity and agricultural communities can prosper.

  From the plantation to the plate

  Today, sugar presents another challenge. Its consequences are increasingly visible not only in our economy but also in the health of our people.

  Sugary drinks, highly processed foods and changing dietary habits contribute to the burden of diabetes, heart disease, kidney failure and other NCDs. These illnesses affect families, strain public health services, shorten lives and diminish the wellbeing of communities.

  The parallel with the colonial sugar economy must be drawn carefully. Contemporary food consumption is not equivalent to indenture or slavery. Yet we must ask difficult questions about the commercial incentives and food environments that shape individual choices; particularly when inexpensive processed foods are readily available, while healthier alternatives are less affordable.

  When commercial incentives encourage consumption patterns that contribute to preventable illness, the consequences extend far beyond the individual consumer. Families bear the emotional and financial costs. Health services absorb the expense. Children watch parents and grandparents struggle with illnesses that; in some cases, might have been prevented or delayed.

  Here lies a troubling contradiction: we seek to sustain an economically important industry while the wider food environment imposes mounting costs on the health of our people.

  Government must therefore reconcile economic policy with public health. This means reviewing subsidies and incentives, strengthening preventive healthcare, improving access to nutritious foods and considering measures such as additional taxation of sugar-sweetened beverages. It also means helping farmers diversify into sustainable agriculture and traditional food production.

  The objective is not to demonise sugar or the communities whose livelihoods depend on it. It is to ensure that economic activity serves our wellbeing rather than undermining it.

  The responsibility of the Vanua

  This is where the BLV has a potentially transformative role.

  The BLV is not a political party, a Government department or an instrument of any faction. Its legitimacy rests on its relationship with the Vanua and its responsibility to the iTaukei. That responsibility must extend beyond preserving chiefly institutions and customary practices to safeguarding the wellbeing of the people whose lives, give the Vanua its meaning.

  What does custodianship mean if the land remains in indigenous hands but families struggle with preventable illness, substance abuse, violence, economic insecurity and the erosion of language and cultural knowledge?

  The BLV has an opportunity to articulate a broader vision of iTaukei wellbeing, connecting land, food, health, culture, economic participation and the dignity of ordinary members of landowning units. Food sovereignty, revitalisation of the iTaukei language, protection of women and children and meaningful opportunities for younger generations belong within that vision.

  Such a role requires independence. The BLV must be able to speak honestly, including when its concerns challenge Government policy or powerful commercial interests. Its authority cannot rest solely on legislation or constitutional recognition. It must continually earn legitimacy through service to the Vanua.

  But independence must not become insulation from accountability. The BLV must remain answerable to the people whose interests it exists to serve, rather than becoming preoccupied with its own status or preservation.

  The true measure of chiefly custodianship is not the authority exercised today, but the inheritance secured for tomorrow.

  The Church and the moral life of the community

  The Church occupies another distinctive position. Its presence in villages and communities gives it a reach few other institutions can match. It shapes moral understanding, family life, community relationships and the way people interpret suffering, responsibility and hope.

  That influence carries obligations.

  The Church can encourage healthier living, support community gardens, promote food security, counsel families affected by addiction and protect those vulnerable to violence and abuse. It can help communities recognise that caring for the body, the family and the natural environment is inseparable from spiritual responsibility.

  But the Church must also examine itself. Denominational rivalry, silence in the face of abuse and an excessive emphasis on material prosperity can undermine its moral authority. Faith should not become a means of blessing accumulation while overlooking the circumstances that leave families vulnerable.

  Nor should suffering be treated simply as a private spiritual failure when the conditions contributing to it are social, economic and institutional.

  A genuinely prophetic Church must care about both the soul and the conditions under which people live. It must speak not only about salvation beyond this life, but also about justice, dignity and compassion within it.

  A covenant between generations

  Government, the BLV and the Church should not become extensions of one another. Their responsibilities differ and their independence matters. Yet their distinct forms of authority could become complementary.

  Government possesses the legislative, regulatory and fiscal tools to shape our economic and public health environment. The BLV can articulate a long-term vision grounded in the Vanua, customary responsibility and iTaukei wellbeing. The Church can mobilise communities, cultivate moral responsibility and provide practical support where families need it most.

  Together, they could help build a social compact that places human wellbeing above institutional self-interest. Such cooperation must extend across ethnic and religious boundaries, because our future cannot be secured by any one community acting alone.

  This is not a call to enlarge the power of any one institution. It is a call for each to rediscover the purpose for which its authority should be exercised.

  The future of Fiji cannot be measured solely by economic growth, government revenue, institutional recognition or the preservation of inherited status. It must also be measured by whether our children grow up healthier, families live with dignity, communities retain their cultural knowledge and young people inherit meaningful opportunities rather than accumulating burdens.

  Sugar once helped organise an economy around colonial extraction. Today, the challenge is broader: to ensure that economic incentives, political decisions, cultural authority and religious influence serve life rather than diminish it.

  The bitter harvest of history need not determine the harvest of the future. But change will require more than declarations of goodwill. It will demand institutional courage, public accountability and a willingness to look beyond immediate advantage.

  The Vanua is not merely the land we inherit. It is the living relationship between those who came before us, those who stand here today and those yet to be born. We are its temporary custodians, not its final beneficiaries.

  Ultimately, the measure of our leadership is what we leave capable of flourishing after we are gone. We must plant trees under whose shade we may never sit.

  The future is not simply something we inherit. It is something we owe.

  2026.09.28

•  The Bose Levu Vakaturaga and the Vanua: Towards a Pasifika Democracy

  The debate over the restoration of the Bose Levu Vakaturaga (BLV) has become a debate about much more than an institution. It has become a debate about what kind of democracy Fiji wants to be.

  Those questioning restoration have raised legitimate concerns: democratic legitimacy, equal citizenship, accountability, separation of powers and the place of customary authority in a modern constitutional state. These concerns deserve to be heard.

  But there is another question: must Fiji simply reproduce a Western model of democracy, or can we build a democracy that reflects who we are as Pasifika people—one that accommodates representative government while recognising customary authority, communal responsibility, culture and tradition? I believe we can. Indeed, we must.

  I write from within the Vanua—not as a lawyer or political strategist, but as an iTaukei, a chief and someone who understands that this debate is not merely about constitutional architecture. It is about identity, belonging, responsibility and the relationship between generations. For the iTaukei, the Vanua is not an abstraction. It is lived.

  That is why I support the full restoration of the BLV. But I support something larger than restoration: the opportunity to build a uniquely Pasifika democracy.

  Communalism is Not the Enemy of Democracy

  A few months ago, I wrote about iTaukei communalism: beyond the fear of the word. The word “communalism” carries a heavy history in Fiji. For many Indo-Fijians, it evokes the coups of 1987 and the fear that ethnicity could become more important than citizenship. That fear is understandable.

  But another truth must also be understood. For the iTaukei, communalism is not simply a political doctrine. It is a way of life—veilomani, solesolevaki, veivuke; the Yavusa and Mataqali; the relationship between people, land, ancestors, custom and responsibility. When an iTaukei speaks of Vanua, s/he is not speaking simply of territory. Vanua is land and people, history and ancestry, obligation and identity. It is a different grammar of belonging.

  To ask the iTaukei to abandon that communal identity to prove commitment to democracy misunderstands both the Vanua and democracy. The question is not whether communal identity should exist. It is whether we can create a constitutional order in which it exists without becoming exclusionary or oppressive. That is where the BLV matters.

  The BLV is About More Than Chiefs

  The Vanua is not the BLV, and the BLV is not the entire chiefly system. The institution we restore cannot simply reproduce another era. But neither should we pretend it has no relationship to the deeper customary systems of iTaukei society.

  The BLV represents a tradition of chiefly deliberation, consultation, responsibility and mediation. Those values should not be treated as relics incompatible with democracy. They can be part of democracy.

  The CRC has proposed giving the BLV a dedicated constitutional place, with defined functions, institutional independence and accountability, including roles touching customary law, provincial councils, village bylaws, iTaukei institutions and national social cohesion.

  The deeper question is not whether chiefs should have a ceremonial role. It is whether the Vanua should have a legitimate constitutional voice. I believe it should.

  But if we ask Fiji to accept the BLV, we must be honest about what we are restoring. What kind of body will it be? What powers will it have—and what powers will it not have? Who will select its members? How will women, young people and those without chiefly titles participate? How will it relate to Parliament, Government, the courts, Bose Vanua, the Bose ni Yasana and the lewenivanua? Will its decisions be binding? If so, in what areas? If not, what constitutional weight will they carry?

  These are not hostile questions. They are the questions of a mature institution.

  Here, the Chairman of the BLV, Ratu Viliame Seruvakula, recently clarified an important point. The iTaukei Trust Fund is a statutory body under the iTaukei Trust Fund Act 2004. It is not funded by taxpayers; its funds come from investment portfolios in local and international markets. Its financial affairs are subject to internal accountability and independent audit, and its reports go to the BLV—not to Parliament. That distinction matters. It would be wrong to treat the BLV as a government department, or to assume parliamentary tabling as if public money were involved.

  But autonomy is not the same as unaccountability. If the BLV is to have a constitutional voice, its integrity must be beyond suspicion. Its independence must be real; its accountability must be genuine. A binding code of conduct, independent audit, financial transparency within its own structures, and clear mechanisms for misconduct are not threats to chiefly authority. They protect it.

  Chiefly leadership is ultimately about service. A title without responsibility is merely status.

  A restored BLV must not become a parallel government. Nor should it become an instrument of any political party or government of the day. It should be a constitutional voice for the Vanua—nothing more, but nothing less.

  Fiji Should Not Have to Borrow Its Democratic Imagination

  We often speak of “democracy” as though there is only one legitimate institutional form. But democracy is a principle, not a single cultural template.

  Elections, universal citizenship, fundamental rights, judicial independence, representative government and accountability are essential. But in a Pasifika society, so too can consultation, collective responsibility, reconciliation, communal stewardship and respect for customary authority.

  Why must these be placed in opposition? Why must Fiji choose between the individual and the community?

  A Fiji that is modern does not have to become culturally Western. A Fiji that is democratic does not have to become culturally rootless. Different institutions can derive legitimacy from different sources while operating within one constitutional order.

  That is the foundation of the Pasifika democracy I believe Fiji can build.

  A Different Grammar of Belonging

  The misunderstanding between iTaukei and Indo-Fijians often begins here. For many Indo-Fijians, communal identity has been shaped through religious organisations, community associations, cultural bodies and networks forged through indenture and subsequent generations. For the iTaukei, communal identity is more deeply embedded in ancestry, land and inherited obligation.

  Neither experience should be dismissed. But they are different.

  When an iTaukei defends communal land, s/he may not be thinking about an economic asset. S/he may be thinking about whether his/her grandchildren will still have a place to belong.

  When an iTaukei speaks about the Vanua, hear home, not hierarchy. When an Indo-Fijian speaks about enterprise, hear aspiration, not greed. These translations are necessary if Fiji is to move beyond mutual suspicion.

  And belonging must be reciprocal.

  Indo-Fijians are fully Fiji citizens. But citizenship and cultural belonging can deepen through understanding the indigenous culture of Fiji. Learning Vosa vakaViti, understanding iTaukei customs and appreciating the obligations embedded in the Vanua can be bridges into a deeper sense of home—not a surrender of Indo-Fijian identity.

  Equally, iTaukei must understand the histories, anxieties and aspirations of Indo-Fijians. Belonging is a two-way journey.

  Customary Authority is Not Domination

  None of this means that everything customary is automatically legitimate, or that chiefs should be above scrutiny. The Vanua itself must evolve.

  Custom has always evolved. Our ancestors encountered Christianity, colonialism, education, commerce and the modern State and found ways to retain identity while adapting to change. The BLV must do the same.

  A living tradition is not one that never changes. It is one that knows how to change without losing itself.

  This is particularly important when we discuss women and younger generations. Some customary systems remain rooted in patrilineal chiefly succession. But custom cannot become a synonym for immobility.

  If change is simply imposed from outside, it may produce compliance without ownership. If the Vanua engages honestly with change, customary institutions can evolve in ways that are both authentic and sustainable.

  Protecting the Vanua is Not Excluding Others

  The most difficult questions concern the constitutional protection of iTaukei land, customary rights and institutions.

  Land is not merely a commodity to the iTaukei. The relationship between people and land is foundational to the Vanua. Anxiety about land alienation is therefore not simply economic. It can be existential.

  The desire for constitutional protection should not automatically be interpreted as hostility towards other citizens. It is a form of collective self-preservation.

  But protection must not become domination.

  If the BLV receives meaningful constitutional powers, those powers must be carefully defined and responsibly exercised. The BLV should be a shield for the Vanua, not a sword against Fiji.

  That distinction is essential. The iTaukei can protect what they value without becoming what they fear.

  Equal Citizenship Does Not Require Cultural Sameness

  Some critics understandably ask whether guaranteed iTaukei representation is consistent with equal citizenship. It is a legitimate constitutional question.

  But equality does not necessarily mean sameness. The iTaukei are the indigenous people of Fiji, with a particular historical relationship to land and customary institutions. Recognising that reality does not make another less of a citizen.

  At the same time, indigenous recognition cannot justify treating others as permanent outsiders. Both truths must stand.

  That is why the idea of the BLV as “chiefs for everyone” matters. Its particular responsibility may be to the iTaukei, but its contribution should be to the peace, cohesion and wellbeing of Fiji as a whole.

  As Ratu Viliame Seruvakula has said, the BLV stands ready to lead its indigenous people while creating a conducive environment for the peace and prosperity of other ethnicities who live among us.

  That is stewardship.

  Towards a Pasifika Democracy

  This is why Fiji’s constitutional future should not be measured solely by how closely it resembles Western democracies.

  A Pasifika democracy would recognise that individuals have rights but also obligations; that communities matter; that indigenous identity is not cultural decoration; and that customary authority can have constitutional space while remaining subject to constitutional accountability.

  It would allow Parliament to govern the nation while giving the Vanua a meaningful constitutional voice. It would protect fundamental rights while recognising that land, culture and communal identity carry obligations that cannot always be reduced to individual property rights.

  It would seek consensus where possible without making consensus a substitute for democratic decision-making. It would draw from modern constitutionalism without assuming that everything valuable must have originated elsewhere.

  That is not a rejection of democracy. It is democracy adapted to the soil in which it is planted.

  Let the Vanua Deliberate

  The questions being raised about the BLV should not frighten us. They should make us more deliberate.

  The iTaukei deserve to know precisely what is being proposed: what powers the BLV will have, how members will be selected, how it will be funded, how it will relate to Parliament and Government, how customary authority will interact with the courts, and how its decisions will be held accountable.

  The Vanua must have time to deliberate. The Bose Vanua must be heard. The Bose ni Yasana must be heard. Women must be heard. Young iTaukei must be heard. And the wider Fijian public must understand what is being proposed.

  Constitutional documents should be translated into Vosa vakaViti and made accessible. Consultation must not mean asking the Vanua to endorse a settlement already determined elsewhere. It must mean allowing the Vanua to help shape it.

  That is genuine restoration.

  One Ship

  Ultimately, this debate is not simply about whether chiefs should return to the Constitution. It is about whether Fiji has the confidence to define democracy on its own terms.

  Can we recognise indigenous authority without abandoning equal citizenship? Can customary law have constitutional space without undermining the rule of law? Can communal responsibility coexist with individual rights? Can chiefly institutions evolve without losing their cultural legitimacy? Can the iTaukei protect their inheritance while extending their hand to every other Fijian?

  I believe we can.

  Fiji does not have to choose between being modern and being Pasifika. We can be both.

  The restoration of the BLV should therefore not be about resurrecting yesterday. It should be about building tomorrow: a democracy rooted in universal citizenship, but not stripped of communal responsibility; a constitutional order that protects individual rights while recognising indigenous collective rights; a modern Fiji that does not require the iTaukei to become less iTaukei in order to become fully Fijian.

  That is what I mean by a Pasifika democracy.

  Not chiefly rule. Not ethnic domination. Not a rejection of democracy. But a constitutional settlement that grows from the soil of Fiji itself.

  The BLV can be one of its most important institutions—not because it represents a return to the past, but because it can help Fiji reconcile two truths we have too often treated as opposites: the survival of the Vanua and the unity of Fiji.

  We are in a ship called Fiji. Within the Vanua are confederacies, provinces, yavusa, mataqali and countless relationships shaped by genealogy, history and obligation. We disagree. We always have. But the ship is one.

  The BLV is not the ship. It is not the captain. It is not the State. It is part of the crew. And a member of the crew has a particular responsibility while remaining responsible for the safety of the whole vessel.

  Perhaps that is the democratic grammar Fiji now needs: veilomani, solesolevaki, veivuke and communal responsibility alongside elections, rights, representation and accountability.

  A grammar in which the Vanua is not feared, but understood. And perhaps, in understanding it, we may discover that the survival of the Vanua and the unity of Fiji were never meant to be opposing goals.

  Same ocean. Same shore. Same storm. One ship.

  2026.09.27

• The Demographic Suicide of Aging Nations

  From Washington to Brussels to Canberra, aging powers are repelling the workers they need — and calling it policy.

  Demographer Nicholas Eberstadt asks: “Can America continue to prosper even if it veers into indefinite depopulation?” For the first time since the Great Depression, population decline looms. It could arrive before a baby born this year enters high school, Eberstadt warns, and America is “not well positioned to pass the stress test that depopulation will unforgivingly impose.”

  Washington’s response is the opposite of what the moment demands.

  In 2025, US population growth was just 0.5%. Net international migration fell from 2.7 million to 1.3 million. In 2026, net immigration could range from a gain of 185,000 to a loss of 925,000 — enough to shrink the population by over 400,000, a decline unseen since 1970.

  This is arithmetic. The native-born population is aging, fertility is at record lows, and deaths increasingly outnumber births. Immigration is the only variable that can meaningfully change the trajectory — yet Trump administration policies are sharply reducing net migration and accelerating decline.

  Europe is trapped in the same contradiction. It needs immigrants to sustain its economies and welfare systems. An internal EU report predicts a decline of nearly two million working-age people annually to 2040; migration is already slowing natural decline. Yet anti-immigrant politics is rising, with right-wing parties capitalizing on cultural anxiety. Europe needs immigrants but treats them as threats.

  China faces a starker cliff. After its disastrous one-child policy, it has one of the world’s fastest-aging populations. Its working-age population, once around one billion, could fall to 300 million by 2100. Beijing has loosened birth limits and pivoted aggressively to robotics. By 2024, China installed more industrial robots than the rest of the world combined and accounted for 90% of humanoid robots shipped globally. The logic: if you cannot replace workers with babies, replace them with machines. But robots do not pay taxes, consume goods, or build communities. They are a stopgap, not a solution.

  Australia offers a warning. Without immigration, it is a generation from the same decline as Europe and the US. It depends increasingly on Pasifika workers, especially from Fiji, under programs like PALM. Canberra calls its relationship with Fiji “Vuvale” — family. Australians can enter Fiji visa-free; Fijians cannot do the same in Australia. As one Fijian commentator put it: “In the Vuvale family, one sibling is trusted with the house keys while the other is asked to wait outside until Immigration finishes checking their references.” Australia welcomes Pasifika labor for orchards, hospitals, and aged care, but closes the door when those workers want to visit relatives. This is not partnership. It is exploitation dressed as family.

  Pasifika nations are not passive. They see the contradiction: needed as labor, rejected as visitors. They see remittances — Fijian workers in Australia send home about $2,010 monthly — but also visa rejections and waiting rooms. Australia’s demographic future depends on the Pasifika, yet its politics treats them as temporary conveniences. That cannot hold.

  The US is closing the door entirely. The Supreme Court’s expansion of deportation powers, reduced temporary protected status for hundreds of thousands, and the chilling effect on legal immigration all point one way: a nation of immigrants repelling immigrants. This is demographic suicide dressed as border security.

  Eberstadt warns that America has developed “undesirable new habits — political, social and economic” that steady growth masked. Depopulation will expose them. A shrinking population means fewer workers paying into Social Security and Medicare, fewer consumers, fewer entrepreneurs, fewer communities sustaining schools and hospitals. It means a smaller, older, poorer nation — not because of enemies, but because it refuses to see arithmetic.

  Can America still prosper as it depopulates? Eberstadt says yes. Human ingenuity and adaptability enriched the world during the population explosion; they can during decline. But that requires policy, practice, and behavior to change. It requires recognizing immigration not as a threat to national identity but as a lifeline to prosperity — and treating would-be immigrants as future citizens, not temporary labor or security risks.

  Australia calls Fiji family while keeping it outside. Europe decries demographic winter while voting for parties that worsen it. China bets on robots to replace the children it told people not to have. And America — built on the idea that anyone can become American — is building walls.

  Eberstadt asks whether a depopulating America can still prosper. Yes — but not if it keeps slamming the door on those who could help it do so. The arithmetic is unforgiving. The politics are worse.

  2026.09.13

• Two Fronts, One Struggle: The Forum Must Choose Sovereignty Over Silence

  The 55th Pacific Islands Forum is underway in Palau, and the agenda is crowded. Climate finance, ocean governance, economic resilience—these are the familiar pillars of regional solidarity. Yet beneath the surface, two urgent questions are demanding answers that the Forum has been reluctant to give. The first is historical: the unfinished decolonisation of Kanaky (New Caledonia). The second is contemporary: the militarisation of our Pasifika waters by great powers. Together, they form a single test of whether the Forum still stands for Pasifika sovereignty—or has become a forum for managing external interests.

  The Melanesian Spearhead Group, meeting on the margins of the Forum, has forced the decolonisation issue back onto the table. MSG/DG Anna Naupa has made it clear that time is running out. The UN’s Fourth Decade on Decolonisation ends in 2030—just four years away. Yet Kanaky’s Indigenous Kanak people remain trapped in a protracted process, with France playing a role that Naupa bluntly describes as “not an honest broker.”

  The MSG has agreed to take this matter to the Forum, seeking to restore the attention that was so critical in the 1980s when the Forum helped secure Kanaky’s inscription on the UN list of Non-Self-Governing Territories. That was when the Forum understood its purpose: to champion the rights of Pasifika peoples to self-determination, to speak truth to colonial powers, and to refuse to let history be buried under diplomatic convenience.

  But where has that Forum gone? As Naupa notes, the issue has “lost prominence.” The Forum has been silent while Kanaky’s future hangs in the balance. This silence is not neutrality; it is complicity.

  Meanwhile, the Forum faces a parallel crisis. Pasifika civil society, led by the Pasifika Network on Globalisation’s Joey Tau, has condemned the use of the Pasifika as a missile testing ground by both China and the United States. Tau’s frustration is palpable: leaders have been silent not only on these tests but also on Japan’s Fukushima wastewater disposal into our ocean.

  Forum SG Baron Waqa has offered the diplomatic line: leaders oppose all missile tests, but any statement must respect sovereign positions and emerge from consensus. This is technically true—but it also exposes the Forum’s paralysis. At the Foreign Ministers Meeting in Suva last month, Fiji backed Aotearoa’s push for a united regional position condemning China’s July missile test. But Kiribati and Naoero refused, and no statement was issued.

  The fracture lines are clear. Smaller nations, heavily dependent on aid and investment, are reluctant to alienate any great power. This is not disunity for its own sake; it is the rational response of nations caught between competing pressures. But it is also a failure of regional solidarity—and a failure of leadership.

  This is where Fiji must step up. As the largest Pasifika nation after PNG, Fiji carries a weight and a responsibility that it cannot abdicate. Its absence at the MSG leaders’ meeting—represented at ministerial level rather than by its Prime Minister—is troubling. If Fiji is to lead, it must show up, not just in body but in will. It must champion Kanaky’s decolonisation as a moral imperative, not a diplomatic inconvenience. It must also model a principled stance on militarisation, speaking truth to all great powers without exception.

  As I have argued before, Fiji cannot afford to be led by the nose by Canberra’s strategic anxieties or any other external agenda. Genuine partnership requires the courage to say no, to chart an independent course, and to insist that Fiji’s foreign policy serves the Pasifika family—not the geopolitical fears of distant capitals. This is not about confrontation; it is about maturity. About refusing to let anyone else pick sides for us.

  The two fronts of this struggle—decolonisation and militarisation—are not separate issues. They are the same fight. Both are about whether Pasifika peoples will govern their own lands and waters, or whether external powers will continue to treat the Pasifika as a resource to be extracted, a playground for their rivalries, and a convenient place to dispose of their waste and their weapons.

  The Forum was born from decolonisation. Its purpose was to reclaim agency, assert identity, and build something genuinely owned by Pasifika peoples. That purpose remains urgent today. The great powers will continue to compete, offer aid, seek alliances, and jostle for influence. But our task is not to choose between them. It is to remain united around our priorities, speak with our voice, and insist that our future be shaped by us—for us.

  Fiji must lead—boldly, consistently, and in service of all Pasifika peoples. The MSG has placed decolonisation back on the table. Civil society has demanded a principled stance on militarisation. The question is whether the Forum’s leaders will rise to the occasion or continue to tiptoe around the hard issues. The ocean has always been our home. Let us govern it as ours. And let that governance begin with the courage to finish the work of decolonisation and to say no to all who treat our waters as their battlefield.

  🌊 #PacificWay #Kanaky #Decolonisation #BluePacific #FijiLeadership

  2026.09.02

• 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?

  2026.07.03

• 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?

  2026.07.03

• 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