The piece published a fortnight ago, among other things, asked about the possibility of looking into our collective immediate past.
It touched upon two incidents, namely the 1987 and 2000 overthrow of governments.
The question was also raised as to why the iTaukei back then put the blame for their political, and other ills, firmly upon Fijians of Indian descent?
Last week, also among other things, the focus was on the Bose Levu Vakaturaga / Great Council of Chiefs meeting which was recently held on Bau.
Especially on the two matanigasau presentations made to the BLV/GCC.
That article also asked, why is that the indigenous Fijians find themselves where they are today; making up 75 per cent of those who live in poverty, dominating the population of those incarcerated, why are they still resource-rich yet cash poor?
Also mentioned was the leadership structure within all traditional iTaukei groups.
And why is it that this structure has not served them well in the face of the challenges brought about by the modern world.
This leads to the question of whether chiefs, in the words of Ratu Sukuna — which were quoted last week, have the “qualifications and the authority to rise to the occasion”?
Or, to put it very bluntly, have the chiefs some-how failed their people?
Let’s take for instance the takeover of 1987 where the then Lieutenant Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka ousted government.
He was then touted to be the saviour of the Fijian race, supposedly saving them from the threat posed by Indians.
That line of thought was, and is, not new.
It has been around for some time and gains currency depending on the mood people are in.
And the mood people are in could depend on what they have been told, the events unfolding around them, and the information they have access to.
Numerous authors and scholars have taken the time to study race relations as they developed in the then colony of Fiji.
One of them, William Sutherland in his book “Beyond The Politics of Race: An alternative history of Fiji to 1992”, says the whites then saw the Indians as a threat to their interests.
So, to protect those, their rhetoric was structured in such a way as to show Fijians that their interests were best protected if they were closely aligned with the whites.
In doing so, developments or incidents which could have been viewed as a struggle between classes and/or interests were masked in racial tones.
Over time, those racial tones have become seemingly set in stone.
They have been given a voice in the legislative council, the forerunner of our Parliament, by European members and chiefs.
It happened too in our then-bicameral Parliament.
A report by Radio NZ on August 2, 2002, relayed how a member, during a speech in parliament, likened Fijians of Indian descent to weeds, they were taking up too much space.
When criticised by NGOs and opposition members of Parliament, who called for her resignation, that member did not retreat.
She reportedly said that while she respected the views of others, there were limits.
If people dared to point “political fingers”, she would respond as she saw fit because she was “a daughter of a chief in my country”.
She may not have been speaking for all the iTaukei who are of noble birth and belong to the age-old lineages of their vanua.
It is also true that very few chiefs, either women or men, have publicly voiced strong opinions to counterbalance such racist views.
The late Roko Tui Bau, Ratu Joni Madraiwiwi, was one.
The Roko Tui Dreketi, Ro Teimumu Kepa, and the late Tui Noco, Ratu Isoa Damudamu, accepted the descendants of girmitiya even giving them a cavuti – Luvedra na Ratu.
The late Tui Vitogo, Ratu Wiliame Sovasova, was known to accommodate all who lived on lands that fell under his traditional authority.
To be sure, these chiefs will not have been the only ones to foster good relations between Fijians and Indians in Fiji through their actions and words.
Yet, for some reason, when there was someone to be blamed for the misfortune of the iTaukei in the political arena, it was the Indian.
Even when the supreme law of the land of 1990 guaranteed Fijian supremacy in Parliament, and yet things still did not go the Fijians’ way, the convenient scapegoat for the lack of Fijian political unity was the Indian.
All this was very visible and audible in the after-math of the 2000 takeover.
In those days when a voice was needed to not only calm the situation but to restore respect for law and order, the BLV/GCC, as a united body, did not rise to the occasion.
It has been put forward that bodies such as the BLV/GCC are an attempt at creating a homogeneity that does not exist within the indigenous community.
Those with such views say that such ruptures allow age-old traditional rivalries to be expressed, but actually do very little to effectively address them.
One such area of contention is the east/west divide where during periods of turmoil some vanua in the west have called for the formation of a fourth confederacy.
The general feeling was that the existing structure did not cater nor deliver equally to the aspirations of indigenous Fijians from the West.
Couple such indigenous rivalries with the fact the Fijians of Indian descent are no longer the numerical majority in the country, who or what group will now be the scapegoat for indigenous Fijians’ continued problems?
Recent media reports state that the majority of those in informal settlements are indigenous from the maritime areas.
Can this situation be well managed so that the outcomes are predominantly positive?
After all, not too long ago, there was a loss of lives in a neighbouring Pacific Island country when there was a civil war between migrant and host communities both of whom were indigenous.
The above are just some of the issues which our leaders have to contend with.
Not only those who are elected but those too who have inherited their authority.
No longer can our chiefs, and other traditional leaders, say their attention and energy are to be directed at only indigenous matters as the world and the modern interact each and every single day.
Will they now rise to meet the many and varied challenges which now confront indigenous Fijians and the whole country?
• SAILOSI BATIRATU is a sub editor of this newspaper and the views expressed are his and not of The Fiji Times.
