Alfred Tora

During the inaugural Indigenous Knowledge conference at FNU Namaka, I got the opportunity to talanoa with people from numerous backgrounds—academia, applied sciences, practitioners—and came back with different perspectives of what the progression of Fiji could look like.

The conference included young chiefs who were undergoing a leadership development program with the expectation that they would become future leaders in their own communities and the country. I applaud the initiative because it underlines a few beliefs of mine on leadership—that leaders need to adapt to the times and that developing their skillsets is a necessity.

After a particularly long day at the conference, I spent the evening with an Indigenous Fijian friend who’s a successful professional, discussing the centering of these chiefs as future leaders and what we could do to help in developing Fiji. He raised a line of inquiry that I felt is extremely relevant as we envision the future. To contextualize, although he grew up in Suva, he knows his paternal and maternal traditional roles and his roots in the vanua. The questions posed were:

1. Why should he share the knowledge he had accumulated through his own merit with those that were born into leadership roles?
2. What benefits would he get back for helping the vanua if there hasn’t been any effort to connect with him prior to his success?
3. Why aren’t there seats at the vanua table being given to high achievers in the urban centers?

As we continued our veitalanoa, I formulated a few questions to add.

1. Is there a disconnect between urban Indigenous Fijians and the vanua?
2. Is this disconnect a general trend?
3. What are “solutions” to reconnect? Is there a need to connect?
4. What spaces can we create for high achievers to share their knowledge with the vanua that they are rooted in?

Although I talk here on the perspectives of urban Indigenous Fijians, I would assume that the same questions are being asked by all urban Fijians, regardless of ethnicity. With that in mind, I would like you to reframe this whole exercise to your own perspective.

I don’t have the answers to a lot of these questions and I believe that a national dialogue needs to take place if we are serious about moving forward. However, I will include my thoughts of our veitalanoa here, in the hopes that this starts the conversation.

Disconnect or Discontent?

Upon reflecting on our veitalanoa, I felt that there was a need to clarify whether his opinions were indicators of a disconnect between urban Fijians and the vanua OR was it discontent in keeping to the status quo? The clarification needs to be made so that our journey to enlightenment operates under the correct assumptions or we won’t be able to arrive at the appropriate solution / suggestion.

If it is indeed a disconnect then the logical step would be to identify ways to reconnect the individual back to the roots. It could start with reconnecting to the family units (tokatoka and mataqali) before moving into aligning to the vanua leadership. This would be the best case scenario, in my mind. The process seems straight forward enough, assuming that reconnecting leads to the vanua providing spaces in the traditional setting for the individual to have his/her voice heard.

But what if it’s not that?

If it is discontent then things get a little more complicated. As every good scientist knows, in order to find solutions we would need to start by asking the right questions. Is the discontentment directed toward the traditional role of the individual, which would prevent his/her contributions to be acknowledged—i.e. a role that has tabu relationships with the chiefs so social decorum removes efficient dialogue? In the family units (tokatoka/mataqali), does discontentment stem from intergenerational conflict—i.e. the older generation aren’t open to listening to a young member? Is it discontentment due to the lack of upward mobility that an individual could expect in Western settings—i.e. promotions at work and within society? We then also have to review whether these are generalized phenomena that applies to everyone in that group (successful urban individuals) or whether it’s individualized (different people are discontented for different reasons), whether these are the only reasons or whether it’s something else.

I have to admit that I believe that it is discontent because sometimes I feel that too. I am blessed that I have been given spaces to share my insights and I recognize that not everyone gets that opportunity. I also believe that not having spaces at the table for those that have the skills and knowledge to contribute to the development of the vanua, whether in social or economic endeavors, is a costly mistake.

Leadership Involvement

In a strict hierarchical structure with a high power distance such as can be found in traditional Fiji, I believe the easiest solution would be for chiefs to create these spaces for the urban individual to feel safe enough to contribute. This policy would have to come from the top for it to be effective.

I believe adapting a privy council type of space for all spheres of the vanua—i.e. councils at the tokatoka, mataqali, and vanua levels.

I call to attention that in the traditional Indigenous Fijian power structure the role of advisers, in my interpretation, lies in the Sauturaga (often translated to kingmakers). Would the suggestion of a privy council include sauturaga and qualified urban individuals? Or would it mean developing individuals from the sauturaga clan to create advisers with proficient knowledge in law, business, finance? I would think that the former would be the natural order of things.

I must admit that I don’t have the knowledge to see whether there are current structures that allow for this flexibility. If there are, how is it that this disconnect or discontent still exist? It just may be that we simply aren’t talking enough about it for it be relevant!

Case Studies Required

To truly understand this topic, I call for case studies to be conducted. I would love to partner with traditional units that are successfully utilizing their urban sons and daughters in their efforts, to see how they have done it. If there aren’t examples, currently, then I would love to partner with units that would like to develop frameworks to allow these spaces.

But there has to be work done now!

We cannot continue advancing with grand plans and schemes without addressing this glaring topic that people seem to ignore.

Hard Truths

The hard truth, in my opinion, is that our connection with the vanua has weakened. This is especially true for urban Fijians and those in the diaspora. Our society is such that our daily priorities shifts our focus to our nuclear units and ourselves. We feel suffocated with bills and prices that we can’t think about contributing time and effort toward something that we are disconnected from and discontent with. That isn’t a bad thing! We should not feel guilty if we would rather work toward building a future for ourselves and our children.

I say “we” because I have these feelings too. The reason the veitalanoa kept coming back to me was because it resonated with how I felt. Being of Indigenous Fijian and Rotuman descent meant that I didn’t “belong”. This veitalanoa with my friend made me realize that there could be more to it and that there haven’t been concerted efforts made to address it.

I want to close by explicitly stating the point I am trying to make.

We need to face the music and admit that the majority of our knowledge resources—people with the right skillset, knowledge, ideas, and innovations—do not feel the need to help in developing the vanua.

This knowledge resource that I speak of does not—and should not—only include Indigenous Fijians. I operate under the belief that I can learn from everyone I come in contact with and, with that in mind, I also believe that every Fijian—regardless of ethnicity or religion—can contribute to our national and vanua development efforts. But do they feel the need to? Are there spaces in the vanua that allows that?

Current efforts are being made toward developing our traditional chiefs to take leadership roles in the vanua but what would that look like if the people they are supposed to lead do not feel it necessary to be led?