THESE last few weeks the Great Council of Chiefs has stirred up the hornets’ nest by calling for the term “Fijian” to be reserved for indigenous Fijians only and that citizens in general be called “Fiji Islanders” as in the 1997 Constitution.

Prime Minister Rabuka has responded with the contrary view also supported by former Deputy Prime Minister Professor Biman Prasad, that all Fiji citizens should be called “Fijian” as that would tend to unify the nation.

We can all have our own personal views on these questions: PM Rabuka, the political parties, the social organizations, the GCC, the Non-State Actors, international commentators, etc.

But may I humbly suggest that with Fiji facing so many intractable and worsening problems (like collapse of the sugar industry, rising cost of living and fuel, our still rising Public Debt, continued emigration of much needed skills, continued subordination of women, and many others) there is no need to waste our valuable social energy on this issue of a common name for Fiji citizens.

I suggest that whatever our personal views, the only solution is that Fiji must follow the “Rule of Law” and whatever the “prevailing Fiji Constitution” stipulates.

If anyone, including the GCC or ethnonationalists think otherwise, then they are free to bring about the relevant changes in the Constitution through Parliament and the “Rule of Law”- not through guns or coups or public social agitation.

May I also humbly suggest that the Fiji Parliament uses the opportunity afforded by the next General Elections to have a simple Referendum ballot paper which asks all voters: What should Fiji citizens be called: “Fijians” OR “Fiji Islanders” OR “don’t care” (tick one box)?

But what “Prevailing Fiji Constitution”?

If you had asked me this common name question between 2009 and August 2025 (the date of the “Supreme Court Opinion”), I would have had a different answer from that today, probably agreeing with the GCC views today.

In that earlier period:

-I had argued that the Fiji Appeals Court in 2009 had rejected Bainimarama’s treasonous overthrow of the lawfully elected Qarase Government and rejected the alleged abrogation of the 1997 Constitution (in which all Fiji citizens were called “Fiji Islanders”);

-I had opposed the Bainimarama Government’s Military Decree which declared that all Fiji citizens be called “Fijians”. My article “Fijians and iTaukei by military decree” was censored in Fiji but published in Auckland University’s Pacific Scoop of 16 February 2011 (readers can find this in my Volume 4 of community education articles Towards a Decent Fiji, Reading 77 available for free on my website NarseyOnFiji.

-I had opposed the 2013 Constitution which had been brutally imposed on Fiji by military decree; never approved by any parliament (although the Bainimarama Government controlled Parliament from 2014 to 2022); never approved by any Referendum (despite three opportunities during the elections of 2014, 2018 and 2022).

Yet to change a single line in the 2013 Constitution the Bainimarama Government dictators required a 75% majority in Parliament and a Referendum supported by 75% of the registered voters (a virtual impossibility). What a joke and constitutional farce I had thought.

So my strong view in this period before August 2025 was that the term “Fijian” was a contested term and should not be forcibly used for all Fiji citizens, however desirable from the point of view of national identity and unity.

By opposing the Bainimarama Regime, I had even lost my many progressive friends of thirty years, because they approved of Bainimarama and his use of that term for Indo-Fijians, 90% of whom voted for Bainimarama in the 2014 elections.

Then the astonishing Auguest 2025 Supreme Court Opinion

For me, this debate was turned on its head by the August 2025 Supreme Court Opinion which had been strangely sought by the Coalition Government on a number of issues, including the conditions for changing the 2013 Constitution.

Read my Fiji Times article of 13 Aug. 2025 (“The Fiji Constitution: pragmatists defeat the purists”) when I had argued that the fundamental principles of “Rule of Law” required that no treasonous illegal changes to constitutions should ever be approved socially or go unpunished.

But the Panel of Supreme Court judges (including a former Australian Chief Justice) chaired by current Chief Justice Salesi Temo ruled that despite the “democratic deficit” in the origins of the 2013 Constitution, it had been in place for more than 12 years during which time three elections were held, over 400 laws passed by parliament and many public officials (including the judges themselves) had been appointed, effectively becoming Fiji’s “Common Law”.

The learned Panel of Supreme Court Judges therefore held “that the 2013 Constitution was legally effective and provided the Supreme Court with jurisdiction to answer the questions referred to it by the Cabinet. This decision also confirmed that the 1997 Constitution no longer applies”.

Who are we mere mortals to challenge this conclusion even if it did lead one of my esteemed senior legal friends to exclaim “the law is an ass”.

The Supreme Court Panel also ruled positively that any Parliamentary Bill to change the Constitution would require only two-thirds majority and that a Referendum would need just a simple majority of actual voters. Quite doable.

Section 159(2)(c), which sought to prohibit any changes to the amendment provisions themselves, was removed and the 2013 Constitution supposedly became a “living document” serving the people of Fiji.

So as of August 2025, Fiji’s Rule of Law states that all Fiji citizens must be called “Fijians” not “Fiji Islanders”. Indigenous Fijians must therefore continue to be called “iTaukei”. End of the debate.

But there are positives here.

National names, national identity and national contribution

Many public commentators have talked about their pride at being known internationally as “Fijians” and how the term unites Fiji’s different ethnic groups just as PM Rabuka and the Hon Biman Prasad think.

International commentators refer to Fiji’s international golfer (Vijay Singh) who once dethroned Tiger Woods as No.1 as the “Big Fijian”, who even last weekend was flying the Fiji flag at the Augusta Masters, watched all over the world.

In 2004 I was privileged to organize support for this “Fijian” to be awarded Fiji’s highest honour (Companion of the Order of Fiji- the equivalent of a knighthood) for putting Fiji on the world map. Signing my petition were most respected Fiji citizens like the Sir Tim Tuivaqa, Sir Moti Tikaram, Charles Walker, Archbishop Mataca, Bill Cruikshank, Lionel Yee (junior signatories were Eroni Mavoa and Dr Wadan Narsey).

When I have been watching NRL or rugby union in Melbourne I feel great joy when the increasing numbers of “Fijian” names jump out, just to name a few: Lote Tuqiri, Marika Koroibete, Rob Valetini, Sevu Reece, Viliame Kikau, Tui Kamikamica.

While I have the greatest of respect for the Chairman of the GCC (Ratu Viliame Seruvakula), I would request him to ask who are the Fiji citizens who have contributed to the welfare of Fiji, including the iTaukei, for over a century.

The answer would be the hundreds of thousands of non-indigenous sugar farmers, tourism operators, business owners, managers, civil servants, professionals of all kinds, media organization owners etc.

The names that would jump out would be Hedstroms, Carpenters, Stinsons, Tappos, Patels, Punjas, Kasabias, Prasads, Singhs, Parkinsons, Wesleys, Lees, Yees, Mars, Marches, Wing Sangs, Hong Tiys, etc.

Why on earth would the GCC like to exclude the above stalwarts and creators of social wealth in our society from the term “Fijian” when even their ostentatious GCC building has been built by the sweat, blood and tears of non-indigenous citizens and residents?

Why should the GCC wish to deny the label “Fijian” to the many productive Fiji citizens like Professor Vijay Naidu, Dr Subash Appana, Shamima Ali and even surgeon and my fellow kai-Tooraki Dr Vijay Kapadia and writer Colin Deoki abroad, who all continue to contribute passionately to Fiji’s development in their respective fields?

I personally cannot forget the many indigenous Fijians who were my friends at Marist; or those who wrote to me during the dark days of censorship by the Bainimarama Regime when I was forced out of my job at USP, thanking me for being a “true Fijian” born and bred in Fiji, standing up for democracy and fairness to all races, and even for defending the GCC.

There were names such as Jale Moala, Paula Raqeukai, and countless anonymous writers like “FijianBlack”.

I cannot forget the many respected indigenous Fijians who over the years unreservedly supported my writings like the late Ratu Joni Madraiwiwi, the late Amelia Rokotuivuna, the late Ropate Qalo, the late Savenaca Siwatibau, and still active Professor Steven Ratuva, Mere Nailatikau, and too many others to mention. They all saw me as a “true Fijian” and never as a vulagi.

Many in the public cynically ask what exactly have the GCC and ethnonationalists contributed to the economy and welfare of Fiji, apart from lending great support to the destructive coups of 1987 and 2000?

Why did the chiefs quietly disappear when Bainimarama closed the GCC down and banished them to “sit under the mango tree and drink homebrew” (see the great cartoon in Fijileaks).

What about the select few chiefs who actively supported the 2006 treasonous coup against an iTaukei Prime Minister, and legitimised the imposition of the 2013 Constitution on the people of Fiji?

Has the current GCC ever acknowledged that it took a Coalition Government led by “commoners” like Sitiveni Rabuka, Manoa Kamikamica, Bill Gavoka and Indo-Fijians like Professor Biman Prasad to bring the GCC back out of oblivion?

Nationalities versus Decency

Ultimately, do we really care what we Fiji citizens are called? Does nationality matter to our everyday lives?

I know many “Americans” who hate being associated with the “American” Government of President Trump who is massacring thousands of innocent men, women and children in Iran for his pathetic foreign policy objectives, while wholeheartedly supporting Israel which is committing genocide in Lebanon and Palestine.

I know many “Australians” who are horrified at how Australian people and government have massacred Aboriginals in the past, who continue to marginalise them today, who refuse to give them a Voice in Parliament, who even refuse to change Australia Day from one that commemorates the arrival of whites to Australia and is a day of mourning for Aboriginals.

While residing here in Melbourne, even though my heart and soul are in Fiji, do I feel better if I am called a “Fijian” even though that is the most logical description for my origins?

Like my learned legal Rotuman friend commenting in the Fiji Times, I don’t really care. I would just like to be labelled a “decent human being” whatever my nationality or ethnicity.

The future: much ado about nothing

Given that Fiji is the only country in the world to house iTaukei, I can well understand that once upon a time ethnonationalists did have cause to fear being outnumbered in Fiji by Indo-Fijians, leading to the first 1987 coup (see the graph before 1990 when Indo-Fijians did outnumber iTaukei).

But because of their massive emigration since the coups, and lower fertility and birth rates, the Indo-Fijian population has been catastrophically declining.

The graph here shows that just over 26% currently, in ten years time Indo-Fijians will be less than 19% of Fiji’s population and still dropping fast. The iTaukei proportion will be 73% and continue rising forever ensuring their control of government. The military have always been more than 90% iTaukei. So what is the fuss all about?

The tragedy for the once valuable sugar industry is that the hard underpaid work once done by Indo-Fijians, now needs imported labourers from Bangladesh while there is paradoxically serious underemployment and unemployment among the iTaukei.

Researchers might wish to explore that even the past population projections based on the 2017 Census are gross over-estimates because of the massive emigration of Fiji people in the last ten years.

The latest data from the FBS’ 2023-24 Employment and Unemployment Survey indicates that Fiji’s population, far from approaching one million by now, is currently less than 846 thousand and still falling.

The way forward

May I suggest that at the next General Elections, there be an extra Referendum Ballot paper which asks all voters (tick one box):

Should the Fiji Constitution call Fiji citizens

“Fijians” OR “Fiji Islander” OR “Don’t care”.

If any of these three choices gets more than 50% of the votes, responsibility for this decision will be on ALL voters of Fiji, not on Governments, or political parties, or Parliament, or the GCC, or anyone else for that matter.

Fiji can stop wasting valuable emotional energy and time on an irrelevant “name game”.

PROFESSOR WADAN NARSEY is a former Professor of Economics at The University of the South Pacific.