WHO OWNS FIJI? GCC’s Bid To Reclaim State and Redefine Citizenship Should we allow these 'colonial mules' to takeover constitutional circus?
At its core, the GCC’s proposal forces a stark question: Is Fiji a country that belongs equally to all its citizens, or one that is owned, constitutionally and symbolically, by a single community? You cannot answer “both”.
A modern, multi-ethnic state cannot sustain itself in the fiction that equality and ethnic hierarchy can co-exist indefinitely. One will eventually consume the other. The tragedy of this moment is not that the proposal was made. It is that it reflects a persistent strain of thinking, that the future can be secured by retreating into the past.
Fiji does not need to relearn the lessons of division through another cycle of constitutional experimentation.
It needs to decide, firmly and without equivocation, whether it is a shared nation or an inherited one. Because once a state begins to redraw citizenship along ethnic lines, it is no longer merely revising its constitution. It is rewriting the terms of belonging itself."
A modern, multi-ethnic state cannot sustain itself in the fiction that equality and ethnic hierarchy can co-exist indefinitely. One will eventually consume the other. The tragedy of this moment is not that the proposal was made. It is that it reflects a persistent strain of thinking, that the future can be secured by retreating into the past.
Fiji does not need to relearn the lessons of division through another cycle of constitutional experimentation.
It needs to decide, firmly and without equivocation, whether it is a shared nation or an inherited one. Because once a state begins to redraw citizenship along ethnic lines, it is no longer merely revising its constitution. It is rewriting the terms of belonging itself."
WHO OWNS FIJI? GCC’S BID TO RECLAIM THE STATE AND REDEFINE CITIZENSHIP AND POWER TO ELECT PRESIDENT AND HIS DEPUTY
There are moments when a proposal is not merely misguided, but constitutionally dangerous. The latest call by the Great Council of Chiefs (GCC) to reserve the term “Fijian” exclusively for iTaukei, and to reclaim the power to appoint the President and Vice-President, belongs firmly in that category.
It is, stripped of its cultural wrapping, a demand to re-ethnicise the state itself.
For a country that has already paid dearly through coups, constitutional upheavals, and decades of mistrust for entangling ethnicity with political power, this is not a step backward. It is a march toward the same precipice.
A Name Is Never Just A Name
The GCC’s insistence that only iTaukei be called “Fijian” is not a linguistic preference. It is a political act. Under the 2013 Constitution of Fiji, “Fijian” became a civic identity, an equalising term that, at least in law, placed all citizens on the same national footing. Indo-Fijians, Rotumans, and Others ceased to be hyphenated outsiders and became, simply, Fijians.
To now strip that away is to say: Some belong to the nation. Others merely live in it. No amount of cultural justification can disguise the constitutional insult embedded in that proposition. It redraws the boundary of belonging along ethnic lines and tells a significant portion of the population that their citizenship is, at best, conditional.
This is not cultural preservation. It is hierarchical citizenship by another name.
The Quiet Return of Ethnic Statecraft
Equally troubling is the GCC’s desire to become the appointing authority for the Head of State.
Let us be clear about what that entails.
The GCC is not an elected body. It does not derive its authority from universal suffrage. It represents, by design, a particular community, one rooted in hereditary chiefly structures and indigenous tradition.
To vest in it the power to appoint the President is to constitutionalise a simple idea: That sovereignty in Fiji does not flow equally from all its people, but disproportionately from one.
This is not a harmless nod to tradition. It is the creation of a parallel constitutional authority, one that sits above or alongside democratic institutions but is accountable to neither the electorate nor the full citizenry.
Fiji has seen this movie before. It never ends well.
History's Warning: Ignored, Again
The ghosts of the 1987 and 2000 coups are not distant relics. They are reminders of what happens when political power is justified in the language of ethnic entitlement. Each time, the argument was framed as protection of land, of identity, of indigenous rights. Each time, it resulted in:
The False Binary: Protection or Equality
The GCC’s position rests on an implied claim: that protecting iTaukei identity requires privileging it within the structure of the state. This is a false and dangerous binary. iTaukei land ownership is already entrenched. Customary institutions remain intact. Cultural identity is not under existential threat from a civic definition of citizenship.
What is being sought here is not protection. It is political primacy.
And once the state begins to privilege one group constitutionally, it cannot convincingly claim to belong equally to all.
A State Within A State
If these proposals were adopted, Fiji would not merely adjust its constitutional arrangements. It would transform its character. Fiji would have a democratic system in form, and an ethnically anchored authority in substance.
A President appointed not as a unifying national figure, but as the product of a particular communal structure.
And a national identity redefined in a way that excludes a large segment of the population from its very name.
That is not a republic. It is a state with an ethnic centre and peripheral citizens orbiting it.
The Real Cost
The consequences would not be theoretical. They would be felt in renewed ethnic political mobilisation, legal challenges grounded in equality and non-discrimination, investor uncertainty in a country once again flirting with instability, and, most corrosively, the quiet erosion of national cohesion. Because when a state tells some of its citizens that they are not truly part of the national identity, those citizens do not forget. They disengage, resist, or leave.
Fiji has already lived through that cycle.
Whose Fiji?
At its core, the GCC’s proposal forces a stark question: Is Fiji a country that belongs equally to all its citizens, or one that is owned, constitutionally and symbolically, by a single community? You cannot answer “both”.
A modern, multi-ethnic state cannot sustain itself on the fiction that equality and ethnic hierarchy can coexist indefinitely. One will eventually consume the other.
The tragedy of this moment is not that the proposal was made. It is that it reflects a persistent strain of thinking, that the future can be secured by retreating into the past. Fiji does not need to relearn the lessons of division through another cycle of constitutional experimentation.
It needs to decide, firmly and without equivocation, whether it is a shared nation or an inherited one.
Because once a state begins to redraw citizenship along ethnic lines, it is no longer merely revising its constitution.
It is rewriting the terms of belonging itself.
There are moments when a proposal is not merely misguided, but constitutionally dangerous. The latest call by the Great Council of Chiefs (GCC) to reserve the term “Fijian” exclusively for iTaukei, and to reclaim the power to appoint the President and Vice-President, belongs firmly in that category.
It is, stripped of its cultural wrapping, a demand to re-ethnicise the state itself.
For a country that has already paid dearly through coups, constitutional upheavals, and decades of mistrust for entangling ethnicity with political power, this is not a step backward. It is a march toward the same precipice.
A Name Is Never Just A Name
The GCC’s insistence that only iTaukei be called “Fijian” is not a linguistic preference. It is a political act. Under the 2013 Constitution of Fiji, “Fijian” became a civic identity, an equalising term that, at least in law, placed all citizens on the same national footing. Indo-Fijians, Rotumans, and Others ceased to be hyphenated outsiders and became, simply, Fijians.
To now strip that away is to say: Some belong to the nation. Others merely live in it. No amount of cultural justification can disguise the constitutional insult embedded in that proposition. It redraws the boundary of belonging along ethnic lines and tells a significant portion of the population that their citizenship is, at best, conditional.
This is not cultural preservation. It is hierarchical citizenship by another name.
The Quiet Return of Ethnic Statecraft
Equally troubling is the GCC’s desire to become the appointing authority for the Head of State.
Let us be clear about what that entails.
The GCC is not an elected body. It does not derive its authority from universal suffrage. It represents, by design, a particular community, one rooted in hereditary chiefly structures and indigenous tradition.
To vest in it the power to appoint the President is to constitutionalise a simple idea: That sovereignty in Fiji does not flow equally from all its people, but disproportionately from one.
This is not a harmless nod to tradition. It is the creation of a parallel constitutional authority, one that sits above or alongside democratic institutions but is accountable to neither the electorate nor the full citizenry.
Fiji has seen this movie before. It never ends well.
History's Warning: Ignored, Again
The ghosts of the 1987 and 2000 coups are not distant relics. They are reminders of what happens when political power is justified in the language of ethnic entitlement. Each time, the argument was framed as protection of land, of identity, of indigenous rights. Each time, it resulted in:
- Institutional collapse
- Economic damage
- Deepened ethnic division
- And a legacy of distrust that still lingers
The False Binary: Protection or Equality
The GCC’s position rests on an implied claim: that protecting iTaukei identity requires privileging it within the structure of the state. This is a false and dangerous binary. iTaukei land ownership is already entrenched. Customary institutions remain intact. Cultural identity is not under existential threat from a civic definition of citizenship.
What is being sought here is not protection. It is political primacy.
And once the state begins to privilege one group constitutionally, it cannot convincingly claim to belong equally to all.
A State Within A State
If these proposals were adopted, Fiji would not merely adjust its constitutional arrangements. It would transform its character. Fiji would have a democratic system in form, and an ethnically anchored authority in substance.
A President appointed not as a unifying national figure, but as the product of a particular communal structure.
And a national identity redefined in a way that excludes a large segment of the population from its very name.
That is not a republic. It is a state with an ethnic centre and peripheral citizens orbiting it.
The Real Cost
The consequences would not be theoretical. They would be felt in renewed ethnic political mobilisation, legal challenges grounded in equality and non-discrimination, investor uncertainty in a country once again flirting with instability, and, most corrosively, the quiet erosion of national cohesion. Because when a state tells some of its citizens that they are not truly part of the national identity, those citizens do not forget. They disengage, resist, or leave.
Fiji has already lived through that cycle.
Whose Fiji?
At its core, the GCC’s proposal forces a stark question: Is Fiji a country that belongs equally to all its citizens, or one that is owned, constitutionally and symbolically, by a single community? You cannot answer “both”.
A modern, multi-ethnic state cannot sustain itself on the fiction that equality and ethnic hierarchy can coexist indefinitely. One will eventually consume the other.
The tragedy of this moment is not that the proposal was made. It is that it reflects a persistent strain of thinking, that the future can be secured by retreating into the past. Fiji does not need to relearn the lessons of division through another cycle of constitutional experimentation.
It needs to decide, firmly and without equivocation, whether it is a shared nation or an inherited one.
Because once a state begins to redraw citizenship along ethnic lines, it is no longer merely revising its constitution.
It is rewriting the terms of belonging itself.
