Mainstream to millpond? the Fijian political experience 1897-1940

Abstract

The prestige of the Fijian community in independent Fiji should surprise those who have been introduced to the country by the development writers of the 1960s or who insist on bringing to Fiji their perceptions of other colonized peoples. The thesis argues that there has been no fundamental shift of power in recent years to Fijians: they have never really lost its substance, namely, a strong leadership supported by effective social structures and traditional sanctions or emotions. It is true historically that the Fijian Administration encouraged parochial loyalties; the issues of district politics seem minute or out of proportion. At the same time the machinery and the leadership were there at each level of village, district and province for effective co-operation towards common goals and for a united front at national level through the Council of Chiefs. It is argued that the Gordon-Thurston system of Fijian administration consolidated in the 19th century retained just sufficient momentum of its own to withstand a half century of official misgivings with those 'communal' aspects of Fijian life that seemed to be hindering the emergence of a new class of sturdy individualists - a kind of Fijian who never was and never would be. The desire of Fijians for education and for expansion into the commercial economy, and their changing concepts of status were not easily accommodated by a society adjusted to comfortable subsistence, nor were they satisfied by the eve of World War II. The familiar contemporary problems of developing countries were lurking in the shadows but at least Fijians had the security of their lands and an alternative design for living that, for all its problems, still seems capable of enviable results and further development. Show more