Honolulu
February 28, 1970
For the British, Fiji has become the white man’s burden with a vengeance, an unprofitable colonial remnant, a disturbing trust that must be honored yet brought to an uneasy independence as the once great power cut its role East of Suez.
There is plenty of room for criticism of British policy in Fiji since the reluctant English took over in 1874 at the repeated invitation of the then King Cakobau backed by European businessmen. Some frequent charges:
A well-meaning and convenient paternalism made most Fijians prisoners in a museum-case mentality unsuited for a modern world thrust upon them. Not only may importing Indian labor have been a mistake, it was compounded. Here as in other British colonies, some see evidence of a past divide-and-rule policy that haunts present efforts for racial harmony. Attitudes that fostered racially separate schools have not helped. Political integration could have been speeded. The economic system has continued to favor the dominant Europeans and to a lesser degree the eager Indians.
Whatever the merits of such charges, there is another fact that must be weighed in any balance: Fijians are still there as a people with ownership of most of the land and a chance to be a major partner in ruling their own islands. If hardly favored, Indians have found economic upward mobility and the right to bargain for their political future.
No matter what judgments are made on the past, however, British success or failure will be judged in the 70s on how Fiji emerges in its early years of political freedom. Here the questions of politics and the search for a workable system are paramount.
The British Way
Fiji is approaching the takeoff stage in a well-worn British process that has been relatively smooth if not always too successful in bringing the varying societies in underdeveloped lands to independence. The process is called “gradualism.” Its goal is to produce a local model of the British parliamentary or “Westminister” system.
The process starts with a British governor who has absolute power. Over many years, in flexible steps, he develops an executive council, first with colonial civil servants and nominated members through an increasing proportion of elected members who eventually produce a majority, which provides the cabinet members for the fledgling government.
Fiji has come most of the way down this road towards self-government and a form of independence. Importantly, it has done so with a stress on communal voting where legislators have been picked from racial groups by members of that group.
Under the 1966 constitution, the legislative council (LEGCO) has 36 elected members and four ex officio seats for colonial officials. There are separate communal roles for the election of nine Fijian members (including other Pacific islanders), for nine Indian members, and for seven “General” members, in effect European and Chinese. In a holdover from the past, two Fijian members are elected by the Council of Chiefs.
Ratu Mara and family
Important in terms of the future is the fact that the nine remaining members are picked by a system of cross voting — three Fijians, three Indians, and three “General” members running on racial rolls but elected by voters of all races.
The British governor still retains veto power and the option to preside over the cabinet or Council of Ministers, but in effect Fiji already has a good deal of internal self government. Said one civil servant: “We British bureaucrats are now carrying out the orders of the local politicians, rather than vice versa as it was before. “
Politics Today
With 27 seats in the Legislative Council from the general election of 1966, the Alliance Party runs the developing government and will lead Fiji to its new independent status. This party is a frank — and some would say frightening — model of the Alliance which the British designed to rule Malaysia. As the Malaysia Alliance includes Malay, Chinese, and Indian groups, so its Fiji counterpart has Fijian, Indian, and European organizations.
But in Malaysia the situation broke down amid mistrust and nationalism by the politically leading but economically weak Malays and unhappiness by the Chinese with their secondary political role. In Fiji, the Alliance is run by Fijians, strong on European and Chinese business community support and very weak in the mass of the Indian community.
“There are a lot of elements in the Alliance that don’t have much in common except concern about us, “ says one Indian opposition leader. “There are the old time Europeans, the business types, the colonial officials, many foreign investors, some rich Indians, Chinese who are afraid, Fiji-for-Fijians type natives, and a liberal group that’s for progress and cooperation but not at the expense of the Fijian people. In such a mixed up situation no wonder they can’t get genuine Indians.”
In this complicated situation, great importance must be given to the figure of Ratu Sir Kamesese Mara, 49, Chief Minister (Prime Minister) of the government, head of the Alliance, and the leading Fijian figure in the country.
A handsome giant of a man who attended Oxford and the London School of Economics, Ratu Mara at times seems to stand figuratively as well as literally above many others in Fiji; he is also the leading figure in Pacific regional politics.
Although not so highly trusted and fondly liked as Premier Tunku Abdul Rahman was once among other races in Malaysia, Ratu Mara in Fiji is a younger, brighter figure with the capacity to grow. When angered he can be quite emotional and revert to Fiji-for-Fijian utterings, but most consider him a key liberal figure moving the Alliance and the Fijians towards an era when cooperation is essential.
Ratu Mara
A.D. Patel
S. M. Koya
The Opposition
If Ratu Mara is the most important man in Fiji, the second is S.M. Koya, 45, an Australia-New Zealand educated lawyer-politician from Fiji’s sugar-growing country.
Koya is from the Muslim minority in Fiji’s Indian community. Still he was selected as president of the National Federation Party and leader of the opposition in the Legislative Council last October on the death of A.D. Patel.
Patel was a turbulent, moving figure in Fijian affairs for over 25 years, usually in opposition to the status quo both racial and political. His leadership among Fiji’s Indians is credited as a major force in moving the colony to the brink of internal self-government. But Patel, an immigrant attorney from India, was also a difficult man at times. His tactics sometimes seemed to complicate Fiji’s tensions, and before his death an atmosphere of uncertainty over whether agreement would be reached on a joint Alliance -Federation approach in independence talks in London.
In contrast to the frail-looking Patel, Fiji-born “Sid” Koya is a burly, sometimes blustering man. But he is also regarded as a more moderate, amenable and straightforward man able to get along better with Ratu Mara. A foreign observer put it irreverently and perhaps unfairly to Koya’s own dedication to his people’s cause: “The passing of A.D. Patel is regarded by people in the Alliance as the best thing since the Fiji Times started printing Peanuts. Koya is a honeymoon hero.”
The N.F.P. or Federation, as it is called, grew out of an Indian cane farmers’ organization important in troubled times a decade ago. It evolved into a party in the mid 60s.
The Federation today is still basically an Indian party in makeup if not design. Leaders estimate it has support from two-thirds or more of the Indian community, with the rest fluid or supporting the Alliance. The Federation is woefully weak among Europeans, although a few back it and others, mostly privately, agree with its efforts to change the status quo.
More important, the Federation has made some inroads with Fijians living near the cane areas. Also it has gotten some publicity value from the enrollment of two maverick Fijian chiefs. One is Ratu Mara’s brother-in-law, Ratu Mosese Veresekete who serves as editor of the Federation’s paper. The other is Ratu Julian Toganivalu, brother of Ratu David, who is Ratu Mara’s chief assistant. Ratu Julian serves as the Federation’s secretary for organization. Both the dissident chiefs have somewhat black sheep reputations, but they can articulate a liberal, multiracial viewpoint to Fijians.
Tactics and Fears
A number close to Fiji’s political scene think the Federation Party could be stronger among other races today but that it has made mistakes in adopting tactics of uncooperation and in failing to understand other races. “Thankfully for us,” says one Alliance leader, “they have been naive in thinking they could approach Fijians the same as they do their own Indians.”
But fear has been the big factor with Fijians who in the Federation’s talk of “one man, one vote, one value” see the clear threat of domination by the Indian majority of the population.
Politically, the argument centers around the issue of a common roll, which would allow voters of all races to vote together on the same list of candidates as they do in most countries. Indians have been demanding common instead of racial voting rolls since the first three were appointed to the Legislative Council in 1929. Alliance leaders concede a common roll will come but they say this is not the time.
Here we find a basic difference in approach between the two parties:
“To us race is a hard fact of life, “ says a leading Fijian in the Alliance. “It would be tragic to assume there is equality. The Fijian is behind. Indians already have much of the economy while we have nothing. The ultimate result of one-man, one-vote now would be Indian political domination as well, and if Indians have both, Fijians will never be able to grow.”
A young Fijian scholar wrote of “certain intermediary stages” needed before everybody should vote together — more multi-racial schools, stress on a common language (presumably English), more joint economic and social activities, increased urbanization, and economic upliftment of Fijians.
On the other side are those who feel the Fijians will never be able to compete unless they are put more directly into competition.
“The British have institutionalized racial differences here with their racial voting rolls. The system has encouraged communalism when we needed to be developing common loyalties, “ said a leading Indian.
Political scientists and some other students of the Fiji scene feel that Fijian interests could be protected in other ways then ethnic voting rolls. Writes the University of Hawaii’s Norman Meller in a book with former Fiji student Tames Anthony on the political scene:
“The different geographical concentrations of Europeans, Fijians, and Indians permits the drawing of district boundaries in such a manner that there may be a representational balance between Fijians and Indians. European economic interests may be protected by a bicameral legislative system with population reflected in one house and economic status in the other chamber.”
Says a British civil servant who studied the scene closely: “Because of age, district, and other factors, not to mention splits in the Indian community, you could have one-man, one-vote here now and the Fijians would be able to have a majority. But common roll is a red flag symbolizing Fijian fears. So we will have to move in other ways. “
The common roll debate reached its most dangerous period in 1967. In protest on the one-man, one-vote issue Patel in 1967 led a walkout of all nine Federation Legislative Council members elected in the Indian communal vote. By boycotting sessions, the Federation forced a by-election for the nine Indian seats in September of 1968. The Alliance had hopes of picking up a couple of seats, but the returns were a landslide for the Federation in all nine seats; furthermore, its percentage was over 80 per cent of the Indian vote, better than the election two years before.
Shocked and angered, Fijians reacted with a series of ugly incidents ranging from stoning of Indian taxi cabs and homes to big protest rallies and parades through provincial towns. There were calls for deportation of Indians. Fiji went close to the brink of major racial violence until Fijian leaders pulled back.
Alliance leaders still feel they were double crossed by Indian voters and local leaders who had promised support then failed to come through at the polls. Federation leaders say no other vote was possible because the election emerged as a test of Indian identity and hopes for equal treatment — not a show of their potential for domination.
Still many feel the by-election served to clear the air of illusions. When tensions eased, Fijians seemed more aware of their need for self-reliance. And opposition Indians were left with a lesson that they could only move so fast so far without triggering Fijian violence.
Nadi’s main street
Politics of Independence
Fiji has moved with surprising speed towards independence in the past few months. Last summer both sides were thinking in terms of going to London sometime this year for discussion on a new constitution that would take Fiji to some form of independence over a period of perhaps two years. By January, however, Alliance-Federation discussions had reached a point where the Fiji Times could write:
“It is not impossible that October 10th, 1970, could be celebrated as Dominion Day, marking the beginning of a new constitutional status, with the last ties of administrative control from Britain broken by mutual agreement, but with loyalty to the Crown and friendly association with the rest of the Commonwealth unimpaired.“
Agreement was reached in early November to seek “full self government with dominion status, “ a form of independence that would keep close ties with England. This was the Alliance position. The Federation has favored Fiji becoming an independent republic. But in a testimony of the new cooperative mood, Koya said:
“We are well aware and appreciate the anxiety in the minds of the Fijian people as to what would happen if we were to go into independence straight away…We accept as a first phase of constitutional change immediate dominion status — on the lines of Australia and New Zealand — with all its implications.”
Since then there have been a series of amicable talks. At the end of January the situation had reached a point where Britain’s Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth office, Lord Shepherd, flew out to Fiji to start the constitutional negotiations. There it was agreed Fiji will move towards independence as soon as possible, presumably October. What could be final talks were set for April in London.
However, if there was heady progress towards independence, some hard questions still remained:
The common roll — where everybody votes for candidates regardless of race — remains a goal. But what seemed more likely was a substantial increase in the number of cross-voting seats where voters of all races cast ballots for candidates running on racial rolls; thus, Indians would help elect a number of Fijians and vice versa, keeping a desired racial balance in the Legislative Council of Parliament.
Fijians were also pushing for an upper house in the Legislature. Their theory is that Indians, with a majority of the population, might be the dominant power in a single house. But there could be an upper house set up so that Fijians would have control and a veto power on land or any other matters relating to Fijians. The Fijian Council of Chiefs has recommended it be allowed to appoint half the members of an upper house. The new Governor-General — who represents the British Queen as the mostly ceremonial head of State in a dominion arrangement — might also be a Fijian.
The form and voting setup of a self-governing Fiji will have important influence on the vital question of its future politics. For if the two largely racial parties are the only important ones in sight now many expect changes after the future political system is set and independence comes.
Just what form this change might take is very speculative. The hope of many is that two multi-racial parties will evolve, moving the situation away from racial matters to liberal -conservative philosophical questions. But others have long felt there was room for a radical third party appealing to progressive, largely youthful elements among both Indians and Fijians.
Models pose for tourism promotion
Some Europeans have long seen — and at times feared — the possibility of Fijians and Indians joining together at the expense of European influence and economic power. But one who has worked close in the political situation sees more potential for a linkup between Indians and Europeans: “It’s going on now; there are transfers of capital and buying in between their businesses. Once you get over the old hang-ups, the two are often natural allies in such an open, developing economy. I can see the poor Fijians becoming more proletarian, sort of a working class party. And that could, mean trouble if the economic gap widens.“
Nobody knows which way the situation will go, but in the inter-twined pattern that is Fiji it seems logical that some new economics will influence some new politics.
Economics & Independence
Like most new nations, Fiji is coming to political freedom when its people are far from economic independence. In fact, the degree of dependence on foreign-owned business is an important political factor.
Some 75 per cent of Fiji businesses are foreign-owned, mostly by Australians who hold what one political leader called “the commanding heights of our economy” — sugar milling and marketing, the big wholesalers and distributors, most shipping, a good portion of tourism, and much secondary industry.
Indians have about 20 per cent of the economic activity. They are moving up, but Indian leaders play down the situation. Says one: “People are always talking about Indian businessmen, but really all we have are the duty-free shops for tourists, a good part of the other small retail trade, and a few larger general companies. Most of our people are poor farmers or laborers.”
In commercial terms, Fijians are far out of things, except they own and lease much of the land where others make money. Fijians do share in the outer-island copra trade. Some are successful urban workers and a few independent farmers. But many labor in village farms that one foreign observer described as “about as efficient as a lousy Russian commune.”
Whatever the imbalance in benefits, however, two key factors as Fiji moves toward independence are that the economy has been booming and that the outlook is bright. Political leaders on both sides cited the relative, if unequal, prosperity as important in keeping racial tensions in check over the past year.
Sugar’s Role
Sugar is still Fiji’s basic industry and as such has made a major contribution to the colony’s prosperity and problems. Involved are the Australian owners of Fiji’s one big milling company, Fijian landowners, and some 15,500 independent cane farmers, the great number Indian, who mostly lease land from Fijians or the milling company.
It’s a complex situation full of racial and political overtones and even diplomatic considerations since U.S. and British Commonwealth sugar quotas are involved. Not only the Federation party, which started as a farmer’s union, but also the Alliance represented the cane farmers in arbitration proceedings with the growers last year.
One of Britain’s leading judges, Lord Denning, was brought out as arbitrator. Day after day he sat, pleasant and urbane, listening to testimony in a hot Catholic parish hall in the sugar town of Lautoka. Hundreds of cane farmers crowded the hall and leaned in the windows while sweating attorneys and officials argued their case with a mixture of pointed barbs and British politeness.
With its variations it was reminiscent in atmosphere of Hawaii 20 years ago when sugar and labor negotiations were of central importance. Lord Denning’s findings, delivered from London in late January, favored the cane farmers over the Australian millers, but which political party gained the most may be seen later.
Yet in Fiji, as elsewhere, the outlook for sugar is uncertain. Through a mixture of costs, quotas, and world supplies, the industry has lost its dynamism. It remains a mainstay but is declining in relative importance.
Tourism Welcome, But…
In Fiji tourism, one is again reminded of Hawaii 15 to 20 years ago when the numbers were starting to multiply rapidly but the big hotels, conventions, and mass tours were still a ways off.
“We are just on the edge of the sound barrier in tourism, “ said an official who traced the growth up from the days when Fiji was basically a stop for cruise ships or airline passengers passing between Hawaii and Australia. Last year there were about 80, 000 tourists, well over twice the number who visited Tahiti but a world away from Hawaii’s 1.3 million.
Either by desire or prospects, Fiji tourism will remain far from Hawaii; perhaps fortunately, there is no central Waikiki beach, so development is spreading more. Still the most dramatic aspect of Fiji tourism is its growth. The number of tourists is jumping more than 20 per cent a year. A variety of big hotel companies, airlines, well-heeled dreamers and some doubtful operators are producing plans ranging from mammoth resort and residential complexes to tiny exclusive hideaways.
Because of Fijian ownership, land is hard to get. Prices being paid for available islands and choice beach locations are dazzling by local standards. But with dozens of islands, lovely lagoons, and eager, friendly people who work (albeit not always with sophisticated skills) for low wages, Fiji offers still unexplored tourism horizons.
At the same time, tourism in Fiji is not growing without some questions. The government’s minister of finance recently pointed out that half the money tourism brings in goes back out of the country for import goods. He added: “Even though by 1970, gross earnings from tourism may well exceed those from sugar (about $25 million), this does not mean tourism will equal sugar as a contributor to gross domestic product…it will be seven to ten years before tourism equals sugar in its contribution…“
Magazine of ruling Alliance Party questions aspects of tourism
…Questions of Culture
Both parties in Fiji recognize a need for foreign investment, but there have been increasing questions in recent months about whether local people, especially the Fijians, are sharing enough in tourism’s benefits. And Ratu Mara, who will lead Fiji’s government in independence, has commented eloquently that national pride “ must come before “ expatriate profit. “ Recently he said:
“Let us have tourism — yes! Let us have profit — yes! But tourism and profit at the expense of our customs, culture and traditions — never! These things must be preserved and protected. There must be no insidious undermining of them — no gnawing away at their foundations with the termites of tourist profit till they topple and die — degraded and debased.”
Big tourism has a dynamism hard to control once it gets rolling. But in combining awareness with eagerness Fiji, like Tahiti, at least offers the hope of benefiting by mistakes made elsewhere, including in Hawaii. It is a measure of something that more Fijian participation in hotel ownership and a small tax on arriving tourists for a Fijian cultural preservation fund have both been discussed in the legislature.
Some worry that Fiji is banking too heavily on tourism for its economic future. (“I remember Cyprus when the racial trouble started; it killed a budding tourist industry, “ says one European observer.) Still there are other prospects. Fiji has great timber reserves and some economists think forestry will ultimately catch and pass tourism. Gold remains the third largest export (after sugar and copra). It is a relatively small and unstable industry. But there is the feeling that Fiji, on land or under the sea, has major mineral potential. Less dramatic but more sure and significant is the fact of progress in rice growing and livestock.
In small ways you can see the economic momentum growing in Fiji: new secondary industries and shipping routes give it new importance as a distribution center, a small South Seas Chicago. In contrast to past years, the labor movement is quiet and non-political, concentrating on getting its share of the boom. Things have picked up to the point where people think the government can afford a TV station and Suva businesses and banks are feeling busy enough to stay open during the lunch hour, a relatively momentous decision.
As everywhere, however, Fiji’s economic growth rate of more than 6 per cent must be measured against the rising expectations and needs of a growing population.
“Right now we’ve got 10,000 people coming into the labor market each year and only 4,000 jobs available. That’s a gap that’s got to be filled, even allowing for marriage and the family system that takes care of people, “ says a government economist.
Along with economic growth, one bright spot in this situation has been one of the most dramatic birth control programs in the Pacific.
In 1958, the live birth rate among Fiji’s Indian population was 44 per 1,000; the Fijian rate was 35. The figures are now 29 for the Indians and 31 for the Fijians — which also means the Indian population has stopped growing faster than the Fijian.
The goal is bringing the overall rate of 29 per 1,000 down to 25 by 1972.
These are amazing developments compared to a decade ago when many were so concerned that Fiji’s population explosion and seeming lack of economic opportunities might heighten and eventually explode the delicate racial situation. Now the opposite seems true. The changes are an important asset in a vital period.
A (Non) Conclusion
Anyone who has been touched by Fiji can’t help but feel a mixture of hope and apprehension in this, its most important year of approaching independence. I admit a bias for these islands of so much beauty, so much promise and so many deep problems — a personal involvement. Yet there is the paradox that I have written in better, warmer style of such places as Tonga and Guam over the past two years.
Maybe my failure is in the paradox of Fiji’s contrasts and its people…The Fijians of such great charm and human talents yet also with such deep frustrations and flickering shadows of violence as they sit in far-out villages or stand drunk and broke on a Suva street corner contemplating what history has made them amid the success of others…The Indians, from unctuous city merchants with soft smiles and hard bargains, to a hard-working Suva landlord who talked straight and honest, to the cane farmers sweating on a few drought-plagued acres that seem much like the India his father gladly left, not speaking English, yet honestly friendly. Yet all so hard to really know…The few Chinese, typically apolitical but with their children taking a new interest…The colonial British with a tradition of good law and racial clubs, stuffiness and dedication…The entrenched Europeans with reactionary attitudes, who more often than the temporary do-gooders will be the ones to stay on, learn and help make something of Fiji…
It is a maddening mixture, superficially simpler yet much more of an uncertain quantity than Hawaii was two decades ago. The honest odds seem to be that there will be some racial trouble in coming years after the current pre-independence honeymoon. But there is also a good chance for a happy surprise. And beyond that hurdle Fiji may well become a real center of the South Pacific.
Received in New York on April 2, 1970.
Mr. John Griffin is an Alicia Patterson Fund award winner on leave from the Honolulu Advertiser, Honolulu, Hawaii. This article may be published with credit to Mr. Griffin, the Honolulu Advertiser, and the Alicia Patterson Fund.
