Confronting Fiji Futures. (Reviews).

Griffin, Chris

Edited by A Haroon Akram-Lodhi.

Canberra: Asia Pacific Press at the Australian National University, 2000.

Pp. xv + 321 p.

This book from the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, and Pacific regional scholars, is a collaborative multi-disciplinary work whose twelve essays take a historical look at recent social processes in Fiji to indicate their implications for the future,

Price: $30

The book is organised in two parts. One, with eight chapters, is titled Politics, Economics and Social Inequality; the other, on The 'Fijian' Question -- or indigenous issue -- contains four. All twelve were written before, or just after, the 1999 general election, and before the Speight coup. A two page 'Stop Press' has thus been included to bridge the gap.

In the opening chapter, Haroon Akram-Lodhi and Martin Doombos, prepare the ground by recalling the 1987 coups to argue they were probably inevitable given ethnic divisiveness and the colonial and post-colonial myth of a homogenous indigenous community. Since then, they say, 'identity' has slowly become problematised and the book is intended to add to that debate.

The second chapter, by Yash Ghai, asks whether the multiracial 1999 constitution, can deliver the equitable and harmonious society that the document intended. Starting with three paradigms used elsewhere to deal with ethnicity within liberal frameworks, Professor Ghai examines how Fiji's three post-Independence constitutions differ and measure up. He proceeds to show how the current one could in fact be compromised in practice by the electoral system itself, by multi-party government, or by the current provisions for accountability. This elegant, cautiously optimistic essay, nevertheless ends by warning that much will depend on the 'goodwill' of parties and politicians, and the willingness of all Fiji people to exercise their rights of citizenship to ensure accountability.

Satendra Prasad looks at whether the 1999 election which brought Mahendra Chaudhry to power did in fact live up to constitutional intentions. Having described the eight leading parties in 1999, the author shows how the electoral system featuring Alternative and Preference voting for Reserved (or ethnically based) seats, and Open seats, ended in several surprises. To begin with, ethnicity was less important in the Reserved Seat than anticipated, largely on account of provincial splits in the indigenous vote. And, secondly, ethnic bias figured prominently in Open seat voting, exactly where the constitution sought to enhance inter-ethnic co-operation. Indeed, of the twenty-five Open seats, fourteen displayed strong ethnic bias. Prasad also reveals that the safety valve provision of Cabinet representation for all parties gaining ten per cent of seats, can result in weak government, and that in 1999 two Fijian parties ended up being over-represented in Cabinet thanks to agreeing to accept an 'Indian' Prime Minist er. He also observes that while alternative voting this time kept ethnic nationalists from government, any hint of permanent disenfranchisement could lead to problems.

Ardeshir Sepehri & A. Haroon Akram-Lodhi's essay quantifies changes in economic growth and policy between 1970 and 1998. Beginning with the 1982-1986 crisis, the authors analyse the structural adjustments made in three areas between 1987 and 1992; namely, financial and monetary policy, trade liberalisation (involving stepped up manufacturing and foreign investment), and internal deregulation. Through a 'three-gap model', they project three possible scenarios, the most likely of which, they conclude, 'will fall short of meeting the population's expectations and aspirations' (p.104).

John Cameron's Confronting Social Policy Challenges, critiques Fiji's post-Independence neo-liberal policies for not assuring socio-economic security and equality, but encouraging ethnic politics and social exclusion instead. As an alternative to the conventions of individualistic, free-market development indices, he proposes a model of collective and inclusive well being that measures 'social wealth' or 'trust'. By using Active Life Profiles, Cameron generates social indicators of actual and differential development between the two main ethnic groups, and between the genders, and by selecting three major areas of policy challenge -- housing, health/nutrition, and community relations -- reveals some alarming realities.

Women in Post-Coup Fiji: Negotiating Work through Old and New Realities, by Leckie Hopkins, also foregrounds some important realities. They include a mis-match between the high educational achievements of many ethnic Fijian women and their relatively modest professional achievements; an increased rate of violence against Indo-Fijian women; how traditional attitudes in the two main ethnic communities bolster gender labour stereotypes which, in the indigenous case, are further reinforced by Christianity. Female poverty, trade liberalisation's impact, and the recent arrival of female labour from Asia are also touched on.

William Sutherland's The Problematics of Reform and the 'Fijian' Question, examines the contradiction between governments' efforts since the 1990s to liberalise and reform the national economy partly in response to globalisation -- and their desire to implement affirmative economic policies to meet nationalist demands. He explains the evolution of the dilemma and emergence of five major indigenous parties in the run up to the 1999 election, two of which, together with the Fiji Labour Party, projected Chaudhry into office. The chapter emphasises the unresolved nature of the 'Fijian' question.

Steven Ratuva's essay, Addressing Inequality, looks at the growth of affirmative action for indigenous Fijians since 1970, and 1987 especially. Ratuva argues the policy, based on the Malaysian one, rested on a basic contradiction between wanting to liberalise the economy, and wishing to enhance the socio-economic status of ethnic Fijians. Identifying what he calls 'communal capitalism' as a product of neo-colonial conservatism and chiefly and bureaucratic advantage, Ratuva goes on to examine the case of the Fijian Holdings Company whose raison d' etre was the development of an indigenous entrepreneurial class. He presents evidence of its failure to serve anyone other than a few entrenched interests and en route argues that Provincial Chiefs and Councils use traditional soli or competitive fund raising events for their own advantage.

The final chapter by Robbie Robertson, Retreat from Exclusion: Identities in Post Coup Fiji, analyses how indigenous nationalist hopes were increasingly, yet necessarily, undermined by Rabuka when he was Prime Minister, and tells how, still unapologetic for his coups, he continues to favour Fijian dominance.

This is an important book, with some exceptional chapters. Prasad's and Ratuva's are especially fine. The book is not surprisingly critical and 'committed'. For want of time and space only, the reviewer regrets not referring to the three other essays, by Biman Prasad and Sunil Kumar on economic performance, by Ganesh Chand on Labour Deregulation, and by Holger Korth on eco-tourism -- its shortcomings and divisiveness.