Land, life and labour: Indo-Fijian claims to citizenship in a changing Fiji.

Land, life and labour: Indo-Fijian claims to citizenship in a changing Fiji. A NATION WITHOUT INDIANS Less than two months before the May 19, 2000 coup, the authorizedbiography of the former Prime Minister and architect of the 1987 coups,Major-General Sitiveni Rabuka Major-General Sitiveni Ligamamada Rabuka, OBE, MSD, OStJ, (born September 13, 1948) is best known as the instigator of two military coups that shook Fiji in 1987. He was later democratically elected Prime Minister, serving from 1992 to 1999. appeared in Suva bookshops. In the finalchapter of the biography, an excerpt of which appeared in mid-March 2000in the popular Fiji Times The Fiji Times is a daily newspaper published in Fiji. Established in Levuka on 4 September 1869, it is Fiji's oldest newspaper still operating.The Fiji Times is owned by the Fiji Times Limited. newspaper under the banner 'Migration theKey' (Fiji Times, March 15, 2000:3), Rabuka offered his view of thefuture of Indo-Fijians in Fiji. In reference to the inevitablewidespread expiry of land leases, Rabuka foretold fore��told?v.Past tense and past participle of foretell. that in the next fiveto ten years there was potential for an</p> <pre>increase [in] the racial divide in the sense that the rural areaswill be Fijian dominated, the urban areas will be Indian dominated.Fijians will be 'agra-based' [sic], more Indians will go intomanufacturing, light industry and the import-export trade. We(Fijians) will be the retail outlet retail outletn → punto de ventaretail outletn → point m de venteretail outletretail n → , the supermarket shoppers. Thisis a concern for me but I think we will have to live through it. Myother hope is that the Indians will migrate. We tighten the controls,then Fiji is no longer attractive to the Indian settler as it hasbeen over the last 120 years. Maybe they will slow down theirimmigration immigration,entrance of a person (an alien) into a new country for the purpose of establishing permanent residence. Motives for immigration, like those for migration generally, are often economic, although religious or political factors may be very important. rate, probably increase their emigration emigration:see immigration; migration. rate, therebyhaving a natural decline in their numbers, to a level that would bemanageable. When I talk about a manageable level I am talking aboutthe tolerance threshold of the Fijians. Now it is beyond theirtolerance level and that is why they are reacting, not because of thenumbers but what the Indians can do with the numbers. If they cangain control of the professional life, the economic life, and thepolitical life of this country with the numbers they have, then thetolerance level, the numbers level will have to be greatly reduced.And we won't do that by the Butadroka-kind of policy, forcedmigration, but by circumstances-driven migration (Rabuka quoted in Sharpham 2000:316-317). </pre><p>Rabuka's proposal to build a nation through expulsion iscertainly nothing new. The image of an ethnically pure state has itspre-cursors in the expulsion and extermination exterminationmass killing of animals or other pests. Implies complete destruction of the species or other group. of Jews in Germany andother parts of Europe during World War II, the ethnic cleansing ethnic cleansingThe creation of an ethnically homogenous geographic area through the elimination of unwanted ethnic groups by deportation, forcible displacement, or genocide. recentlywitnessed in parts of former Yugoslavia, and the efforts to consolidateethnically homogenous homogenous - homogeneous populations in Rwanda, to name only a few. Whileeschewing suggestions for the forced expulsion of Indo-Fijians, such asthose of the Taukei (indigenous Fijian nationalist) leader SakeasiButadroka Sakeasi Butadroka (died 2001) was a Fijian politician noted for his strident ethnic nationalism. Originally elected to the House of Representatives as a member of the ruling Fijian Alliance in the parliamentary election of 1972, he was expelled from the Alliance for his public who in 1975 proposed to the Fiji Parliament that Fiji'sIndian community should be repatriated to India (Lal, B.V. 1992:237),Rabuka ominously hints that a 'circumstances-driven migration'might compel Indo-Fijians to quit Fiji of their own free will. His predictions were right on target. Prior to the 2000 coup,Indians in Fiji People of Indian origin constitute about 37 percent of Fiji's population.[1] They are mostly descended from indentured labourers brought to the islands by Fiji's British colonial rulers between 1879 and 1916 to work on Fiji's sugar cane plantations. numbered approximately 339,000, making up 44% of thepopulation of Fiji (1996 census, the Fiji Bureau of Statistics). By2004, their numbers had gone down to 320,000. The downward trend beganafter the two coups of 1987, with the 2000 coup adding to the impetus.Figures for migration in 2001 reflect almost a 20% rise from the totalnumber of migrants in 2000, with Indo-Fijians composing approximately85-90% of those leaving Fiji. In total, since May 2000, an estimated24,000 Indo-Fijians have left Fiji, most of them resettling inAustralia, New Zealand New Zealand(zē`lənd), island country (2005 est. pop. 4,035,000), 104,454 sq mi (270,534 sq km), in the S Pacific Ocean, over 1,000 mi (1,600 km) SE of Australia. The capital is Wellington; the largest city and leading port is Auckland. , Canada and the US. (1) 'CITIZENSHIP AND ITS ALTERITIES' The increasing numbers migrating out of the country are a steadysign that many Indians or Indo-Fijians (I use the terms interchangeablyin this paper) have abandoned living in Fiji, at least for the timebeing. More than a quarter million Indo-Fijians, however, still remainin Fiji. Those who have stayed have had to adjust not only toFiji's continuing economic crisis since the coup, but also to theirincreasing political marginalisation Noun 1. marginalisation - the social process of becoming or being made marginal (especially as a group within the larger society); "the marginalization of the underclass"; "the marginalization of literature"marginalization . How have they responded to thecurrent transformations of their political status? In this paper, I adopt Carol Greenhouse's concept of'empirical citizenship' to explore how Indo-Fijians articulateand live out their place in a nation that has over the past 18 years(since 1987) and more especially over the last five years, pushed themonto the fringes of the body politic BODY POLITIC, government, corporations. When applied to the government this phrase signifies the state. 2. As to the persons who compose the body politic, they take collectively the name, of people, or nation; and individually they are citizens, when considered . In her examination of'citizenship and its alterities' Greenhouse suggests thatalongside questions of political representation and rights, citizenshipmust also be analysed through the 'domains ... of personalexperience' (1999:105; see also 2002). (2) Taking Greenhouse up onher suggestion that we look at citizenship not only through politicalrepresentation and rights but also by asking 'how peopleincorporate the state into their own self understandings andagency' (1999:105), I propose to explore three facets ofcitizenship for Indo-Fijians in Fiji--inclusion in national politics,legal and economic rights (such as rights to protection by the state),and expressions of belonging to a national community. I will alsoconsider how, despite the attempts of many Indo-Fijians to separatepolitical inclusion from legal and economic rights and expressions ofbelonging, these three aspects of citizenship are closely inter-related. Drawing on fieldwork I conducted in Fiji from 1999 to 2000(including the period of the 2000 coup) and in 2005, as well as mycontinuing contact with Indo-Fijian immigrants in New Zealand, I examinehow Indo-Fijians express their relationship to the Fijian nation asembodied by the physical investment of their labour in Fiji. I show howdespite many Indo-Fijians' hesitation to explicitly engage in thestruggle over political rights, such as the right to a democraticallyelected government, they actively refute Taukei (indigenous Fijiannationalist) claims that Indians have usurped land, and thereforewealth, from indigenous Fijians. Evoking their historically articulatedlink to Fijian land and soil as indentured labourers, they lay claim tothe right to labour and live off Fijian-owned land. Desiring primarilythat their physical safety as well as the basis for their economicexistence in Fiji be protected, many Indo-Fijians have reacted to theintense political upheaval and to their increasing marginalisation byexpressing a notion of citizenship that turns away from issues ofpolitical inclusion to those of legal and economic rights and nationalbelonging. I argue, however, that Indo-Fijian attempts to placateindigenous Fijian nationalist demands for their expulsion by claimingfor themselves a form of citizenship without full politicalrepresentation have not resulted in stabilizing their position in Fiji.This is so because their assertions of national belonging inherentlyentail claims to rights (including the right to make a living) that aresimilarly under dispute. HISTORIES OF SETTLEMENT Contrary to Rabuka's suggestion that there is still asignificant number of incoming Indian 'settlers', most ofFiji's Indo-Fijian community has lived in the country for two,three or more generations. With the exception of a small Gujaraticommunity most of which came to Fiji between 1900 and 1940 (Kelly 1992)and a small number of migrants from other parts of South Asia This article is about the geopolitical region in Asia. For geophysical treatments, see Indian subcontinent. South Asia, also known as Southern Asia , the bulkof Indians in Fiji are the descendants of the 60,000 girmitiyas orindentured labourers who were brought over by the British colonialgovernment to work on Fiji's sugar plantations from 1879 to 1920. Initially considered by the British colonial government as littlemore than 'labour units' who would serve their five-yearcontracts and then return to India (Kelly 1990), by the time Fijiachieved independence in 1970, Indo-Fijians were settled across thecountry. They were central to its economic base predominating inbusiness enterprises and in many areas of commercial agricultureincluding sugar cane, Fiji's leading agricultural export. Theycontinued, however, to be relegated to the margins of political life.Independence was largely a transfer of political power from the Britishadministration to the indigenous Fijian elite. The organization of thepost-independence Parliament, with its communal or racially-based seats,further facilitated indigenous Fijian political dominance (Lal, B.V.1992). Since the late 1920s Indo-Fijian political leaders have lobbied forequal political rights for all racial and ethnic groups in Fiji, asexemplified by political representation on the basis of the common (openelectorate) roll rather than communal (racial/ethnic) rolls (Lawson1991). While actively promoting politically sensitive issues such as thecommon role and independence from colonial Britain, they generally didso in the context of promoting equal and inclusive relationships betweenIndo-Fijians and indigenous Fijians. For instance, in 1929 Indo-Fijianpolitical leader Vishnu Deo Pandit Vishnu Deo OBE[1] was the first Fiji born and bred leader of the Fiji Indians. From 1929, when he was first elected to the Legislative Council, until his retirement in 1959, he remained the most powerful Fiji Indian political leader in Fiji. argued for 'equal citizenship' notonly in Fiji but 'through the British empire' by stating that,'We do not wish to deprive the Native of his right and libertieswhich unfortunately he is not allowed to enjoy. We want to see Britishjustice meted out Adj. 1. meted out - given out in portionsapportioned, dealt out, doled out, parceled outdistributed - spread out or scattered about or divided up to all her citizens' (as quoted in Kelly andKaplan 2001:149). These arguments did not go down well with either Britishauthorities or indigenous Fijian statesmen during the colonial period Colonial Period may generally refer to any period in a country's history when it was subject to administration by a colonial power. Korea under Japanese rule Colonial America See alsoColonialism .In recognition, however, of Indo-Fijians' role in the developmentof Fiji's economy, some British and indigenous Fijian leaderspromoted the rhetorical vision, if not the political practice, of Fijias a multicultural nation. Long at the forefront of indigenous Fijianleadership, Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna is widely attributed with promoting themetaphor of Fiji as a 'three-legged stool'. (3) According to according toprep.1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians.2. In keeping with: according to instructions.3. this image, the nation of Fiji stood on three legs, held up by thelabour of Indo-Fijians, the land of indigenous Fijians and theadministration and capital of the British (Scarf 1983; Kaplan 1995:107;Lal, B.V. 1995:37; Kelly and Kaplan 2001:131,174). The sentiment iscaptured in Sukuna's speech to the Great Council of Chiefs in 1936,in which he stated, 'Let us not ignore the fact that there isanother community settled in our midst. I refer to the Indians. Theyhave increased more rapidly than we. They have become producers on oursoil. They are continuously striving to better themselves. Although theyare of a different race, yet we are each a unit in the British Empire British Empire,overseas territories linked to Great Britain in a variety of constitutional relationships, established over a period of three centuries. The establishment of the empire resulted primarily from commercial and political motives and emigration movements .They have shouldered many burdens that have helped Fiji onward'(Scarr 1983:214). During the period immediately following Independence, the primarypolitical solidarities were those between local Europeans and the Fijianaristocracy who took up where the colonial administration left off. Andyet, as Kaplan has powerfully argued, at least on a symbolic levelIndians continued to be incorporated into the rituals of nation-making(1995; more recently also in Kelly and Kaplan 2001:130-133). Stateceremonies, Kaplan notes, invoked the imagery of the three-legged stoolthrough their incorporation of not only indigenous Fijian but alsoIndo-Fijian 'traditions' of welcoming and honouring foreigndignitaries and guests. For example, as the guest of honour guest of honourNouna famous or important person who is the most important guest at a dinner or other social occasion atFiji's independence celebrations in 1970, England's PrinceCharles Noun 1. Prince Charles - the eldest son of Elizabeth II and heir to the English throne (born in 1948)Charles was accorded the Indian ceremony of garlanding and circling withan arti or camphor camphor(kăm`fər), C10H16O, white, crystalline solid ketone with a characteristic pungent odor and taste. It melts at 176°C; and boils at 204°C;. flame alongside a traditional indigenous Fijianchiefly welcome (Kelly and Kaplan 2001:131). Always a bit rickety rick��et��y?adj. rick��et��i��er, rick��et��i��est1. Likely to break or fall apart; shaky.2. Feeble with age; infirm.3. Of, having, or resembling rickets. , the three-legged stool came crashing down in1987 when Rabuka forced the Fiji Labour Party/NFP coalition out ofpower. Rabuka claimed that the 1987 coup d'etat was carried out inorder to restore political power into the hands of indigenous Fijians.Later elected Prime Minister, Rabuka issued a new Constitution justifiedon the grounds that 'the events of 1987 were occasioned by awidespread belief that the 1970 Constitution was inadequate to giveprotection to the interests of the indigenous Fijian people, theirvalues, traditions, customs, way of life and economic well being'(Government Printing Office 1990:498). 'Ensuring' the rightsof indigenous Fijians included things such as stripping Indo-Fijians oftheir right to hold political positions such as the offices of PrimeMinister and the chief of police. In state ceremonies, even gestures ofIndian inclusion such as the arti ceremony were dropped (Kelly andKaplan 2001:133). The ritual inclusion of elements of 'Indianculture', no matter how nominal they may have been, were no longerdeemed appropriate for a nation attempting to (re)build itself on thegrounds of its 'Fijian' identity alone. Rabuka later softened his stance and supported the writing of yetanother Constitution in 1997, this one requiting a multi-party (and,more than likely, a multi-ethnic) government. The result was that in the1999 election, Rabuka lost his position as Prime Minister to Fiji'sfirst ethnic Indian Prime Minister, Mahendra Pal Chaudhry. A formertrade unionist, Chaudhry and his People's Coalition receivedsupport from voters from diverse ethnic backgrounds, leading manypolitical observers to initially hail the 1999 election as the beginningof a new era in Fijian politics (see for example Norton 2000 and Lal,B.V. 2000). (4) THE FIRST (AND, FOR NOW, THE LAST) INDO-FIJIAN PRIME MINISTER The mood in Suva the day after Chaudhry announced he would betaking up the position of Prime Minister was, however, a sombre som��bre?adj. Chiefly BritishVariant of somber.sombreor US somberAdjective1. serious, sad, or gloomy: a sombre message2. one. Anumber of academics at the University of the South Pacific USP is owned by the governments of 12 Pacific Island countries: the Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. where I wasundertaking research asked me if I had my bags packed in preparation foranother coup. Their fears did not immediately materialize and Chaudhrywas allowed a year to occupy the Prime Minister's shoes duringwhich he began to implement controversial labour policy reforms andproposed legislation that would affect land management. He quickly cameto be regarded by many nationalist indigenous Fijians as a threat toboth chiefly and broader indigenous Fijian claims to paramount politicalauthority. Chaudhry's leadership inspired ambiguous sentiments not onlyamong indigenous Fijians but Indo-Fijians too. In part, as with anypolitical leader, this was due to controversies over the specificpolicies of the Coalition Government. Chaudhry also had his share ofpersonal scandals including the sacking of a tearoom worker who was saidto have witnessed Chaudhry's allegedly intimate relationship An intimate relationship is a particularly close interpersonal relationship. It is a relationship in which the participants know or trust one another very well or are confidants of one another, or a relationship in which there is physical or emotional intimacy. with afemale member of the press. But there was also the additional issue ofwhether it was advisable for Fiji to have an Indian Prime Minister. ManyIndo-Fijians told me that Fiji was 'not ready' for such athing. After governing for exactly one year, the People's Coalitionwas forcibly ejected from Parliament on May 19, 2000 when the nowinfamous George Speight staged a Parliamentary hostage-taking andattempted coup on the grounds that political power must be returned tothe hands of indigenous Fijians. Following months of violence andpolitical chaos, the military regained control of Fiji. In the firstpost-coup elections, the military-backed government of Laisenia Qarase Laisenia Qarase (born February 4, 1941) served as the Prime Minister of Fiji from 2000 to 2006. After the the military quashed the coup that led to the removal of Mahendra Chaudhry, Qarase joined the Interim Military Government as a financial adviser on June 9, 2000 until his came into power and began (yet again) plans to limit the politicalparticipation of Indo-Fijians. One of the Qarase government's aimshas been to restructure land ownership and the rules of tenancy tostrengthen the rights of indigenous Fijian landowners. (5) Another ofQarase's proposals has been to rewrite the 1997 Constitution inorder to remove its guarantee of a multi-party, ethnically-inclusivegovernment. Following Qarase's election as the new Prime Minister,Chaudhry continued to demand his rightful place in government. But themajority of Fiji's Indian citizenry responded to Chaudhry'sremoval from office much more ambivalently. Their reactions echosentiments described by John Kelly John Kelly or Jack Kelly is the name of: PeopleJohn Kelly of Killanne (died 1798), leader of the Irish Rebellion of 1798 in Wexford John Kelly (U.S. politician) (1822–1886), politician in Tammany Hall, U.S. in his 1998 essay Aspiring toMinority and Other Tactics Against Violence. Writing one year prior toChaudhry's election, Kelly remarked upon the effort that manyIndo-Fijians put into shunning the political limelight (1998).'There are sensible Indo-Fijians,' he noted, 'who aspireto aspire toverb aim for, desire, pursue, hope for, long for, crave, seek out, wish for, dream about, yearn for, hunger for, hanker after, be eager for, set your heart on, set your sights on, be ambitious for minority status, and a minority status as featureless as possible,precisely in order to allay others' fears of democracy and therebycombat a rising tide Noun 1. rising tide - the occurrence of incoming water (between a low tide and the following high tide); "a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune" -Shakespeareflood tide, flood of violence, both real and threatened'(1998:177). I found similar strategies at work following Chaudhry'sousting in 2000. A number of Indo-Fijians told me that having an Indianat the helm of the nation had not been necessary, or even wise, givenFiji's unstable political climate. When I mentioned to oneIndo-Fijian woman that there had been a lot of hope in the countryfollowing Chaudhry's election she shook her head and said that noteveryone had wanted him to become Prime Minister. 'It's notour country,' she said by way of explanation and then correctedherself, 'well, it is our country but you wouldn't wantsomeone from outside leading your country. Why should the Fijians wantit?' She then brought up the example of Sonya Gandhi's failedbid to become India's Prime Minister, implying that Chaudhry wassimilarly unwelcome as Fiji's Prime Minister due to his status as a'non-native' of Fiji. This is not to say that all Indo-Fijians agreed that they should bebarred from having a role in government. Many said they would have beenhappy with Chaudhry as Deputy Prime Minister A Deputy Prime Minister or Vice Prime Minister is, in some countries, a government minister who can take the position of acting Prime Minister when the real Prime Minister is temporarily absent. and one of the Coalitionparty's indigenous Fijian MPs as Prime Minister. They were alsoup-front about the fact that this was because their fear of reprisalsoverwhelmed any feelings of pride they might have had in having anIndian Prime Minister. Others spoke out against Indo-Fijians' absence from displaysof Fijian nationhood. One young Indian woman who worked for a governmentministry and spent many a day at government events was seemingly unawareof the garlanding and arti ceremonies of the 1970s when she commented tome that just once she'd like to see a state dignitary welcomed witha tikka tikkaAdjectiveIndian cookery (of meat) marinated in spices and then dry-roasted: chicken tikkabeing placed on his or her forehead along side the usual kavaceremony. She and others were quite clear, however, that Indo-Fijianceremonies should take place in addition to indigenous Fijian ones andnot occupy centre-stage. Elsewhere I've remarked at length on anIndo-Fijian woman's response to a radio broadcast in which childrenchanted in Hindi 'this is our country (Yeh desh hamara hai)'.'This is our country too (Yeh desh hamara bhi hai),' shecorrected, as if to refute the Fijian nationalist contention thatIndians are trying to take over Fiji (Trnka 2002:77). 'THERE IS NO GOVERNMENT THERE'--LEGAL RIGHTS AND THEPROTECTION OF THE POPULACE If political power was one thing that many Indo-Fijians werewilling to give up in order to reside in Fiji, protection by the statewas not. The coup of 2000 opened the door for not only economic andpolitical crises, but also widespread violence. Outbreaks of civilianviolence--much of it focused against Indo-Fijians or against commercialproperties--occurred across the island of Viti Levu Viti Levu(vē`tē lā`v)or Naviti Levu(nä–), on Vanua Levu Vanua Levu(vän`ä lā`v andon smaller, neighbouring islands such as Levuka and Turtle Island Turtle Island may refer to: GeographyTurtle Island, Queensland, the name of four islands in Queensland, Australia Turtle Island (Snowshoe Lake, Ontario), a small island located close to the Manitoba/Ontario border in Canada .Anti-Indian violence was particularly intense in Naitasiri, the homeprovince of George Speight, where residents reported physical brutalityagainst Indian families and the rape of Indian women. Numerous Indianfamilies were driven out of villages and off of their farmland in theinterior, many of them settling in Fiji's first 'refugeecamp' (technically a camp for displaced persons) in Lautoka. Intowns and villages across the nation, Indo-Fijians felt afraid to leavetheir homes and curtailed social and religious activities as well astheir children's schooling. In a number of areas, police protection was negligible. While muchof the violence in rural areas was carried out by bands of local Fijianyouths, it could not have spread so rapidly and continued for so longwithout either the complicity of the state authorities or the inabilityof these forces to react due to internal struggles within their ownranks. In some areas, the police and military were likely ill-equippedin terms of arms and manpower to respond effectively. A Fiji Times'story of the attacks on Indo-Fijians in Dreketi, for example, statesthat 'a senior [police] officer said police units did not respondto reports [of the attack] after it was revealed that the hostage-takerswere armed. He said no officers would be sent to Dreketi as there was apossibility unarmed police would be harmed in a confrontation'('Rebels Seize Rural Group', Fiji Times, July 31, 2000:1). Inother areas it appears from media reports and eyewitness accounts thatpolice and military either turned a blind eye or participated in theviolence. In early June 2000 there were widespread media reports, forexample, that Fijian police in Muaniweni and other areas of the interiorwere stealing and slaughtering cattle owned by Indian farmers andillegally transporting them into Parliament in order to feedSpeight's supporters. In such circumstances, many had reason tofear for their safety. In July 2000 I met an elderly Indo-Fijian manwhose home in Muaniweni had been ambushed by Fijian youths, causing himto flee to relatives in Nausori where I was conducting fieldwork. Iasked him when he thought he would go back to Muaniweni. The man shookhis head that he didn't know and added, 'There is nogovernment [there]'. Similar statements were made by others whoexplained the violence in the interior regions by saying that 'thepolice and the people [are both] doing it'. With the absence ofpolice protection, Indo-Fijians in rural areas came to rely on personalrelationships with their indigenous Fijian neighbours not only toprotect their homes and material belongings, but also to make judgementsabout their personal bodily safety (see Trnka in press). Even though many people suffered violence, (6) given the politicalclimate and lack of police and military protection, comparatively fewIndo-Fijians spoke out publicly about the violence or the individualsand institutions responsible for it. The media and some politicalparties, most notably the deposed Fiji Labour Party The Fiji Labour Party (FLP) is a political party in Fiji, which holds observer status with the Socialist International. Most of its support at present comes from the Indo-Fijian community, although it is officially multiracial and its first leader was an indigenous Fijian, Dr. , drew attention tothe plight of victims of rural violence. But many Indo-Fijians were, orfelt, further threatened as a response to this. When Chaudhry wasreleased and began his overseas tour to publicize the plight ofIndo-Fijians, a number of people expressed anger and frustration overwhat they considered to be his misguided representation of theirsituation. 'He is only speaking lies, and in such times oftrouble!' an Indian friend from the interior told me. To publiclyspeak about the violence was seen to be a pointless and even dangerousexercise that might only lead to its escalation. The most famous case in point was that of Chandrika Prasad Prasāda (Sanskrit: प्रसाद), prasād/prashad (Hindi), Prasāda in (Kannada), prasādam (Tamil), or prasadam , theMuaniweni farmer who filed a lawsuit claiming that the interimgovernment was illegal. Prasad's affidavit to the court detailedthe assaults that his family were subjected to following the May 19thcoup which led them to flee from Muaniweni and join the refugee camp inLautoka. In November 2000, Prasad won his case and thus put intoquestion the legitimacy of the interim government and all of thedecisions since its installation. In an apparent case of mistakenidentity, another Indo-Fijian farmer also named Chandrika Prasad wasphysically assaulted on the day the verdict was announced. The resultwas that Chandrika Prasad--the farmer who was misidentified--was badlyinjured and Chandrika Prasad--the actual complainant A plaintiff; a person who commences a civil lawsuit against another, known as the defendant, in order to remedy an alleged wrong. An individual who files a written accusation with the police charging a suspect with the commission of a crime and providing facts to support the allegation in the courtcase--went into hiding, and within months of his victory, was preparingto flee to New Zealand, citing continued threats against his life('After Beating Govt. in Court, Fiji Farmer Seeks to Flee',Indiaabroaddaily.com, March 4, 2001). In addition to fears of physical attack, there was also greatconcern in the Indo-Fijian community during the coup over incidents ofviolence against property, especially the looting of commercialbusinesses (Trnka 2002). In the first few weeks following May 19th, apopular refrain among Indo-Fijians was that the looting of shops andsmall businesses on the day of the take-over, rather than thehostage-taking, the overthrowing of the Parliament or the burnings ofIndian schools and temples, had caused the most damage to the country.While the violent stripping of Coalition MPs of their politicalleadership was hardly an expected, much less an acceptable, action,Indo-Fijian despair focused on the destruction of their economicposition in Fiji, their one achievement that had been recognized by the'three-legged stool' metaphor of a multicultural Fiji. If theycould not be the labourers of the nation, it seemed as if there was nolonger any place for them in Fiji. It was their lack of protection, both in terms of their bodilysafety as well as the protection of their material properties, ratherthan their dwindling political rights that made many Indo-Fijians eagerto leave. They could, I was frequently told, accept a new government ifthe situation would only return to safety. Moves toward this were madeon May 31, 2000, when the Royal Fiji Military announced that it hadasked President Mara to step down and was taking control of thegovernment. The military assured that there would now be 'a returnto stability and normalcy in our lives' (Commodore FrankBainimarama Commodore Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama, MSD, OStJ, Fijian Navy, known commonly as Frank Bainimarama and sometimes by the chiefly title, Ratu[1] (born 27 April 1954) is the Commander of the Fijian Military Forces and, as of 5 January 2007, Interim Prime , press conference, May 31, 2000). Following theirannouncement, I walked through the village in which I lived, askingresidents what they thought of this development. A few, such as anoutspoken labour union organizer A union organizer (sometimes spelled "organiser") is a specific type of trade union member (often elected) or an appointed union official. A majority of unions appoint rather than elect their organizers. , told me that the situation was'terrible' and could only lead to a further economic downturn.But many others saw the military takeover as a positive thing. OneIndian man was jubilant about the news and told me that things would nowbe 'normal' again, adopting the military's frequentrefrain of a 'return to normalcy'. It is not good fordemocracy, he conceded, but there won't be any more violence. Five years later, however, despite the 'return tonormalcy', Indo-Fijians continue to fear for their physical safety.In mid-2005 heightened feelings of insecurity swept through Indo-Fijiancommunities in Fiji following Prime Minister Qarase's proposed'Promotion of Reconciliation, Unity, and Tolerance Bill',which would provide amnesty to some of those found guilty of committingpolitically-motivated crimes during the 2000 coup. Many Indians fearthat passage of the Unity Bill will not only release those who wereguilty of instigating violence against Indians during the coup but willalso set a dangerous precedent so that future violence againstIndo-Fijians and their properties will be similarly forgiven. (7) LIVED CITIZENSHIP--THE BODY OF A NATION Unlike those who took to the streets in New Zealand, Australia, andparts of the US, Indo-Fijians in Fiji did not raucously demonstrateagainst the military or against Speight. (8) Nor did many of theIndo-Fijians I spoke with express much anger over the blow to their rolein Fiji's government. And while there was great concern over theneed for state protection against violence, there was also hesitancy hes��i��tan��cyn.An involuntary delay or inability in starting the urinary stream. lest speaking out about violence only invite further retaliation. The most popular articulation of the place of Indians in Fiji wasexpressed through discourses of bodily labour. During the coup, talk ofthe importance of Indo-Fijian labour in 'developing' thenation of Fiji abounded. Many Fiji Indians describe Indians in generalas extremely hardworking and consider themselves as having taken primaryresponsibility in building Fiji into a modern capitalist nation,particularly through the roles played by their forebears as indenturedlabourers. Often during the coup, I was told that through their labour,Indo-Fijians had 'sweat' or 'bled' into the land ofthe country that was now being taken away from them (Trnka 2002). Thisarticulation of citizenship, with its evocation of one's investmentin the nation and one's rights to remain in it, proliferated inIndo-Fijian community talk during the 2000 coup and was also scatteredthroughout Indo-Fijian accounts in the popular media. There are other accounts, both written and oral, in which thisarticulation between the Indian body and the soil of Fiji is even moredramatically depicted. In his novel, The Wounded Sea, Indo-Fijian authorSatendra Nandan Dr Satendra Pratap Nandan (born 1940) is a Fiji Indian academic, writer and former politician. Early lifeNandan was born in Nadi, Fiji. After completing his secondary education he studied in Delhi, Leeds, London and Canberra from where he obtained his PhD in English. develops a number of extended metaphors to express thecontradiction of his Indo-Fijian protagonist's intimacy with, andalienation from, Fiji. Most of these metaphors involve the mapping ofFiji onto the human body. The 1987 coup is described 'like a heartattack: something inside is silently dying, the heart ishaemorrhaging' (1991:146). The flood of refugees from Fiji issimilarly depicted; 'like the blood from a ruptured artery, thehaemorrhage of exodus would continue, plane load by plane load'(1991:134). While these metaphors evoke the powerful sense of alienationIndians now felt towards Fiji, such a powerful feeling could only occurin response to previously felt sensations of intimacy. As Nandan'snarrator NARRATOR. A pleader who draws narrs serviens narrator, a sergeant at law. Fleta, 1. 2, c. 37. Obsolete. poignantly points out, 'one gets used to one'scountry as one gets accustomed to one's body' (1991:147). Nandan's fictional use of metaphor parallels a phenomenondescribed by Brij Lal Brij V. Lal is a Fijian historian of Indian descent. He was born in Labasa, on the northern island of Vanua Levu. He was educated at the University of South Pacific, the University of British Columbia and the Australian National University. in his study of public submissions to Fiji'sConstitutional Review. Having travelled the country and collected bothwritten and oral petitions by people from all walks of life, Lal notesthat the metaphors by which indigenous Fijians and Indo-Fijians depictedthe nation of Fiji were strikingly different. Indigenous Fijians tendedto speak of Fiji as a house that they own and in which foreigners wereguests, welcomed but never able to step out of their role as invitedstrangers. Indians commonly used two metaphors of Fiji. One was of thenation as the human body, all of whose parts must work together. Thesecond metaphor was of Fiji as a mother who must love all of herchildren equally (Lal, B.V. 1997). All of these images express Indo-Fijians' feelings ofinter-dependence with the country of Fiji. Not only is Fiji described asa land that has become productive under their diligent tilling as wellas the tilling of their ancestors, but dislocation from the land is alsodescribed as incredibly painful and full of sorrow. While manyIndo-Fijians have packed up and left Fiji and many more spoke of theirdesire to migrate overseas, others told me that they were born in Fijiand will die in Fiji. Even those who had already resettled overseasexpressed a sense of connection to their former homeland. One Muslimimmigrant I met in New Zealand went to great lengths to explain that hehad migrated to Auckland twelve years ago with his wife and children inorder to escape the increasing violence in Fiji, breaking off to add,'but my brother is buried there,' suggesting an indissoluble in��dis��sol��u��ble?adj.1. Permanent; binding: an indissoluble contract; an indissoluble union.2. tie to the country. Whether speaking of Indo-Fijians' physical investment in thenation or equating Indo-Fijians with the lifeblood that runs throughFiji's veins, these discourses act as articulations of citizenshipthat counter the widespread rhetoric of Indians as foreigners in Fiji.They might not argue for inclusion amongst Fiji's top politicalleadership but they evoke a space for Indo-Fijians within the body ofthe nation. These claims of inclusion are also, however, often voicedalongside sentiments of confusion and feelings of ambiguity towardsIndo-Fijians' official status in the nation. One young Indo-Fijianwoman struggled to articulate to me the difference between her feelingsof belonging and her appreciation of Fijians' special status inFiji. At the height of the 2000 violence, I asked her why Indians werenot rising up against those Fijians who were physically attacking them.She replied, 'Because it's their land. They own theland.' With an unintended slip in terminology, I asked her,'So it's not your country?' She took up my suggestion andacknowledged, 'It's our country too', but a few minuteslater added, 'but the country is Fiji, the name is Fiji. It is forFijians.' LAND AND NATION Indo-Fijian discourses of citizenship hinge upon Verb 1. hinge upon - be contingent on; "The outcomes rides on the results of the election"; "Your grade will depends on your homework"depend on, depend upon, devolve on, hinge on, turn on, ride their symbolic, aswell as their empirical, relationship to the land and property,conjuring up images of the soil they have worked over and the land thatthey feel their bodies are a part of. Ironically, it is here thatIndo-Fijian claims of not wanting formal political power but merely theright to live and labour unhindered unhinderedAdjectivenot prevented or obstructed: unhindered accessAdverbwithout being prevented or obstructed: he was able to go about his work unhinderedbecome highly politicised as accessto land (and protection of that access) are politically-charged issues.While many Indo-Fijians publicly eschew political power, preferring tosilently live and labour, the lived realities of citizenship forFiji's Indian community invoke a stance towards land and labourthat is itself a claim for political and economic rights. The politics of land (referred to locally as 'vanuapolitics') are of great concern to the Taukei movement which haspromoted an articulation between land and the rights of indigenouspeoples as a means of galvanizing many of its members. Much of theantagonism the Taukei movement has generated through this discourse hasbeen directed against Indo-Fijians. In a recent paper, Steven Ratuvaargues that a common point of tension in Fiji is between 'twocontesting conceptions of land'--what he calls the 'primordialconception', which links the physical land to indigenous Fijianspiritual and social life, and that of land as a commodity (2002:10).Ratuva goes on to note that one 'tool of ethnic politics' hasbeen concern over land being alienated from its spiritual and socialcontext and dominated by 'land-hungry kaidia (Indo-Fijians)'(2002:17). (9) This is a politics with a long history. Ratu Sukuna, promoter ofthe metaphor of the 'three-legged stool', was also known toexpress concern over Indo-Fijian prosperity. In his 1954 Cession The act of relinquishing one's right.A surrender, relinquishment, or assignment of territory by one state or government to another.The territory of a foreign government gained by the transfer of sovereignty. CESSION, contracts. Dayspeech, he warned of the possibility of increasing ethnic conflict ifIndo-Fijians did not watch their step. With words that might be read asforeshadowing the sentiments (and actions) of Rabuka, Sukuna advised,'Because the amount of land in the Colony is limited, to theIndians of Fiji I would say, for your material good as well as for thatof your compatriots of other races, study your birth rate and do notallow it to damage racial relations. Without your active help, it maylead us all into an unforgivable disaster, one that would be traceableto the lack of loyalty on your part to this country' (Scarr1983:512). As noted earlier, in response Indo-Fijian political leaders haveactively lobbied for equal rights for all of Fiji's citizens andfor a more democratic means of political representation. ManyIndo-Fijian political leaders addressed fears of Indians usurpingindigenous Fijian land, wealth, and power, by highlightingethnically-cooperative rather than ethnically-exclusive politicalplatforms. This is despite the fact that, as Lawson has pointed out, thevery structures of Fiji's communal voting system Noun 1. voting system - a legal system for making democratic choiceselectoral systemlegal system - a system for interpreting and enforcing the laws encouragepolitical campaigning along ethnic lines (Lawson 1991). Sometimes thesemore ethnically-inclusive strategies worked; as the Fiji LabourParty's victories in the 1987 and 1999 elections have shown, it ispossible to overcome the bias toward voting along ethnic lines (Lawson1991; Norton 2000). But while the FLP FLP Family Limited PartnershipFLP Follow UpFLP Fiji Labor PartyFLP FlashpointFLP Fast Link PulseFLP FlameproofFLP Flippase (genetics)FLP Front de Lib��ration de la PalestineFLP Fasting Lipid Profile has certainly had its supportersfrom amongst Indo-Fijian and indigenous Fijian members of theelectorate, in a time of intense national crisis some of the same voterswho had voted for Chaudhry only a year before found themselves scoffingat the possibilities of a return to democracy and instead embraced themilitary's attempts to restore 'normalcy' throughmilitary rule. Writing about another context (the turn of the 21st century UnitedStates United States,officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. ), Greenhouse reminds us that the articulation of citizenship isnot only about collective sentiments of nationhood or questions ofpolitical representation and fights. Empirical citizenship, sheexplains, 'is not merely the architecture of the state or anabstract sense of belonging to a nation, but a medium--more accurately arange of media--of social action and active social connection'(2002:198). A little later, she adds, 'Quite apart from whatcitizenship means in the legal and political organization of the state,then, citizenship makes a place--albeit a highly ambiguous place--forthe state in the subjective and emotional lives of ordinary people, inrelation to the question of who they are to themselves and toothers' (2002:199). Greenhouse's examples of empiricalcitizenship involve the mobilization of citizenship in a variety ofcommunity projects, including her own community's memorialisationand protest of the ethnically-motivated murder of one of its residents.What interests me is her focus on how citizenship is mediated not onlythrough one's relationship to the state but also through community,and in some cases inter-personal, relationships. (10) Indo-Fijians'assertions that they do not want equal political rights so much as to beleft alone give voice to a conceptualisation (artificial intelligence) conceptualisation - The collection of objects, concepts and other entities that are assumed to exist in some area of interest and the relationships that hold among them. of citizenship negotiatednot only in terms of the legal constructs of the state but also inresponse to how Indo-Fijians have been positioned by nationalistindigenous Fijian articulations of indigenous fights and, in some cases,accompanying acts of violence. These relations underpin the grounds onwhich many Indo-Fijians find it necessary to make claims to a form ofcitizenship that they recognize falls short of democratic politics. But even such claims to what is often referred to as'second-class' citizenship are likely doomed to failure in thecontemporary politics of Fiji Politics of Fiji takes place in a framework of a parliamentary representative democratic republic, whereby the Prime Minister of Fiji is the head of government, and of a pluriform multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. . However careful Indo-Fijians might be todistinguish between demands for political power or the desire to ownland, on the one hand, and assertions of their fight to remain on theland and (by extension) in Fiji, on the other, their requirement thattheir commercial livelihoods be protected is already something thatRabuka and Qarase's proposed reforms would make untenable if theywere ever actually fully implemented. As Rabuka's statementsuggests, the 'problem' he perceives with Indian settlement inFiji is directly related to the issue of economic distribution. Fearinga future in which Fijians will be agriculturalists while Indians own andmanage industrial and commercial establishments, Rabuka points out thatit is an issue not so much of numbers but what one does with thosenumbers. 'Aspiring to minority status' requires more thanrelinquishing politics or diminishing one's population size butalso diminishing one's economic base. And many, including Rabukaand Qarase, do not hesitate to suggest that the strengthening ofFijians' economic positions requires a diminishing of the economicrole of Indo-Fijians. Indo-Fijians articulate a place for themselves in Fiji that issymbolically rooted in the soil over which they and their ancestors havetoiled. (11) Their relationship to land has come under increasing attackin a contemporary land politics that links land rights to certain formsof identity (i.e. indigeneity), rather than to practices such aslabouring over the land. While the historical role of the girmitiyas andtheir descendants in sustaining Fiji's economy is not underdispute, there is little space in the current craft of nationhood toacknowledge Indo-Fijians' contributions, much less to make thempart of national narratives. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Funding for this project was generously provided by the SocialScience Research Council, Princeton University Princeton University,at Princeton, N.J.; coeducational; chartered 1746, opened 1747, rechartered 1748, called the College of New Jersey until 1896.Schools and Research Facilities , the Green Foundation,and the University of Auckland Not to be confused with Auckland University of Technology.The University of Auckland (Māori: Te Whare Wānanga o Tāmaki Makaurau) is New Zealand's largest university. . I would also like to thank the FijiMinistry of Immigration and the Ministry of Education for approving myresearch in Fiji. This paper benefited from readings by Cris Shore, MattTomlinson, Stephen Jackson For the American football running back, see .Stephen Jesse Jackson (born April 5 1978 in Port Arthur, Texas, USA) is an American professional basketball and a co-captain player for the NBA’s Golden State Warriors. , Elfriede Hermann and Wolfgang Kempf. I wouldalso like to thank Rena Lederman, Carol Greenhouse, Emily Martin, SarahPinto, and Kavita Misra for their comments on earlier versions of thisargument. Thank you to Deryck Scarf and Brij Lal for their help inlocating the context of Ratu Sukuna's use of the 'three-leggedstool'. Many thanks to Brenda Love, Scott MacWilliam, Subramani,Mike Monsell-Davis, and especially John Correll, for their sustainedinterest in discussing these issues with me while fieldwork was underway. REFERENCES ABRAMSON, A. 2000. Bounding the Unbounded: Ancestral Land and Jural The principles of natural and positive rights recognized by law.Jural pertains to the rights and obligations sanctioned and governed by positive law or that law which is enacted by proper authority. Relations in the Interior of Eastern Fiji. In A. Abramson and D.Theodossopoulos (eds), Land, Law and Environment: Mythical Land, LegalBoundaries, pp. 191-210. London: Pluto Press. BOSNIAK, L. 2000. Citizenship Denationalized. Indiana Journal ofGlobal Legal Studies 7(2):447-509. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 1990. Constitution of the SovereignDemocratic Republic of Fiji (Promulgation PROMULGATION. The order given to cause a law to be executed, and to make it public it differs from publication. (q.v.) 1 Bl. Com. 45; Stat. 6 H. VI., c. 4. 2. ) Decree, 25 July 1990. Suva. GREENHOUSE, C. 2002. Citizenship, Agency and the Dream of Time. InA. Sarat, B. Garth and R.A. Kagan (eds), Looking Back at Law'sCentury, pp. 184-209. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 1999. Commentary. Political and Legal Anthropology Review22(2):104-109. KAPLAN, M. 1995. 'Blood on the Grass and Dogs WillSpeak': Ritual Politics and the Nation in Independent Fiji. In R.J.Foster (ed.), Nation Making: Emergent Identities in PostcolonialMelanesia, pp.95-125. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan (body, education) University of Michigan - A large cosmopolitan university in the Midwest USA. Over 50000 students are enrolled at the University of Michigan's three campuses. The students come from 50 states and over 100 foreign countries. Press. KELLY, J.D. 1998. Aspiring to Minority and Other Tactics againstViolence. In D.C. Gladney (ed.), Making Majorities: Constituting theNation in Japan, Korea, China, Malaysia, Fiji, Turkey and the UnitedStates, pp. 173-197. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 1992. Fiji Indians and 'Commoditization of Labor'.American Ethnologist eth��nol��o��gy?n.1. The science that analyzes and compares human cultures, as in social structure, language, religion, and technology; cultural anthropology.2. 19(1):97-120. 1990. Discourse about Sexuality and the End of Indenture in Fiji:The Making of Counter-Hegemonic Discourse. History and Anthropology5:19-61. KELLY, J.D. and M. KAPLAN. 2001. Represented Communities: Fiji andWorld Decolonization decolonizationProcess by which colonies become independent of the colonizing country. Decolonization was gradual and peaceful for some British colonies largely settled by expatriates but violent for others, where native rebellions were energized by nationalism. . Chicago: University of Chicago Press The University of Chicago Press is the largest university press in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including The Chicago Manual of Style, dozens of academic journals, including . LAL, B.V. 2000. A Time to Change: The Fiji General Elections of1999. In B.V. Lal (ed.), Fiji before the Storm: Elections and thePolitics of Development, pp.21-47. Canberra: Asia Pacific Press. 1997. Submissions. In A. Griffen (ed.), With Heart and Nerve andSinew sinew/sin��ew/ (sin��u) a tendon of a muscle.weeping sinew? an encysted ganglion, chiefly on the back of the hand, containing synovial fluid.sin��ewn. : Post-Coup Writing from Fiji, pp.327-346. Suva: Christmas Club. 1995. Managing Ethnicity in Colonial and Post-Colonial Fiji. InB.V. Lal and H. Nelson (eds), Lines across the Sea: Colonial Inheritancein the Post-Colonial Pacific, pp. 37-47. Brisbane: Pacific HistoryAssociation. 1992. Broken Waves: A History of the Fiji Islands in the TwentiethCentury. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press The University of Hawaiʻi Press is a university press that is part of the University of Hawaiʻi. . LAL, P. 2000. Land, Lome and the Fiji Sugar Industry. In B.V. Lal(ed.), Fiji before the Storm: Elections and the Politics of Development,pp. 111-133. Canberra: Asia Pacific Press. LAWSON, S. 1991. The Failure of Democratic Politics in Fiji.Oxford: Clarendon Press. NANDAN, S. 1991. The Wounded Sea. East Roseville: Simon andSchuster. NORTON, R. 2000. Understanding the Results of the 1999 FijiElections. In B.V. Lal (ed.), Fiji before the Storm: Elections and thePolitics of Development, pp.49-72. Canberra: Asia Pacific Press. RATUVA, S. 2002. Anatomizing the Vanua Complex: Intra-Communal LandDisputes and Implications on the Fijian Community. Paper presented atthe South Pacific Land Tenure Conflict Symposium, Suva. Available onlineat http://www.usp.ac.fj/landmgmt/pdf/webpapers/paper83ratuva.pdf. REDDY, M. and P. LAL. 2002. State Land Transfer in Fiji: Issues andImplications. Pacific Economic Bulletin. 17(1):146-153. SCARR, D. (ed.) 1983. Fiji: The Three-Legged Stool: SelectedWritings of Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna. London: Macmillan Education. SHARPHAM, J. 2000. Rabuka of Fiji: The Authorised Biography ofMajor-General Sitiveni Rabuka. Rockhampton: Central QueenslandUniversity Central Queensland University is an Australian public university based in Queensland. Its main campus in North Rockhampton Queensland, but it has operations throught Asia-Pacific. Press. TRNKA, S. in press. Between Victims and Assailants, Victims andFriends: Sociality and the Imagination in Indo-Fijian Narratives ofRural Violence During the May 2000 Fiji Coup. In A. Strathern, P.Stewart and N. Whitehead (eds), Terror and Violence: Imagination and theUnimaginable, pp.117-141. London: Pluto Press. 2004. Upahar Gaon. In. B.V. Lal (ed.), Bittersweet bittersweet,name for two unrelated plants, belonging to different families, both fall-fruiting woody vines sometimes cultivated for their decorative scarlet berries. : An Indo-FijianExperience, pp.135-150. Canberra: Pandanus Books. 2002. Foreigners at Home. Discourses of Difference, Fiji Indiansand the Looting of May 19th. In S. Trnka (Guest Editor), Ethnographiesof the May 2000 Fiji Coup. Special Issue of Pacific Studies 25(4):69-92. NOTES (1.) All of these figures are courtesy the Fiji Islands Bureau ofStatistics (personal communication, October 2005). The most currentrecords available are for August 2004. I have extrapolated figures forSeptember-December 2004 based on previous months. These numbers do nottake into account migration in 2005. (2.) I have also found Bosniak (2000) very useful in herdelineation of citizenship into the four aspects of legal stares, legalrights, political activity, and 'a form of collective identity andsentiment'. (3.) According to Deryck Scarr, Ram Sukuna's biographer, thereis no written record of Sukuna having used the metaphor, but it waswidely attributed to Sukuna by Fijians with whom Scarf spoke in theearly 1960s, so much so that Scarf titled his edited collection ofSukuna's writings Fiji: The Three-Legged Stool, Selected Writingsof Ram Sir Lala Sukuna (Scarr, personal communication, July 2003).Commentaries on Sukuna's use of the metaphor (including Kaplan1995; Lal, B.V. 1995 and Kelly and Kaplan 2001:121-142,174) generallyrefer the quote back to the title of Scarf's edited collection. (4.) Interpreting the 1999 election results as indicating thatChaudhry's People's Coalition had received support frommembers of both the Indo-Fijian and the indigenous Fijian electorate,Robert Norton wrote, 'the outcome of this most remarkable electionin Fiji's history signalled the possibility of a new phase inpolitical development: a government responding to popular interests thatcut across the ethnic divide' (Norton 2000:114). (5.) Fiji's first British governor, Sir Arthur Gordon, putinto place legislation that has reserved 83% of Fiji's land forindigenous Fijian ownership. Access to land for residential oragricultural use is currently administered by the Native Land TrustBoard (NLTB NLTB Native Land Trust Board (Fiji)), an indigenous Fijian body that has managed indigenousFijian land since the 1940s. Leases under the current AgriculturalLandlord and Tenant Act (ALTA) began expiring in 1997 and many of theexpired leases have not been renewed, raising concern in the last decadeover the fate of Indo-Fijian tenants (Lal, P. 2000). The Qarasegovernment has given its support to proposed changes in land management(from ALTA to NLTA NLTA Newfoundland and Labrador Teachers' AssociationNLTA NRL (Naval Research Laboratory)Low-Frequency Test ArrayNLTA Non-Lethal Training AmmunitionNLTA No Lost Time AccidentNLTA National League of Teachers' Associations or the Native Land Trust Act), a move which would putinto place more flexible leasing periods, with a range from 5 to 30years, thus further adding to the insecurity faced by tenants. In 2002,the Qarase government furthermore passed two land bills that revertedsome Crown Land to the governance of the NLTB, increasing the amount ofland owned exclusively by indigenous Fijians and administered by theNLTB to approximately 87% (Reddy and Lal 2002). (6.) It is difficult to get exact numbers regarding the extent ofthe violence. An Amnesty International Amnesty International(AI,) human-rights organization founded in 1961 by Englishman Peter Benenson; it campaigns internationally against the detention of prisoners of conscience, for the fair trial of political prisoners, to abolish the death penalty and torture of Report(http://web.amnesty.org/web/ar2001.nsf/webasacountries/FIJI?OpenDocument) written in 2001 concludes that 'hundreds of Indo-Fijian homes andbusinesses were burned down or looted' and that 'at least1,000 Indo-Fijians were internally displaced or made homeless as aresult of the violence and thousands were forced to leave leasedproperties.' But much of the violence was left unreported. (7.) Much more could be said about the implications of the'Unity Bill'. Given, however, that the exact contents of thisproposed legislation are still being debated in the Fiji Parliament asthis paper goes to press, I will refrain from doing so here. (8.) I do not want, however, to imply that there was an absence ofany public demonstrations on the part of Indo-Fijians. In Western VitiLevu, as early as June 2000, predominantly Indo-Fijian sugar canefarmers raised the possibility of a cane strike, drawing upon historicalprecedents of work stoppage as a form of political protest (see alsoKelly and Kaplan 2001, esp. Ch. 6). Indo-Fijians also actively took partin a day of national prayer for peace in early August 2000. Anotherwidespread protest occurred on 'Fiji Day' in October 2000 whenprotesters against the military regime wore the colour blue. In themonths following May 19th there were also frequent letters to the editorin newspapers and heated political discussions of radio talkback talk��back?n.A system of communications links in a television or radio studio that enables directions to be given while a program is being produced. shows(both in English and in Hindi). Repeated calls for a general strike didnot, however, materialize and many Indo-Fijians I spoke with expressedfear over losing even more of their wages when the country was enteringa financial crisis. For reasons of personal safety, the level of overtpublic demonstration against the political situation was nowhere nearthat of Indo-Fijian protestors in Australia, New Zealand, and theUS--primarily California--who took to the streets demanding the returnof the democratically-elected government. (9.) See also Abramson (2000:208) for a related point on howindigenous Fijian nationalists portray Indians as relating to land aspurely a commodity in order to bolster the nationalist cause. (10.) For more on local constructions of community and thesensibility of community belonging among Indo-Fijians, see Trnka (2004). (11.) There are glimmers of other popular forms of nationalsolidarity. In February 2000, Fiji's rugby team won the Fiji Sevensin Brisbane to the delight of indigenous Fijian and Indo-Fijian fansalike. Some felt it to be a moment of national celebration. A20-year-old Indo-Fijian woman, for example, told me she'd urged herfather to watch the game with her, telling him it is 'one nation,one people' out on the field and that the players are 'playingfor the nation'. But whether a nation can be (re)built throughrugby remains to be seen. Susanna Trnka University of Auckland