Why Labour has failed? Dr. Robert Wolfgramm Department of Sociology School of Political & Social Inquiry Faculty of Arts - Clayton Monash University, Melbourne

Since Fiji's independence in 1970, two Labour-led governments have been elected to office by democratic process. Both have been robbed of their mandate at the point of a gun. The first, elected in 1987, fell after one month in office, to an overlooked army colonel, Sitiveni Rabuka. The second, elected just last year, has been taken hostage by a little-known patriot, George Speight. Their backgrounds differ, but what these usurpers have had in common is the endorsement of many of Fiji's chiefs and funding from a wealthy element of its non-Indian business elite.

Ironically, and sadly, what they have also shared is the moral and majority will of Fiji's indigenous Fijian workers. Rather than protest the demise of a party and government which ostensibly represent their interests, this class has provided Speight and Rabuka with legitimacy by being at the forefront of coup demands. What is it about Fiji's Labour governments that has led to its premature demise at the hands of what should be its support base - the indigenous workers movement?

An experimental party

Since its inception in 1985, the idea of a 'Fiji Labour Party' has been a bold but tenuous experiment in cross-cultural politics. Originally led by indigenous medico, Dr Timoci Bavadra, and his chiefly wife, Adi Kuini, its objectives were two-fold: (I) to make class rather than race/ethnicity the axis of Fiji's political divide; and (II) to champion Fiji's working class against elite domination. To obtain these objectives, the party gained the endorsement of the internationally-supported, Fiji Trade Union Congress. Together with the rank and file support of this predominantly Indian body, the party was guided by an impressive policy think-tank comprising Indian, indigenous and international scholars based at the University of the South Pacific.

What Bavadra's party lacked, however, was the unalloyed commitment of the indigenous labour movement. This has never been forthcoming and is a fundamental reason for Fiji Labour failing to achieve political legitimacy in the eyes of Fijians - a failure which has provoked indigenous labour's revolt against the Labour governments of '87 and '99. The reasons for this are historical, social, religious and political and touch on issues of protectionism, political strategy, access to resources, indigenous polity, and fundamentalist piety.

Social and occupational protectionism

Fiji's colonial rule (beginning 1874) stipulated social and occupational segregation of the races. This did not end until the 1930s. Until then, government ordinances prevented Fijians from working outside their village-based economies and social structure. Protectionism confined them to their traditional obligations within these settings. Restrictions on their freedom of movement thereby meant a permit was required in order to frequent a town where, at any rate, they were prohibited from obtaining employment as workers for capital (ie. for Europeans and their businesses). Fiji's first governor-in-residence, Sir Arthur Gordon, established this system, he said, for the good of the Fijian.

While colonial administration feared for their exploitation, European settler-capitalists, for their part, argued differently. Industry and modern life, they said, should take its course in making an early imprint on Fijians, as this would better prepare them for the 20th century. Subsequent governors such as Everard im Thurn also agreed. But London, where British colonial policy was monitored, was unmoved. That is, until the demand for gold miners in the wake of the Great Depression brought forth a response allowing the first Fijians to be systematically hired for paid work for the European.

But the mold had already been cast - colonial policy aimed for the preservation of Fijian culture but at the expense of their assimilation to a modern democratic ethos and the spirit of capitalism. Understandably, this has left a residual bitterness among ordinary Fijians for whom the road to status and wealth necessarily depends on educational and occupational achievement rather than birth (ie. they are not chiefs).

Fiji's Indians, on the other hand, have had a different historical experience in relation to labour policy and wealth accumulation. Imported for plantation work between 1879 and 1916, they were, on the completion of their indentured leases, invited by British governors to stay and contribute to the island's economy. For the governors, this was one way to better meet the London demand that colonies become self-sufficient and 'pay their way' in the empire. Fijians were assured, through their chiefs, that having a small Indian class of self-improving capitalists would be to their greater benefit - both to assist the colony's economy and to provide a model for stimulating Fijian enterprise.

In an economic and educational sense, this colonial pairing of disparate cultures - Asian and Pacific - has nevertheless been a great success. Fiji has indeed prospered 'at the hand' and 'through the head' of the Indian. Although a colonial governor warned that they would one day 'take over the colony' because of their acquisitive spirit, this has only really worried Fijians in the political sphere. In the economic sphere, Fijians feel the Indian has done none other than take advantage of the 50 year lag in opportunities denied to them in relation to business and work. In the educational realm, Indians have been allowed to show their worth in a meritocratic system. Fijians have not begrudged the Indian a right to acquire wealth; they have only felt threatened when and if that Indian wealth and expertise have been plied through the political system. The Labour movement has not represented itself as a party of 'the rich', but ordinary Fijians have felt vulnerable to its predominantly Indian expertise.

Divided and conquered

Colonialism not only retarded the advent of the Fijian into the workplace, it used them to oppose the unionisation and mobilisation of labour among Indians. When the British believed labour demands were out of hand, they discouraged Fijians from joining in making them. Indeed, they encouraged Fijians to fight them because the movement was dominated by 'heathen' Indians. By 'pushing the race and religion buttons' in ordinary Fijians, these workers were cynically withdrawn from working with Indians to working against them. Rather than seeing the colonial system as exploitative and against their long-term economic interests, Fijians came to see the Indian as the 'real' enemy. (After all, how could the European be the enemy - had they not brought Christianity to the Fijian people while the Indian remained pagan?).

This equation was reinforced whenever Indian-led strikes and disruptions affected Fiji's social order. Because of the priority given to conservative Christian and traditional values which stress orderliness as akin to godliness, economic disputes were masterfully converted into political ones with Christian ramifications. An example of this was the 1920 dispute over poor wages and conditions for Indian cane workers which saw them calling on the government to intervene to improve their lot. CSR - the largest industry and most powerful company in the colony - functioned as Fiji's de-facto parliament at the time and its management succeeded in giving the Indian workers' demands a racial, anti-European flavour. Fijians were also encouraged to interpret the Indian workers' cause as anti-Fijian (ie. anti-Christian). The view that Indian unionism is the repository of anti-Fijian ideology has since stuck in the indigenous mind - a view Labour has been unable to combat.

This distrust at the grassroots level was exacerbated historically when Indians generally refused to support the Allied (and indigenous Fijian) efforts in the Second World War. Asesela Ravuvu notes that out of a call for one thousand Indian volunteers, 331 rolled up; after six months a mere 36 remained in service. For Fijians, the war was a chance to prove their worth alongside Europeans. And, since it was given a moral basis, its prosecution was seen by Fijians as a Christian duty. The reluctance and unsuitability of Indians to fight what in their eyes was a 'white man's war' was therefore read as cowardly convenience, if not incompetence. Bitterness still lingers in the Fijian mind that 'when the chips are down' so to speak, the Indian cannot be relied upon to stand side by side with the Fijian to defend the national interest - the national interest being administrative order, Fijian values, and Christian belief. Hence the military was built upon predominantly Fijian conscripts and volunteers and remains so today.

For Indians, the national interest is none of these. Their version of it has been far more secular: democracy with the enshrinement of equal rights and protection for workers irrespective of religion and race. Labour, unfortunately, has not been able to show how these broader values can be reconciled with the indigenous value system.

Parallel unionism as political strategy

Given these contrasting experiences and opposing ideologies, it is little wonder then that Fijian workers have been suspicious of an Indian- inspired labour movement and its political arm, the Fiji Labour Party. Many appreciate the role of a 'Fiji Trade Union Congress' but, dominated as it has been by Indians, indigenous Fijians have come to regard it as a means for furthering Indian political and economic leverage at their expense. Lacking representation in that peak council of unions, Fijians have thereby formed their own parallel unions, or remained outside of the union movement altogether.

Parallel indigenous-based unions have not been as successful in economic bargaining as their Indian-based counterparts. But, as we have seen in 1987 and again in this crisis, indigenous unions have an overactive and central role in the political sphere. For example, the indigenous 'Viti Civil Servants Association', which has neither the numbers nor the monetary clout of the predominantly Indian, 'Fiji Public Service Association', is a key supporter of Speight and a major player in the 'Taukei Movement' which endorses him. This movement, which was instrumental in 1987 as well, is defined by a doctrinal commitment to indigenous workers' nationalism.

For the Taukei there is only one working class in Fiji and it is indigenous. To be Indian, in their view, is to have wealth, or access to it, in ways that Fijians do not. The Fijian, they believe, is more subject to the 'grass ceiling' of tradition which keeps their culture alive but at the cost of economic progress. The Indian is freer to express their individualism through the acquisitive spirit than the Fijian for whom sharing and communalism are not only a form of proto-unionism but a prior ethnic obligation. Economic and social indicators which continue to show that Fijians compare less favourably with Indians in education credentials, occupational attainment, average weekly earnings, and standard of living indices are fuel for these nationalists in their argument for making race (ie. Fijians) coincide with class (ie. working class and underclass) in Fiji.

Access to the vanua - the key resource

The bottom-line in Labour's failure to attract the support of ordinary working-class Fijians may be found in its inability to formulate an adequate policy vis-a-vis the vanua (land). Of the 4 and a quarter million acres that is Fiji, Fijians have usufructory rights to about 3 and a half million acres which is called 'native title'. They are 'landowners' in this sense of about 83% of the total acreage of Fijian soil. About half of the remaining 17% is Crown Land; the other half is Freehold Title. Of the 83% of Fiji which is native title, about 85% is non-fertile or non-arable land graded by agricultural scientists as constituting Class 2 or Class 3 topsoil quality. Useless for large-scale cultivation, it forms the backyards for most Fijian villages where traditional landowners are based.

Most of the rest of native title (ie. the remaining 15% of their native title) is leased as agricultural title under a 1976 agreement called ALTA. The leases - approximately 14,000 of them - are managed and controlled directly by the government's NLTB - Native Lands Trust Boad - for the 6000 mataqali that constitute Fijian traditional landowners. During the life of ALTA, rents or leases were pegged by the NLTB at a lowly 5 to 6% of the undeveloped value of the property - a price which was ideally reviewed every five years. (ALTA, as we know is running out and will continue to do so until the end of this decade).

Of the rents collected on behalf of the traditional landowners, the NLTB extracts its cut (of up to 25%) before passing on the rest to the traditional landowners. In practise, only a small percentage of the total rent collected has actually been passed on to them because the traditional system is monopolised by chiefs rather than commoners. Chiefs have claimed that as 'sons (or daughters) of the land' they alone, in themselves (bodily), have rights of possession in the Western sense. Labour, has left this tenet of traditionalism unchallenged.

Of Fiji's remaining vanua, about half a million acres is 'Crown land'. About half of this has been reserved for native use. The other half has been leased by government for their interests and that of traditional landowners. The remaining half million acres that makes up Fiji is 'freehold' - available on the open market for purchase or lease. It constitutes the most fertile and arable land in Fiji. This land became 'freehold' when it was alienated prior to 1874, that is before the colonial era. It is mostly owned by non-Fijians (including some Australian absentee landlords). Some of it is unused; much of it is leased to Indians. The critical point is, most of it is beyond the reach of the majority of Fijians. They have little hope of regaining that land by free market purchase. The case of Laucala Island (Cakaudrove), for example, was alienated as freehold by Tui Cakau in the 1860s. Bought for $1million in 1970 by the American billionaire publisher, Malcolm Forbes, his estate has since offered to sell the island back to the traditional taukei for $10million. Where will they get that kind of money?; would a bank (or Labour government) be prepared to loan them that?

While it is true to say that Fijian people 'own' most of the land in Fiji - and therefore what are they complaining about? - they clearly do not have access to the richest land in Fiji and argue therefore that it is a gross simplification to say that on this issue they are dealing with the Indians in a racist manner. The reality, say ordinary Fijians, is not how much land you have but how good it is and whether you have any of it. Because Fijian freehold land was alienated prior to the colonial era but fixed forever by that era, ordinary Fijians believe themselves to be the truly aggrieved class in the nation's social structure. This is a view which the Labour Party has been unable to grasp, much less do anything about.

Chiefs and Indians

Another factor which militates against Labour politics is the hierarchical nature of indigenous policy. Chiefly rule means that overriding demands can be impressed on ordinary Fijians in a way that they can't be on Indians. Fijians have, in one sense been imprisoned by tradition where Indians have been liberated from it - caste is lost when, in their paradigm, one goes beyond kala pani (the oceanic horizon). The singular overarching 'tradition' that binds Fijians is the 'Great Council of Chiefs'. This is not an indigenous parliament handed down from the ancient past, but rather an invention of Fiji's first government to better enable British administration of Fiji during that colonial era. Since then it has grown in status and taken on an almost sacred character as the ultimate seat of indigenous power.

Fijians themselves are divided as to whether this august body has always served their interests. Because it is a self-appointing and self-regulating body, it can take on the character of whoever has the numbers. During his era, Rabuka stacked it with members favourable to his point of view. Whether it will overcome the suspicion that it is corrupted by its colonial legacy, is still a moot question. But the fact of its institutionalisation reinforces the theoretical power (at least) of chiefdom over the commoner. During the 1990s this was evidenced when Fijian workers and indigenous nationalists under the leadership of former trade union organiser, Francis Waqa Sokonibogi, proposed the establishment of a 'commoners' council' to complement the GCC. The idea was squashed by that body as 'un-Fijian'. Why the Labour Party has not acted to support his 'commoner's council' proposal - an idea which is at the heart of their egalitarian ethos - is a mystery!

Labour socialism as anti-Christian

A final factor working against Labour governments in Fiji, is the rank prejudice garnered against such by right-wing fundamentalist forces. Backed by religious interests which are quasi-Christian in character, strategically located businessmen have preached a doctrine of individualism. The success ethic, they say, is the answer to Fiji's problems. They have openly targeted Labour as soft on socialism - of having policies which do little to strengthen Fijian resolve for economic prosperity. And by accusing Labour of being a Trojan horse for atheistic socialism, they play again on the religious button in the Fijian mind.

To be a Christian, for these local ideologists, is to be a business success story. Because that is what God wants: a people free from debt and welfare dependence; a prosperous and enterprising people who outperform 'the world' (where the world, in this case, is the Indian). Capitalism, it is said, is God's way of getting fulfilment in life; Labour socialism will lead to genocide because it blurs ethnic distinctions and equates achievement with a level playing field.

This gospel of capitalist success is being preached not merely at the top by secularised elites who would lose much in a Labour revision of Fijian society, but also at the bottom by American-styled fundamentalist preachers whose religions represent the fastest growing movement in Fiji. What is not appreciated by the ordinary Fijian however, is the extent to which capitalism is, for these 'fat-cats', merely an opportunity to exploit the public purse, a license to operate outside the law in the name of economic liberty and individual rights.

The challenge

Labour's two terms of office have been twice wrecked by its inability to bridge the racial and religious divide among workers. Doing justice to the interests of indigenous workers on one hand, without compromising its commitment to the principle of worker-equality on the other, is the unfulfilled task of Labour politics and one which undermines its legitimacy as a broad-based working class party. Until Labour can convince Fijian workers that their interests are protected by the party, the electoral allegiance of this class will continue to be with-held and indeed be destructive to Labour's fortunes.

Riding on the back of the cause which inspired Sitiveni Rabuka's overthrow of the Bavadra government and George Speight's ransom of the Chaudhry government are business opportunists suffering greed and union/Labour phobia, Christian-Right fundamentalists who are opposed to secularism and Indian paganism; Fijian chiefs who enjoy the privileges of inherited power and status; and ordinary Fijian nationalists who are committed to the simplistic equation that 'working-class equals indigenous'. This collusion of interests is historically derived and culturally embedded in Fijian politics.

Fiji's Labour Party must find an electoral path through and beyond that kind of entrenched hostility. It may have won two democratic elections but because it did not win the indigenous electorate, its days were numbered. When indigenous interests are specifically counted in its platform, it will take office more securely; it may even see out a full term. Fiji awaits a party that can cross the ethnic divide, not by papering over specific ethnic issues with universalist rhetoric, but by actually taking them on board. Political balance is achieved by incorporation, by becoming a more inclusive, bi-racial movement in that sense. Until it happens, expect 'Speight - the sequel' whenever, if ever, Labour again wins government.

Robert Wolfgramm (THSESWS Political Correspondent/Analyst)

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