Making History, Becoming History: Reflections on Fijian Coups and Constitutions

Abstract

Early in March 1995, when the telephone call came from Jai Ram Reddy, Fiji's leader of the opposition and the long-term leader of the Indo-Fijian community, asking me to be his nominee on the Constitution Review Commission, I was naturally overwhelmed. The appointment was not unexpected--I had been asked several months earlier about my willingness to serve--but the enormity of the task ahead dawned on me at that moment. Many friends in Fiji had cautioned me. The review, they said, was a charade, a cynical exercise in public relations by a coup-tainted government eager to refurbish its image in the eyes of the international community. Rabuka was still Rabuka: leopards do not change their spots. The presence of Tomasi Vakatora--a member of the cabinet subcommittee whose recommendations had formed the basis of the contested 1990 constitution--proclaimed the government's real intention. But I was undeterred. At a celebratory dinner with friends that evening, my son Niraj, then just eleven, piped up proudly. "Dad," he said innocently, "You have taught history and written history. Now you can make history and then become history." Nervous laughter greeted his remark.