Rethinking Fiji coups : corporate domination and an unseen order

Abstract

Fiji has been buffeted by three waves of external influences that profoundly reconfigured its demographics, national identity and polity, and laid the foundation for contemporary conflicts. This thesis argues that an unseen order was externally imposed and then covertly consolidated during the three distinctive phases of Fiji's politico-economic development (colonialism, neocolonialism and neoliberalism). Against the backdrop of this periodisation, it examines the interpolation of this unseen order in the country's political processes and its impact on the three coups between 1987 and 2000. It argues that the unseen order and its complex web of interdependencies still exist and continue to serve the interests of the trans-national corporations and the dominant regional powers, closely allied with the indigenous Fijian ruling elites and the local corporate interests. The nature of their commercial arrangements, political alliances and allegiances remains literally 'invisible' and actualises an 'unseen' economic and political reality that facilitates exploitation of the country and its populace. It is suggested that, far from a product of conspiracy theory, this unseen order fiercely competes for the control of the country's resources and its national psyche, thereby generating a substratum of thrust and counterthrust which contributes to the recrudescence of sporadic violence and a coup culture. The dominant narratives on the first three coups strongly impressed a sense of an ethnocultural conflict without critical consideration of the deeper rationale beyond the 'perceived' inter-ethnic confrontations. This thesis sets out to demonstrate the omissions and inconsistencies in the justifications for the coups, arguing that a real but unmanifested conflict existed between the strategic objectives of a hegemonic paradigm and other forces allied with the ruling indigenous elites, against the aspirations of ordinary indigenous Fijians and the diasporic labour force that transmigrated from the sub-continent. In the light of this overarching consideration, the study identifies and interrogates a number of endogenous myths about the conflicted developments in Fiji and attempts to deconstruct them by confronting the continuing indigenous Fijian acceptance of the unseen order. Historically, their raison d'être has been largely exploitive and detrimental to indigenous Fijian interests, yet they appear to be more affronted by calls for the restoration of democratic traditions and power-sharing with their compatriots in a government with fair ethnic composition. Accordingly, the thesis asserts that the image of the 'three-legged stool', as metaphorically utilised by Ratu Lala Sukuna, has largely disappeared from the post-colonial and post-coup discourse. It suggests that the 'third leg' has become not only invisible but fully integrated with the unseen order, losing its original symbolism to become a tertium comparationis subsumed by the fantasies of Fiji's political intrigue and melodrama.

Date of Award	2010
Original language	English