I was saddened to read this. I could have hoped that Chaudhry would have accepted that it is important for him to stand aside, even to the point of persuading his loyal supporters of this. Not because I believe the demonisation of Chaudhry engaged in by the Fijian racist extremists (who euphemistically call themselves Nationalists). But it is hard to avoid the conclusion that "principles" have become inextricably bound to his own wounded pride and outrage (forgivable given what he has suffered). It is a big ask, but it would be better for Fiji if he could rise above these things and make a pragmatic judgement of what actions on his part might best contribute to Fiji's emergence from the international, economic and ethical wilderness into which it has been, and is being, plunged. Pragmatic realism is something no politician can afford to lose, at risk of rendering himself ineffectual.

I really don't believe there is any prospect of Chaudhry ever again holding the post of PM, whatever the outcome of the appeal against the judgement of Justice Gates on the illegality of the current government. His reinstatement in the climate prevailing in Fiji today would be incendiary. That he evidently can't, or won't accept this is perhaps not surprising - compromise has never been his long suit. It was not to the fore when, in the heady atmosphere of a landslide election win, he ignored the more cautious instincts of colleagues who suggested that a Fijian like Adi Kuini Bavadra Speed, or Dr Tupeni Baba, should hold the post of PM. He was unwilling to be the power behind the throne, seeing it again as a matter of principle that he had earned that office and would take it. "It has to happen sometime," he is reported to have said. Perhaps, but on the shaky foundation of an untried constitution and in a climate of over a decade of post-Coup racist rhetoric? Then he set about using the power of his legislative majority to force through land-law reform, although in his first speech after the elections he acknowledged this as the most contentious and divisive issue facing his government. What was required was the most sensitive diplomacy and delicate legislation. What was proposed relied not on sensitivity, but on legal authority. Events showed, as they have over recent years in many parts of the world, what a frail vessel that can be when ethnic hostilities are concerned.

In the very first posting I sent out the day after the illegal seizure of parliament on 19 May last year, I observed that it was to be hoped that the experience would cause Chaudhry and his party to re-think strategies that I categorised as "suicidal". I believe that one of the revised strategies should have been for Chaudhry to step aside, and appoint Tupeni Baba as party head and PM-designate. There was, in the uncertainty following the hostage release, at least a glimmer of a prospect for a return to lawful process. Speight's continued posturing during that period was, after all, fairly smartly dealt with by his arrest. It is not unimaginable that, had the Labour party acted promptly enough, it just MIGHT have made their reinstatement seem possible in practical terms, to a military administration caught between international odium and a desperation to avoid a local conflagration. Chaudhry Labour missed that window of opportunity, however tiny or unlikely it may have seemed - indeed I can recall no public indication that Chaudhry ever gave any thought to the obstacle his leadership posed to his government's possible reinstatement. The cobbled-together unelected "interim" regime that resulted now seems resolutely opposed to a return to impartially-elected government. Indeed, if its present direction prevails, that may become impossible in the foreseeable future.

It was pointed out on the ABC's "Background Briefing" on 4 Feb 2001, that half the people seeking to emigrate away from Fiji today are indigenous Fijians - totally unlike the situation following the 87 Coup and its aftermath, when the outward rush was overwhelmingly of Indians. This seems to me to support what I have maintained all along, that there are a lot of ethically decent, politically moderate Fijians, who are sick to death of watching their once happy and prosperous country sink to the level of the lowest common denominator, with no end in sight to the fear of the incipient violence becoming manifest. I do not believe that such people support the rhetoric of the illegitimate regime now in power, and they may well support the return of the elected Labour government under an ethnic Fijian Prime Minister, even in the face of a probable backlash from extremists. But given the damage last year's events have caused to the healing process that was occurring after 1987, it seems highly unlikely that even they would support the reinstatement of a Labour government under Chaudhry, which they would with good cause see as not merely unwise but, in the present climate, provocative. And what if a majority of those moderate Fijians are successful in quitting the country, along with many Indians whose courageous opposition to the rule of hatred has made them targets of abuse and violence for so long? What sort of Fiji will this leave in which Chaudhry or his supporters could attempt to raise a political voice? It is a dismal prospect indeed.

Not for a moment do I suggest that it is right or proper that any of the events of the past 9 months should have occurred. Chaudhry is quite justifiably outraged that the principles of law and order, and democratic process, were flouted by Speight and his cohort, and then further subverted by the actions of first, the military authorities in failing to reaffirm the constitution and insist on a return to constitutional government by those elected to carry it on, and second, by the efforts of the regime they placed in power, to rationalise racially-based injustice and work out a scheme to entrench it.

But despite these painful and regrettable events, the aphorism remains that politics is the art of the possible. At this stage in its social and political development, it seems to me that all that is possible if Fiji is to return to a just and law-abiding society, is for it to wear the face of, and occur under the official authority of, moderate and enlightened indigenous Fijians, such as I believe Baba and some of the other legitimate parliamentarians to be. The Bavadra government's fate showed how hard even that can be, but it still has more hope than any Indian-led government might. However unjust that is in the eyes of most of the world, and however frustrating it must be to bright and ambitious Indians, it is a stark reality. And such an administration could foster the education of all ethnicities that must underpin true and lasting social evolution. That's a slow process, certainly it will take a generation or more. But it has been nearly a generation since Rabuka switched out the lights of progress in 1987. Fiji is a long, long way further from achieving a cohesive community of all its people, than it was when he struck. What is going on in high places today, with the misnamed "constitutional review" and the official pronouncements of Qarase and others, is driving it ever further from that goal. I fear it is a forlorn hope to imagine that justice can be achieved by brandishing aloft concepts of human rights, or constitutions, or any other products of socially and politically sophisticated societies. Fiji has shown, to the surprise of the rest of the world, what a long road it has to travel before it is one of those. Indeed, we have recently heard Qarase espousing that other burgeoning myth (first stated unambiguously by Professor Asesela Ravuvu in his 1991 book The facade of Democracy) that "liberal" Western democracy is an inappropriate model for Fijian society.

What I am sure about is that for Fijians to move past the opiate myths of "indigenous supremacy" and itovo vakavanua (Fijian traditions), they must be brought to clearly understand what an inevitably disastrous journey they have embarked upon - not just for other groups in Fiji, but for themselves and, above all, their children. But it is also clear that the only voices they will be prepared to heed will speak to them in unaccented Fijian. As the events of last year have shown us, attempting to legislate them into change, without paying adequate attention to their needs and aspirations, or doing the hard yards of education and persuasion first, merely makes them mulishly resistant, and drives Fiji further backwards down paths we all once thought it had successfully negotiated years ago.

Rod Ewins © 4 February 2001. This note is copyright. Apart from those uses permitted under theCopyright Act 1968 (as amended), no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission from the author.