We asked yesterday for a precise explanation of the 33 clauses in the 2013 Constitution that the Chair of the Great Council of Chiefs, Ratu Viliame Seruvakula, says adversely affect the iTaukei and that the GCC wants altered. Well now we know two of them and there are 31 left to be explained. Yet already there are grounds for national alarm.
1/ The nation’s chiefs want to wrest back from the parliament the right to choose our president and head of state. It is an outrageous proposition that in the 21st century, a group of unelected hereditary “aristocrats” should have the sole power to choose the nation’s head of state, with no input from the people we collectively vote into power to govern us and make our laws.
Granting this power to the GCC would ensure that the presidency remains the plaything of an unelected elite to share among themselves. And it would make it impossible for a commoner, and especially a non-iTaukei, to ever make it to the nation’s top job.
2/ It appears from Ratu Viliame’s comments yesterday that the GCC also wants to end the constitutional provision for a common identity – Fijian – so that only the iTaukei can call themselves Fijian and the rest of us must be satisfied with a secondary designation such as “Fiji Islander”. This is a direct assault on one of the central tenets of the 2013 Constitution that must be resisted at all costs.
As Grubsheet explained at length in a recent article, the word “Fijian” isn’t an iTaukei word and doesn’t belong to the iTaukei. It is an English-language word to describe someone from Fiji, the place, and belongs to all citizens. This has been recognised recently in public statements by two of our elected iTaukei politicians – Inia Seruiratu and Pio Tikoduadua – who supported the notion that we are all “Fijian”. Yet the hereditary chiefs who owe their positions not to an election but an accident of birth want to wrest that moniker away from non-iTaukei citizens. It is an outrage that only the “Uncle Toms” among the minorities like the Melbourne scribbler, Colin Deoki, find acceptable.
If the iTaukei are happy to have unelected chiefs directing their own affairs and lording it over elected commoners in the parliament, that is up to them. But the rest of us – the one third of the nation who are not iTaukei – will not tolerate unrepresentative swill telling us what to do. Fiji is a democracy, not a feudal state, and let us be perfectly clear. These proposals aren’t coming from a group the nation as a whole has chosen to guided our direction but from individuals born into their positions in the majority population who for better or worse, are foisted on ordinary iTaukei and have no authority over other Fijians.
The term “unrepresentative swill” – which was coined by a former Australian prime minister, Paul Keating, to describe members of the upper house of the Australian parliament, the Senate – is especially apt in the Fijian context. Because the GCC meeting at the GPH has provided us with powerful images of an already well-fed elite gorging themselves at the trough when more than half the iTaukei they supposedly represent live below the poverty line.
It is astonishing that the nation’s chiefs would spend an estimated $200,000 deliberating behind closed doors in the capital’s most luxurious hotel when ordinary people – and not just iTaukei – are struggling to put food on the table. It doesn’t matter whether the cost was met by the iTaukei Trust Fund. This was still money that could have been directed into worthwhile projects to assist the iTaukei, not add extra inches to the waistlines of the fat cats of the GCC.
Now that we know two of the 33 provisions of the 2013 Constitution that the chiefs want changed, we have a right to hear the rest. And it is time for the GCC and its patrons in the Coalition to come clean about their precise agenda and end the guessing game about what they have in mind.
If the common identity and the choice of head of state is being questioned, you can bet your last saqamoli that the common and equal citizenry is also secretly on the table – non-iTaukei citizens again being reduced to the status of second class citizens and the paramountcy of the iTaukei asserted in national life all over again.
Of course these people don’t want equal opportunity for all citizens in Fiji. Because it begs the question as to why through an accident of birth, they should enjoy greater rights to privilege and decision-making than ordinary iTaukei. In any nation with a hereditary elite, you either stand for democracy – the principle that all men and women are equal – or you stand for the principle enunciated by George Orwell in his novel, Animal Farm, that some pigs are more equal than others.
If the iTaukei want to be dictated to by the GCC, that is for them to decide. But the rest of the nation will not be dictated to by an unelected iTaukei elite. We have already witnessed the Qaranivalu, the High Chief of Naitasiri and instigator of the 2000 mutiny, Ratu Inoke Takiveikata, making the outrageous statement that the GCC should be above parliament and our elected representatives should take their directions from the chiefs. No! No! No!
You don’t have to agree with Frank Bainimarama when he abolished the GCC that “the chiefs should sit under a mango tree and drink home brew”. But these people are once again trying to wield their power in the vanua for political purposes rather than the social advancement of the iTaukei. The GCC Chair says the chiefs are merely “seeking a level playing field”. Nonsense. They are again making a crude lunge for power using Sitiveni Rabuka as their vehicle.
Nothing should undermine the principle that parliament is the ultimate authority in the country. It is simply extraordinary that with a mandate of just one vote on the floor of the house in December 2022, Sitiveni Rabuka took it upon himself to reinstate the GCC. Let them feast on the buffet tables at the GPH. But neither the Prime Minister nor the chiefs have a mandate to change the supreme law and wind back the clock by undermining democracy with a dictatorship of the elite.
The same story in the Fiji Times…
The astonishing cost of the GPH Chiefly Jamboree…
Another cautionary editorial from the Fiji Sun…
POSTSCRIPT:
This photo including Roko Ului, Ratu Tevita Mara, ( top left) reminds us that Lau will gain fresh prominence next year when Roko Ului is installed as the Tui Nayau – a role that has been vacant since the death of his distinguished father, Fiji’s founding prime minister, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara.
Get set for the intensification of confederacy and provincial rivalries when Lau starts making the same voluble demands for more of the national keke as Cakaudrove, Naitasiri, and other parts of the vanua.
All the more reason for the chiefs of the GCC to be firmly put in their place as a consultative body rather than wielding real power. Because when it comes to national unity and nation building, we are arguably already on a perilous course.
UPDATED SUNDAY (NOV 17):
“Uncle Colin” Deoki makes another foray into the issue of the common identity by asking the chiefs to “gift” the minorities the right to call themselves Fijians.
It isn’t theirs to give in the first place, you fool. Did the indigenous elders of Australia gift you the right to be called “Australian” to describe your citizenship of the place where you have lived for the past four decades? Of course not. You and millions like you are from Australia and are axiomatically “Australian”.
The right of the minorities in Fiji to call themselves “Fijian” is already law – enshrined in the 2013 Constitution. It does not belong to the chiefs. It belongs to everyone in Fiji. And in any event, as an English language word and not one that is indigenous in origin, is not theirs to “bestow” in the first place.
Colin Deoki can demean himself all he likes by kowtowing to the Great Council of Chiefs in grovelling submission asking for the privilege to be called Fijian. But most members of Fiji’s minorities aren’t going to be joining him on bended knee. We are equal citizens, not supplicants to an unelected elite.
Fancy someone who has been absent from the country to four decades buying into this debate again on the side of those who claim a word that isn’t theirs and undermine a right that already exists in law.
The man is an oaf. And bringing Jesus into it isn’t just gratuitous but offensive.
Until the mentality of all indigenous Fijians changes to one where they no longer accept being controlled by these so called chiefs and stop allowing them to make their decisions for them, nothing will change.
It’s time for the common indigenous Fijians to grow a pair, stand up and say no to this archaic way of governance which has no place in the modern world today.
Free yourselves from the clutches of these useless decrepit, corrupt people (a few pedophiles there too) who believe they have the right to rule your lives. Your future is how you choose to shape it and not the future dictated to you by a bunch of leeches.
Hi Graham, Just a small correction to your post this morning: Keating used the term “unrepresentative swill” as he argued that the Senate didn’t really represent anyone. Love your posts; local media, as you point out, provide reporting not journalism.
Thank you, Barry. Duly corrected from “unrepresented” to “unrepresentative”. An early morning lapse 😉
Apart from native Fijian, Rotuman and Banaban, everyone else who is a citizen of Fiji should migrate out of the country.
And who is going to pay for the GPH buffet then? Leqa levu.
And who is going to pay for replacement Passports? Mine states Fijian. It has to be Fiji Islander, right?
The last venue was not suitable. Of course it wasn’t. It was a poor man’s GPH. Bloody rascals. And whose money is it anyway to use from the Trust. Did they get permission to use this money as it belongs to the ordinary itaukeis as well. But see the ordinary fools will say “isa that’s our chiefs”. And remain poor.
I don’t know why the Indians are fighting to be called Fijians. I mean do you really want to identify as these people. I surely don’t. Let them change the constitution, get their president, get whatever they want, because everyone knows nothing will change.
The last laugh will be from the vulagis.
Elites Solo Nata, Jaoji Koroi et al. tucking into those delicious dishes, reminds us of that young selfless Hebrew chap Daniel back in Babylonian times who was steadfast and “purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king’s meat”.
Closer to the GCC meeting venue, the humble and hardworking Hassan Khan, then Head of the Fiji Council of Social Services, was known to avoid such extravagant chow as he always thought of both the iTaukei and non-iTaukei poor and hungry under his watch at FCOSS.
Despite their high flying academic qualifications, enormous wealth, status etc., these elites have much to learn until death doeth us part. Vakaloloma Dina while the iTaukei masses hardly have anything to chow besides Chow Noodles! So, Chair Viliame, more NCD deaths are on the way.
Many of these Chiefs attending don’t have a toothbrush
Well, to be fair, many have no teeth.
With these proposed changes it is clear the chiefs want to dumb down Fiji to the level of the village idiot.
@tulou Tupou. There are no village idiots. Every village across this great land needs honest, hardworking visionary leadership and the charge must be by the chiefs. So far, this is lacking, yet the respect for leadership is steadfast. The faith by the itaukei to heritage is awesome to witness and experience. May their leaders find the will to honour this.
Perhaps Bainimarama and Khaiyum were the better of option after all and should be voted back next time. They had put the GCC back to the village where they belonged. Imagine if all or most of the taxpayers migrated. The country will revert to the 1870 era.
The madness is in the method. The method used by the not so great Council of Chiefs, thanks to mediocre thinking by mediocre academics like Dr Eci Kikau and Dr Jone Baledrokadroka, is responsible for the chiefs coming up with their 33 bones of contention that they want to take up with secular Fiji.
If you gather a bunch of fellows from districts that happenstance labels them as chiefs, give them a sheet of paper and ask them to list 5 problems of “economic empowerment” whatever that means, you list these, then after discussion get the Group to prioritise the issues, this is what you get.
If you give the same Group two sheets of paper and tell them to list what they have got to be thankful for in life, and on the other list get them to list 5 ways to make life better for all those who chose to make Fiji their home you will come up with another list.
Why are we wasting time with the products of small minds?
The country deserves better. It’s time to pay off these dumb academics, send them back to whence they came from and allow the rest of Fiji to get on with building this country and the economy. Enough is enough.
Have you ever tried booking accommodation at the Grand Pacific during that week? Fully booked! Every chief and his lame dogs stink the grand hotel. Who is paying for this extravaganza?
The Great Council of the Village Idiots. That is what they are. What has changed under them? What have they ever done for the iTaukei in 100 years.
Will changing the provisions in a document change their lives and will they all start driving 4WDs and have money in the bank? Is that the idea, Viliame Seruvakula? Tell us exactly what is the objective.
Exactly what was achieved after the coups 37 years ago and again 24 years ago? If all the vulagi were evicted from the country, will all the iTaukei suddenly start living in luxury and drive 4WDs. Will changing the Constitution result in the chiefs increasing the size of their brains?
Is the aim to become like PNG and Solomon Islands? There are no vulagi there. Will making the vulagi second class citizens put money into the bank accounts of the iTaukei?
It appears that the chiefs also want the Mining Act amended to remove the 6 feet clause. They want landowners to own all the rights to minerals under their land.
Hence the stance by the Tui Namosi not to allow any mining in his province until the change is done.
Similarly there is talks of qoliqoli rights ala Qoliqoli Bill.
Sadly none of the current politicians have the guts to explain to the chiefs the wider implications of these to the economy as a whole and ultimately to the very land and qoliqoli owner they think they are trying to protect.
As someone has said above, you can make all these changes, still nothing will ever change. Because we are so self entitled and want rewards for doing nothing.
As a native Fijian I am embarrassed that we have to blame others for our inability to progress economically.
We already have a head start as we own the land. Yet, the vulagis who dont own the land can achieve more than us. That’s because they work hard.
Losing in a race where we have the benefit of a head start should be very embarrassing for us. Yet our chiefs are calling for more preferential treatment for us!
We need to learn to work for what we want, start learning how to operate businesses if we are to succeed in that field.
I am not clear as to why we need empowerment that the chiefs are talking about currently.
What is stopping us from doing what we want now? Nothing.
Just as nothing has stopped the vulagi who are succeeding. Albeit without owning any land.
Not only has the current government led us down the wrong path, but we also now have the chiefs pushing the same agenda of more self entitlement at the expense of the minorities.
Just plain wrong. And highly embarrassing for a right-thinking human being.
Tui Namosi is a convicted criminal. He was jailed for fraud.
For goodness sake, can someone just pay these chiefs their per diems and be done with it so that they can go back to their homes and their villages, and the rest of Fiji can get along with our normal business, until the next GCC in 6-months time when we have to go through all this rubbish again.
The GCC is being given prominence by the Rabuka Government when it has no constitutional basis.
Taxpayers’ money is funding the GCC and its meetings. The Fiji taxpayers are also funding the GCC building.
They want common identity and name changed from Fijian to Fiji Islander and also to choose the President of Fiji. These are just two of the 33 changes GCC is talking about. The others are yet to be disclosed, but I can imagine the type of constitution this racially based entity wants.
This is all geared towards the supremacy of the i-taukeis. How selfish Rabuka and GCC can be?
The shops in suva city are currently empty. Just rubbish stuff on shelves. Where is a kaiviti shop when you need one…hahaha
Whilst they may have a place in national discussions, Fiji should start by requiring that only educated iTaukeis can be installed as a chief. Include a MQR as part of the chief selection process.
Require these chiefs to have postgraduate qualification before they can lead others. Only then will the level of conversation be elevated. If not, then the itaukeis and all of us will be led by a lot of small minds, big ketes, big egos and no money paisa trying to be relevant and with their nose in the treasury.
The chiefs are revered by most of their people as gods. I don’t see them throwing away their idols anytime soon, even on Sundays. Words like paramount, chiefly, chiefly village reflect that ordinary human beings have been immortalized into holy gods on earth that the people can see with their eyes and worship.
Golden Calf: Spot on.
In theory it is rere vaka kalou mei doka na tui.
In practice, the Inverse is the thruth: rere vaka na tui mei doka na kalou.
In fact the pastors are revered and worshiped more than any vulagi kalou.
Any pastor worth his salt must have huge SUVs, best homes, furniture, suits and bling. They are hero worshipped even as convicted rapists, go to prison, and return to lead the ‘church,’ and humour the ma$$es.
How else would some or many of these delegates get to experience the GPH hospitality and ambience. Unless it was paid for by others. The itaukei elite owned Yatu Lai is good as a conference venue for the commoners but not good enough for the Ratus…only a fine vulagi establishment as the GPH would do for the gcc delegates…the irony.
It can get a bit confusing-yatu lai, yue lai, yatu lau.
A business idea for chiefs to improve their lot since their kana loto China soiree: get with drug gangster ginger farmer to grow ginger in all the land sitting idle.
Flood the ginger market (export!) niche marketing, value add as organically grown on virgin lands of the pristine Pacific by indigenous peoples!
We have land and plenty of BS for organic manure.
Self correction to my earlier post: Yatu Lau not Yatu Lai. Incidentally the Yatu Lau company owned Pacific Harbour Arts and Craft village and cultural centre has deteriorated over the years as is plain to everyone..and then in comes a vulagi savior (Damodar) with plans to revive and restore the complex to it’s former glorious state!
And where are the vast tracts of land that the iTaukei Trust toils all day long to generate the wealth to prop up these obese, ageing, uneducated, unrepresentative clowns for these meetings?
Yes, call me ageist, I’ll add it to the “vulagi” post nominal. And wear it with pride.
Where is democracy in all this? Nowhere at all.
Some of those now supporting this return to feudalism were actively clamouring for democracy under the banner of the ‘Return to Democracy Movement’. What hypocrisy.
The i’taukei word that best describes them is ‘liumuri’. Ha ha
There is one basic flaw or weakness, whatever you wish to call it, with our i taukei brethren. Lazy, vucesa! They own the country but still line up to buy from the vulagi shops. They still go and buy vegetables and root crops from the market when they acres laying idle right outside their doorstep. Give us a break GCVI, (Great Council of Village Idiots). Talanoa first with your folks under your leadership in the village before coming into the national stage.
What in the world are you idiots trying to prove? Oh, sorry, yes I forgot, you’re trying to fill your pockets and never mind your fellow villagers struggling to put a decent healthy meal on their tables. You bunch of old farts and hypocrites. You will do your own people a world of good by going back to your villages and empowering them.
Leave the running of the country to those who have been elected and qualified. Yes, I know this coalition government is lacking basic morals. But please do not take advantage of this to rob your own people of what is rightfully theirs. You see yourself as a chief? Start behaving and acting like one!
If this assumption is correct GD, it is deeply concerning. Are we truly moving towards a system where families are divided and categorised into rigid groups, just to uphold outdated notions of iTaukei supremacy from a bunch of fat old men? It’s like we have gone back in time. This approach contradicts the essence of what Fiji represents: a vibrant, multicultural society—a melting pot of diverse cultures and ethnicities that (generally) coexist beautifully.
It is not as simple as labelling one group as “iTaukei” and therefore “Fijian,” while relegating others to “vulagi” or “Fiji Islanders.” These terms perpetuate division and exclusion in a country that should prioritise unity. For instance, how does it make sense that my husband can call himself Fijian, but our own son cannot because he is “kailoma”? Or that our nephews and nieces are excluded or treated “less than” simply because their father is Indo-Fijian? By removing the right to equal citizenry we are forcing our families and friends to have to give up their cultural identity just because they aren’t “pure blood”. These distinctions fragment families and communities, undermining the shared identity we should be building as Fijians.
Such a framework is not only illogical but also damaging. As a nation we should be rejecting any policies or ideologies that aim to divide us and instead focus on celebrating the rich cultural diversity that defines Fiji. It is this inclusivity, not exclusion, that will drive our nation forward.
Couldn’t agree more. Very well said about the potential impact on families and unity generally.
If your husband is native Fijian then your son can be registered in the VKB as a member of his landowning unit (the mataqali).
Not always based on husband/father being native Fijian.
For example, a family from kadavu of Chinese paternal heritage are ALL in the VKB.
It depend$ on whom you and what you got$ to give -ask the Snake SLR re: post- 1987.
Kudos to you @Make it make.sense
Well articulated.
A common name does not represent identity nor will it forge unity for Fiji. It is the law that will protect rights and establish equal opportunities for all. Ask any of the Fiji islanders who have served in the British armed forces and are now citizens if they by law have become English, or professional rugby players in Japan, married to Japanese and are citizens if they are Japanese.
The common name is the law. “Fijian”. In the Constitution and on every Fijian passport.
M Chaudhary fires a shot across the bay🤔🤔
Excerpt from FBC website
Fiji Labour Party Leader Mahendra Chaudhary alleges that the Coalition Government ousted FijiFirst but introduced its form of nepotism and cronyism.
For what it’s worth? Yes, he has a point. Hopefully he can keep up the pressure
@ old fox speaks. As prime minister, mahendra chaudhry used government funds to repair his residence and appointed his son as private secretary. The audacity of people to point out others’ wrongs. What a hypocrite.
Keep the chiefs well fed and fattened and keep the commoners poor and uneducated.
That’s how you control the masses.
This whole debate about a common name is about iTaukei arrogance. It is arrogance by the chiefs and the elite not the person on the streets. It is the type of arrogance which is normal just like what the former Speaker said to Aliki Bai not long ago. It is almost normal for them to think like that and I am sure many agreed with the Speaker.
The thinking is that the vulagi should be thankful that the iTaukei have allowed and are continuing to allow the vulagi to stay in their country. The thinking is that the vulagi will forever be vulagi and they should forever be thankful and apologetic. The vulagi should not really be participating in the governing of the country and should not be demanding or expecting anything. They should not complain but be thankful for the red carpet rolled out to them. And they should pay if they are doing well on iTaukei land.
And one vulagi who agrees with that thought process is Sashi Kiran.
The chiefs in GCC are a joke. They are uneducated primitive beings who think they can make a major contribution to the country with their meaningless suggestions and existence. They are all at the GPH to freeload.
Colin Deoki you are an idiot. You are Fijian if you are born in Fiji or a naturalized citizen living in Fiji. I live in the same country as you now . Australia. I am now an Australian just like you are and not indo Australian or anything else . Born in Fiji , citizen of Fiji no matter what colour, race, religion or creed or curly or straight hair you are a fu***n FIJIAN end of story. So please pull out your slimy tongue from the GCC’s behind before one of them Chiefs after the big Mageeti at the GPH dumps in it! God Almighty
Come to think of it Colin Deoki and Baimman would make a lovely couple slithering up Rabuka’s alleyways.