Attempts to reinstate the Great Council of Chiefs (GCC) after an absence of a decade, one imagines, must’ve sent the proverbial coconut wireless into a frenzy: the GCC’s symbolic importance fundamentally driving support for its return while some wondered if it would make a difference.
By June (2023), more than 3000 people had been consulted, across the 14 provinces and almost 400 written submissions had been submitted.
The exercise has brought to the fore two things that we as indigenous Fijians may want to consider key to the fortification of our interests: a genuine investment in a national cohort of indigenous leaders and the development of a culture of mentorship that works for us: key for effective leadership.
We are experiencing a leadership crisis. We needed a change at the helm, but those who “wield power” (Tawake, et al., 2021) today isn’t representative of the heterogenous society Fiji is today.
The modern indigenous Fijians’ mindsets, values and belief systems have evolved and requires a leadership that responds to their innate, relational indigeneity, while addressing their 21st Century realities.
The GCC can easily wash its hands off developing an indigenous leadership cohort and developing a culture of mentorship as detail.
However as the apex of indigenous leadership, it is important that the GCC leads this intentional approach which could also address the (almost) default setting of our “gullible dependency” (Ratuva, 2019) on colonial structures and institutions.
The compartmentalisation of ethnic-based political grouping was institutionalised by the colonial government to support its “divide and rule” approach (Draunidalo, 2008).
The modern indigenous person adopted party politics, but also allowed enough influence of the vanua (custom), matanitu (government) and lotu (religion) to maintain one’s traditional personhood.
The application of indigenous governance principles and structures within a democratic system has not worked for us.
It’s a hindrance to our collective unlearning of dependency and so we continue to struggle politically, even when meeting milestones of a sovereign nation.
A strong cohort of leaders is essential for foundational shifts that can support the conceptualisation, formation and practice of new governance pathways.
A chiefly council
The GCC was an effective mechanism for indirect rule. The GCC entrenched itself in our public psyche as a symbol of indigeneity, “typical of neo-traditional institutions” (Norton, 2009) and was essentially the “chieftocracy” (Ratuva, 6) formalised.
The GCC, however, was and continued to be a unifying force for the collection of chiefdoms that is Fiji.
The GCC has evolved – in name, its role and its membership – since its inception in 1876. By the 1970s, it had become “chiefly” as described by Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, rather than being of chiefs.
A fundamental shift today in its responsibilities could be a role in raising a cohort of indigenous leaders who can straddle the modern and the traditional worlds a lot more effectively than we’ve been able to do thus far.
At the University of the South Pacific public consultation in June, the review team affirmed that there was no question about a desire for the GCC’s retention. For indigenous Fijians, the GCC was symbolic of political and cultural strength.
The bitter irony we’ve had to live with is being an indigenous people that then clung to a colonial construct as somewhat key to our identity.
The pre-independence Fijian Administration and the GCC share two distinct elements: the topdown approach and being deterrents to change (because of its focus on protecting the interests of indigenous Fijians, making adaptation to change difficult).
For our collective progress, we must reverse these two elements.
Revisiting the beginnings
Where do we start? To review the GCC is to revisit chiefdom and its leadership.
Anthropologist, Dr Rusiate Nayacakalou defined leadership as “a set of operations involving the exercise of influence, power and authority among an organised group of people in order to select common goals, and to plan, direct and coordinate the members’ activities in order to achieve of those goals” (Nayacakalou, 1975).
Traditional leadership is relational (the chief is chief 24-7) while nontraditional leadership is the emergent cohort of indigenous Fijian leaders in urban centres. Mapping the indigenous societal structures, descent groupings and land titles was first attempted by the Native Land Commission’s (NLC) in the 1890s and 1910.
The NLC developed some basic structural principles of Fijian society based on the structures observed in Bau and the similar practices recorded across the country.
Nayacakalou, however, laments the codification of indigenous land and titles considering the fluidity of movements and settlements before formal stratification, when land ownership and chiefly status were not exclusively “based on the principle of male primogeniture”.
If that was the case, it would dismiss political and kindship factors that influenced land ownership and status.
A stranger was adopted, for example, and made chief in the case of the current Kalevu family of Nadroga’s ancestor or Ma’afu in the Lau Group.
Others were bestowed their chiefly status as senior colonial administrators. Land was usually gifted as goodwill or gifted to a women upon her marriage.
If male primogeniture was indeed the single determinant to land ownership and chiefly titles, then we should probably have strong genealogical knowledge and a corresponding practice.
The codification of land and titles by the NLC arbitrarily removed other determinants such as historical and relational contexts.
The NLC also has huge influence in the outcome of chiefly title and land ownership conflicts. It is not questioned, it is final, but it is also, potentially, an incorrect reflection of us.
In this context, the departure point of the GCC review team is a critical consideration.
A responsive indigenous leadership
The British cornerstone for “divide and rule” remains entrenched.
It’s influence, for example, the finality of the NLC’s decisions in chiefly or land titles today demands that a critical first step may have to be revisiting the nation-wide NLC exercise all those years ago, for a fresh start to ascertain who and where we are, and address generational trauma.
Leadership training and mentorship must be open to all indigenous youth who’re interested, regardless of age, gender, faith and any other societal categorisation that prevents a wholistic reach.
Women and men see the world through different but complementary lenses. It is imperative for women to be part of leadership and development planning if we are to realise our full potential.
Mentorship in our traditional context is nothing new though practiced more in personal, familial spaces, for example, within a tokatoka. It is not formalised and based largely on traditional roles.
To institutionalise it though is to ensure sustainability of practice, and potentially include those who cannot access such learnings, like our indigenous urbanites. Fiji has existing programs that the GCC can adapt for its purpose such as the Duavata Conservation Leadership Program or Leadership Fiji programs. The benefits of such a program will be numerous.
Two important outcomes would be having a cohort of knowledgeable, strategic, understanding and empathetic leaders who can straddle both the modern and traditional worlds successfully and a way of ensuring national development plans are informed by those on the ground, not driven by international development agendas.
• This article was inspired by the success of leadership and mentorship initiatives in our urban centres.
ARIELA ZIBIAH is a PhD candidate at the Macmillan Brown Centre of Pacific Studies at the University of Canterbury (NZ). The views expressed in this article are the author’s and not necessarily of this newspaper