Reconciling Ethnicity and Nation: Contending Discourses in Fiji's Consitutional Reform
Date
2000
Authors
Contributor
Advisor
Department
Instructor
Depositor
Speaker
Researcher
Consultant
Interviewer
Narrator
Transcriber
Annotator
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Hawai'i Press
Center for Pacific Islands Studies
Center for Pacific Islands Studies
Volume
Number/Issue
Starting Page
Ending Page
Alternative Title
Abstract
The process of Fiji’s recent constitutional reform highlighted the dilemma of reconciling a principle of indigenous Fijian paramountcy with an imperative to shape a multiethnic nation for which non-Fijian, particularly Indian, contributions have long been crucial. The article addresses this dilemma in a discussion of the dominant themes in public discourse about constitutional change, and the relation of these themes to the values, pressures, and opportunities of three arenas: ethnic, national, and international. Three contrasting paradigms for the nation are identified: a universalist vision grounded in international human rights ideology, an exclusionary Fijian ethnonationalism affirmed most strongly in the army coups of 1987 and their aftermath, and an interethnic accommodation and partnership in which leading Fijian chiefs continue to have a stabilizing and legitimating function. The last model prevailed in the constitutional reform, demonstrating a continuity with trends in the shaping of political culture during colonial and early postcolonial times. The story of the constitutional reform is in part the saga of how the ethnonationalist coup maker who became prime minister, Sitiveni Rabuka, has tried to remake himself as a national leader. In the crucial role he eventually assumed as overseer of reform, he depended on support from chiefs and their councils. The paper concludes, against much of the postcoup literature on Fiji, that over the long term the major significance of the chiefs in the national political arena is not as a privileged “vested interest” group obstructing a solution to the problem of establishing a viable democratic polity, but as part of this solution.
Description
Keywords
chiefs, constitutional reform, ethnicity, Fiji, nation, political change, Rabuka, Oceania -- Periodicals.
Citation
Norton, R. 2000. Reconciling Ethnicity and Nation: Contending Discourses in Fiji's Consitutional Reform. The Contemporary Pacific 12 (1): 83-122.
Extent
Format
Geographic Location
Time Period
Related To
Related To (URI)
Table of Contents
Rights
Rights Holder
Local Contexts
Email libraryada-l@lists.hawaii.edu if you need this content in ADA-compliant format.