Ethnicity Data and Fijian Politics
ast week, I discussed the law and governance issues (separation of powers between the legislature/cabinet/policy and the executive/execution of policies). This week we look into the collection, use and abuse of ethnicity data in Fiji.
We need not look into the collection of data on religion, as there appears to be universal agreement that such data is indeed irrelevant or unhelpful unless it is used to try a Sunday Ban policy again which oppressed both Christians and non-Christians in Fiji and it certainly did not help a struggling economy.
The majority of those affected by that struggling economy would be the community with the greatest number, iTaukei again, mostly Christians too.
And the Sunday Ban was the policy and law from an unthinking government proclaiming to be pro iTaukei. Unthinking because their policies and laws did not match their rhetoric. Their focus on ethnicity and religion took the iTaukei backwards and the multipliers left the iTaukei even further back for decades until today. As even the most recent Bureau of Statistics survey attests (very narrow sampling aside).
Professor Wadan Narsey article
Moving on, it did not take a minute online to gather relevant academic writings for this article. The best one by Professor Wadan Narsey writing from the USP, published by the Australian National University in 2008 and uploaded to an academic website in the United Kingdom.
Professor Narsey’s academic piece is titled “The incidence of poverty and the poverty gap in Fiji: unpalatable facts for ethno-centric political parties.”
It discussed an erroneous Fiji Government and UNDP report of 1997 and surveys done between 1990-91 and 2002-3. As we have heard from parliament these last few days, a survey is a snapshot or sample of the economy. It is not a holistic and more thorough study like a census which the current Minister for Agriculture has done for that sector of the economy.
The census is a better, more thorough basis from which to draft policies, however surveys will be more than sufficient if policymakers can see through the drama and fireworks of race and religion. The Minister for Economy also said in Parliament this week that the recent survey by the Bureau of Statistics pointed out in their own report that they took their samples from the interior of Viti Levu and Vanua Levu where we can all assume the concentration of the surveyed is iTaukei. Very few if any other community of Fijians reside in those places.
Further, the surveys that Professor Narsey refers to is of both income and base poverty line whereas the most recent survey is only based on consumption.
Notwithstanding, I was taken aback reading all three which are decades apart but telling a similar story.
It was like sitting with my relations again in the interior of Viti Levu and other iTaukei communities from the interior of both big islands for the rare chat about needs, services and aspirations.
Analysis
The summary from all three sets of figures don’t lie to me based on my own travels and discussions in those places. Far more importantly, the Government of Fiji which is way more in touch with those parts of Fiji through the separate iTaukei government (Ministry of iTaukei Affairs) and the Ministry of Agriculture for all Fijians will know what is behind those figures very, very well.
Not just this government, previous governments too.
Instead of looking for ethnicity or religion in the various sets of surveys and figures, every Fijian should be looking at how each and every government has responded to the data. Which response has worked, which has not worked, which has worked best and which has worked worst.
All three sets of figures show that those Fijians of all ethnicities who live in the rural areas are always worse off than Fijians of all ethnicities in the urban areas. Further, the more distant Fijians of all ethnicities are from government services and spending (urban areas), the worse off they are.
The older surveys point out that Indo Fijians in the rural areas are the worst off in terms of income or the basic poverty line. Then comes the iTaukei in the rural areas then the Indo Fijians in the urban areas then the Taukei in the urban areas.
The most recent survey had a similar divide in terms of rural and urban but it declared that it took its sample from where at least 90 per cent of the population would be iTaukei and then found that the iTaukei were the most poor of all poor Fijians in those rural areas.
That should not surprise anyone where 90 per cent of the community is of that one ethnicity but it did a great disservice to the poor from other ethinc communities in the other rural areas in Fiji.
As Professor Wadan Narsey said in summary of the older surveys (before the common, national name ‘Fijian’) “The relative positions of the lines (with no crossing over) indicate that there is a particular order of intensity of poverty, implying which sub-group is ‘most poor’, given a common value for the BNPL. In the range of values given for the BNPL, the ‘most poor’ will always be rural IndoFijians, followed closely by rural Fijians. At significantly lower poverty rates will be urban Indo-Fijians and, at even lower rates, urban Fijians. Clearly, the rural–urban differentiation of poverty is far more important than the ethnic differentiation that political parties show a proclivity towards focusing on.”
Policies, surveys
Both the current government and its predecessors can list their policies that responded to such surveys (old and new) which still shows that rural Fijians of all ethnicities lag behind Fijians of all ethnicities in the urban areas.
But from memory and reading, I recall the Alliance government (Ratu Mara) focussed on the foundations and basics of institutions (civil service and unions) and services like roads, water and electricity (everywhere but mostly urban); the latter continued by the SVT (Soqosoqo ni Vakavulewa ni Taukei) party and SDL (Soqosoqo Duavata ni Lewenivanua) party with the additional focus on lifting the middle class (Fijian Holdings Limited/ class A shares/urban but also class B shares for the provinces) and tourism (resorts) however both the SVT and SDL coming off the backs of the 1987 and 2000 coups which had heavily shelled institutions including the civil service, unions and private sector with massive brain drain.
With agriculture, forestry and fisheries- the Alliance government (Ratu Mara) worked hard on sugar and pine. SVT and SDL added mahogany but SVT began the decline of the sugar industry (which was then still the largest foreign earner).
They added mahogany (most benefits to the government/urban) with not much innovation by all three governments in fisheries. That aided ocean plunder by foreign vessels and the loss of billions of dollars of our resources to foreigners over Fijians.
The military as a policy option was begun under the Alliance government and sustained by the SVT then SDL until today. Their cost/benefit analysis I had given in parliament with solutions for reform and upgrade for the betterment of the military and Fiji.
The interim government post 2000 coup did make a splash for rural Fijians from an LPO scheme for agriculture but it did not appear to have any structure or well thought out targets. Which left it open to the abuse of public funds.
Current Governmnt interest
The current Government appears to have taken more active interest in the rural/urban divide- providing easier access to land leasing, finance and know-how to Fijians in the rural areas or urban Fijians wanting to transition; better roads through Bua, Naitasiri and parts of Navosa; better hospital in Navosa and Kadavu; providing better facilities at municipal markets for vendors and access to local and overseas markets with the national airline forced by the pandemic to make the transport of cargo more efficient too,
As I wrote in an earlier article, legislation like that which was Bill 17 of 2021 adds to the removal of red tape and costs benefitting the least empowered in the rural areas to keep growing their investments on native land.
Such assistance not being required by wealthier Fijians in the urban areas or foreign investors with their ready access to lawyers and accountants to deal with red tape.
Back to Professor Narsey who is also a luminary of the National Federation Party (NFP) as a former Member of Parliament (and the current leader of the NFP was his student at USP), the Professor was clearly not excited by the intervention of ethnicity in the reading of poverty in Fiji to determine policy responses.
And a needs based assessment of poverty would favour more iTaukei in most places anyway because we constitute the biggest number of the population.
Quoting Professor Narsey on that issue and the older surveys which are still relevant “Even though the rate of poverty incidence is higher for Indo-Fijians (and especially rural Indo-Fijians), a policy to help the poor based on need (rather than ethnicity) would still allocate a larger share of poverty-alleviation resources to indigenous Fijians and could even be called ‘an affirmative action policy for Fijians based on need’. This would be legitimate, provided that the Indo-Fijian poor received their fair share of 47 per cent of the poverty alleviation resources.”
This ‘need not race’ basis of citizenry was also championed by the founder of the NFP, Mr A D Patel.
Again, as Professor Narsey wrote in 2008 “It would be far more pragmatic and unifying to have a common BNPL value for each region (rural or urban, division or province) for the purpose of poverty alleviation measures.
It must be kept in mind that certain public sector-subsidised investments such as roads, water, sewerage, electricity and telecommunications are not exclusive to any ethnic group: once provided, they are enjoyed by all ethnic groups in that area.”
Setback
It appears that the only setback to such progress is our conservative political parties who need the race card to court their voters.
Quoting Professor Narsey again on the older but still relevant surveys “This ‘mixed message’ might not be palatable to the ethnocentric political parties. It should be noted that the largest share overall would accrue to rural Fijians (with 35 per cent), with the next largest share accruing to rural IndoFijians (24 per cent). In aggregate, the rural poor would be entitled to 61 per cent of the resources…
“Since 2005, there has been little urgency on the part of any government to discuss and disseminate these poverty results publicly. While the FLP would find the results for the incidence of poverty politically useful (as they indicate that the poorest ethnic group is Indo-Fijians), the results for the poverty gap (which favour the allocation of a greater share of resources to Fijians) would be politically uncomfortable. In contrast, the SDL would find the poverty-gap results useful for its policy of ‘affirmative action for Fijians’, but would find the poverty incidence results (to Indo Fijians) politically uncomfortable. Both political parties therefore disregard the poverty results.”
As I wrote in this paper last week and quoted by the Minister in Parliament this weekthe cries for ethnicity data is ‘manufactured angst’. When it was government policy to collect them, they were either ignored or misusedfor the Sunday Ban, enlarging the gap between rural poor and urban elite, used in a knee jerk fashion for the LPO sponsored agriculture programme or used by ethnocentric parties to create and sustain racial division that has cost this country billions of dollars through political crises, brain drain, financial capital drain and devaluation of the dollar.
All of which enlarged the same divides between rural and urban Fijians which every successive government of whatever stripe will have to think long and hard about ameliorating into the future.
Ethnicity data good for Fiji?
And the beginning of such thought processes must be whether the collection of ethnicity data is good for Fiji or does it bring much more harm than any good as very recent history has taught us.
Very simply put, do we wish to continue with the collection of ethnicity data at this time and the real risks of losing billions of dollars more through more political instability, brain drain, financial capital drain and devaluation of the dollar?
For my part and my friends, I can say that our policy statements to address the sets of surveys discussed and the issues they bring up (without reference in our statements to ethnicity or religion) attacks the problems with solutions from a very different and strategic angle and we are pleased to see that the current government favours quite a few of them already in implementation.