Opinion: Why iTaukei and Indo-Fijians speak past each other

The iTaukei have historically maintained deep relationships with other Pasifika communities. We share cultural affinities with Ro­tumans, our Melanesian Wantok brothers and sisters, Banabans on Rabi, Tuvaluans on Kioa, and our neighbours in Tonga and Samoa and beyond.

Despite differences in language and custom, we often un­derstand one another instinctively.

Yet after nearly 150 years of living together, why do iTaukei and lndo­-Fijians still so frequently speak past each other on questions of identity, belonging and nationhood?

The answer lies in two different understandings of belonging. For many lndo-Fijians, Fiji is under­stood primarily through a modern civic contract: a nation of equal citizens governed by common laws, individual rights and democratic institutions.

For many iTaukei , Fiji is also an inherited covenant: an ancestral relationship between peo­ple, land, sea, customary institu­tions and generations yet unborn.

Both understandings contain es­sential truths. Our difficulty begins when either is treated as sufficient on its own.

lndigeneity is not simply ethnicity

At the heart of this misunder­standing is a distinction our cur­rent constitutional debates often neglect. indigeneity is not merely an ethnicity, another demographic category competing for resources. It is an ancestral relationship be­tween a people, their vanua, cus­tomary institutions, language and the land and sea from which their civilisation emerged.

That relationship predates the modern State. When the Deed of Cession was signed in 1874, the chiefs were not surrendering emp­ty territory. They represented ex­isting communities with their own systems of governance, customary laws and proprietary relationships. The colonial State encountered an existing indigenous civilisation; that civilisation did not emerge be­cause the State recognised it.

The historical legitimacy of the vanua must provide the context within which contemporary consti­tutional safeguards are conceived. Otherwise, what existed before the State risks becoming a privilege de­pendent upon the goodwill of suc­cessive governments.

Equal citizenship must be af­firmed. But equal citizenship can­not erase prior indigenous be­longing, nor should indigenous recognition diminish anyone else's dignity. Fiji belongs to all its citi­zens; its indigenous foundations are an inseparable part of its con­stitutional inheritance.

Two histories, one country

Many Pasifika communities share a worldview where land is more than property. It represents ances­try, belonging and continuity. Our fellow Melanesians, Polynesians and Micronesians, have their own experiences of customary author­ity.

Their histories are not identical to ours, but they provide a familiar language through which to under­stand the vanua. Concepts such as veiwekani, veilomani and solesole­vaki, express responsibilities ex­tending beyond the individual.

But we should not romanticise these differences. lndo-Fijians also possess profound traditions of fam­ily, community, spirituality and an­cestral memory.

The difference is not that one community possesses culture and another does not. It is that our communities experienced Fiji's history from different start­ing points.

The iTaukei experienced colonial­ism as an indigenous people whose homeland came under external sovereignty. lndo-Fijians experienced colonialism largely through inden­ture, migration, and the struggle to establish a permanent home.

These experiences produced dif­ferent anxieties. For iTaukei , the fear is that modern equality may become a means of diminishing indigenous identity and historical rights. For Inda-Fijians, the fear is that indigenous recognition may justify political exclusion. Neither anxiety should be dismissed.

The coups of 1987 and 2000 remain part of the lndo-Fijian historical experience and cannot be explained away by invoking the vanua. Equal­ly, the iTaukei experience of coloni­al disruption and threats to custom­ary authority cannot be dismissed

as nostalgia. We cannot demand empathy for our own history while refusing it to others.

Beyond the Shadows of the Past

Nowhere is this misunderstanding more evident than in discussions about the Bose Levu Vakaturaga. For some lndo-Fijians, the BL V re­mains associated with earlier political controversies.

Those con­cerns deserve acknowledgment. But institutions must be judged by what they are becoming, not only by what they once were.

The restored BLV operates in a different environment. Many traditional leaders today possess professional qualifications and in­ternational experience.

Yet educa­tion alone does not confer wisdom. Among the iTaukei, we often hear, "Na Turaga sa mai vua na Ka­lou" -that chiefly authority comes from God.

But chieftainship and mana must never be confused. Lineage may establish customary standing, but respect must be earned through hu­mility, integrity and service.

The restored BLV must demonstrate independence from party politics and accountability to the vanua. Its constitutional standing should protect its essential compo­sition and independence from polit­ical interference, but independence must never mean immunity from scrutiny.

The BLV should be a customary pillar within Fiji's constitutional order-neither subordinate to the government of the day nor supe­rior to the State. It must be a shield for the vanua, not a sword against other citizens.

Covenant must have practical meaning

Recognition cannot end with cer­emonial respect. The Deed of Cession of 1874 established a relation­ship whose significance extends beyond the transfer of sovereignty.

Consider Queen Victoria's undertaking conveyed to the chiefs at Nailaga in 1881 concerning customary rights over reefs-a promise that measures would be taken to secure to each mataqali, the reefs that properly belonged to it. Nearly a century later, the BL V established a committee at Tubou in 1978 to ex­amine fishing rights and foreshore ownership.

The resulting 1978-79 report concluded that existing arrangements did not adequately reflect these ear­lier undertakings, recommending recognition of indigenous proprie­tary rights over reefs and foreshore.

These are not merely episodes in colonial history. They raise an en­during question: how should historical undertakings inform the laws by which we govern today? The present legal position must be understood within that historical context. There is a difference be­tween what the law presently pro­vides and what historical justice may still require.

For the vanua, land and qoliqoli are not merely economic assets. They embody responsibilities to ancestors and generations yet unborn.

A distinctly Fiji democracy should be sufficiently mature to examine inherited obligations with­out defensiveness, and confident enough to address unresolved ques­tions through law and justice.

A distinctly Fiji democracy

My years in international service taught me an enduring lesson: un­derstanding must precede judgment. Whenever I assumed a new leadership responsibility, I first sought to understand what my pre­decessors had built. Leadership is about building upon foundations,