Fiji

Fiji is a Pacific island nation built on the collision of cultures—Melanesian, Polynesian, and Indian—whose political instability reflects tensions the British colonial system created and independence has not resolved. Four coups since 1987 have derailed democracy; each emerged from the same ethnic faultline between indigenous Fijians and Indo-Fijian descendants of indentured laborers.

The Lapita people settled Fiji around 3,500 years ago, arriving from Southeast Asia via Melanesia. From Fiji, this culture spread to Tonga and Samoa, where distinctively Polynesian societies evolved—making Fiji a crossroads between Melanesian and Polynesian worlds. The indigenous Fijian culture that developed over millennia incorporated elements of both: complex chieftainships, elaborate ceremonial traditions, and a language distinct from either neighbor. European contact began in the 17th century; missionaries and traders followed in the 19th.

The 1874 British annexation created the Colony of Fiji, but it was the sugar economy that created the ethnic division that still defines politics. When indigenous Fijians proved reluctant to work plantations under colonial discipline, Britain imported indentured laborers from India—over 60,000 between 1879 and 1916. These workers and their descendants built the sugar industry; their population eventually approached parity with indigenous Fijians. The colonial system kept the communities separate: different schools, different legal systems, different landholding rules (indigenous Fijians retained communal land rights that Indo-Fijians could not access).

Independence came in 1970, but the underlying tension remained. In April 1987, a coalition supported mainly by Indo-Fijians won the general election, forming Fiji's first majority-Indian government. Within a month, Lieutenant Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka staged a coup; a second coup in September made him undisputed ruler. Fiji was expelled from the Commonwealth; international recognition was withdrawn; the 1970 constitution was revoked. The coups triggered Indo-Fijian emigration that reinforced indigenous Fijian majority—solving the "Indian problem" through population flight rather than accommodation.

Democratic governance resumed in the 1990s but collapsed again in 2000 (George Speight's coup) and 2006 (Commodore Frank Bainimarama's seizure of power). Bainimarama ruled as military dictator until 2014, when a new constitution abolished communal voting in favor of one-person-one-vote. He won elections under the new system and governed until 2022, when his party lost to a coalition. The transition represented Fiji's most successful democratic handover—though the 2013 constitution itself emerged from military rule.

The economic cost of instability is measurable. Fiji grew rapidly in the 1960s-70s but stagnated in the 1980s; each coup pushed the country onto a lower growth trajectory. The garment industry that emerged after 1987 provided some diversification, but tourism remains the dominant sector. Climate vulnerability compounds political fragility—cyclones regularly devastate infrastructure, and rising sea levels threaten low-lying communities.

Through 2026, Fiji navigates between competing constitutional visions. The Methodist Church, politically powerful among indigenous Fijians, supports returning to the 1997 constitution that entrenched ethnic Fijian rights, including political powers for the Great Council of Chiefs. The 2013 constitution's individual-rights framework remains contested. A nation created by combining peoples who never asked to share a state continues debating what coexistence requires.