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Offered:

as in-person classes, live-streamed Zoom sessions and video recordings

  • • This course is offered in 2024 Term 3 (Jul-Sep).

  • • This course is offered as an in-person course at the EarthDiverse Centre in Hamilton, New Zealand, live-streamed via Zoom if you live elsewhere, and as video recordings of the live sessions if you cannot attend the regularly scheduled class.

Date & Time:

Begins Thursday 8 Aug 2024, 7:00-9:00pm

  • • Our HIS340: "Political History of (Modern) Fiji" course is offered on Thursdays 7:00-9:00pm (NZ time) beginning Thursday 8 August 2024 and meets for 6 consecutive weekly sessions. The last class of the Term is on Thursday 12 September 2024.

  • • If you live outside of New Zealand and wish to Zoom in to our live class sessions, check the nearest local Time Zone equivalent below:

Time Zone equivalents:

for live-streaming Zoom Sessions from New Zealand. If your Time Zone doesn't suit our live-streamed class, you can also access our courses by watching the live-recorded sessions that are posted to the course webpage each week, usually within 1-2 days.

  • Honolulu, Hawai’i: begins Wed 7 Jul 2024, 9:00-11:30pm

  • US Pacific: begins Thu 8 Aug 2024, 12:00-2:00am

  • US Eastern: begins Thu 8 Aug 2024, 3:00-5:00am

  • London, UK: begins Thu 8 Aug 2024, 8:00-10:00am

  • Paris, France: begins Thu 8 Aug 2024, 9:00-11:00am

  • New Delhi, India: begins Thu 8 Aug 2024, 12:30-2:30pm

  • Bangkok, Thailand: begins Thu 8 Aug 2024, 2:00-4:00pm

  • Singapore & Shanghai: begins Thu 8 Aug 2024, 3:00-5:00pm

  • Tokyo, Japan: begins Thu 8 Aug 2024, 4:00-6:00pm

  • Sydney, Australia: begins Thu 8 Aug 2024, 5:00-7:00pm

Description:

HIS340: A Political History of (modern) Fiji: From Cross to after the Coups

  • • This course introduces and debates Fiji’s most significant political events, its national leaders and its most divisive constitutional questions from the mid-19th Century.

    • Beginning with the imperial ambitions of the mighty warlord and chief Ratu Seru Cakobau, the course examines how Fiji’s history of missionary contact, British indirect rule, Indian indenture, independence and repeat ethno-nationalist coups culminated in the 2006 take-over by the military strongman and moderniser Voreqe Bainimarama, as well as his subsequent 2022 electoral defeat to his old nemesis, Sitiveni Rabuka, and very recent imprisonment.

Week 1: The Chiefs, the Cross and the Crown

Thursday 8 August 2024

The arrival of Christian missionaries and the British Crown radically shifted Fiji’s political scene. It loaded power towards Fiji’s eastern chiefs and the Bauan warlord (vunivalu) Ratu Seru Cakobau. Cakobau’s conversion to Christianity secured Tongan military assistance essential for taking over rival chiefdoms. While Fiji’s eastern chiefs were finally able to subdue the ‘rebellious’ Fijian interior with assistance by the British Crown. In addition to covering key political events, we discuss how Indigenous Fijian political imaginations of the ‘social contract’ root in pre-Contact dichotomies of land-people and sea-chiefs, as well as the nationwide conversion from ‘cannibalism to Christ’: a model described in Fiji as ‘The Three Pillars’ – lotu (church), matanitu (chiefly government) and vanua (the land)

Week 2: Indenture and the Indo-Fijians

Thursday 15 Aug 2024

Five years after the Deed of Cession 1874, 60,000 Indian workers began arriving into Fiji on British ships from Madras and Calcutta. Life in the indenture lines was ‘narak’ (hell), ritually polluting and violent. The sweat and toil of Indo-Fijians, on the lines and later in small scale commerce and the professions, however, subsequently built up Fiji’s economy to the largest and most diversified among Pacific Islands states. Framed as a ‘romance of development,’ this history of economic striving has since developed as the primary narrative for affirming Indo-Fijian civil and political rights in the face of British colonial hostility and, later, Indigenous supremacism.

Week 3: Independence via the ‘Pacific Way’ and the Three-Legged Stool

Thursday 22 August 2024

Independence across the Pacific Islands came later and with less political heat than in African states. Rather than being booted out, British colonial officials were bid an emotional farewell by Fiji’s chiefs. Fiji’s first prime minister, the Lauan chief Ratu Kamisese Mara, named this more subdued politics of decolonisation as ‘the Pacific way’. Yet such sentimentality was not shared by all Fijians, who otherwise viewed independence as a necessary step in transforming the racist economic model left behind by the British: the ‘Three-Legged Stool.’ Under this model Whites owned the capital, Indigenous Fijians owned the land, and Indo-Fijians provided the labour. As Indo-Fijian thrift and enterprise began displacing European capital, and commoner Fijians agitated under the heavy paternalism of the Methodist church and the chiefs, Fiji’s race-based Three-legged Stool begins to wobble. With the election of a commoner/Indo-Fijian coalition in April 1987, it finally toppled, casting the chiefs out of government.

Week 4: Rabuka and the 1987 Coup

Thursday 29 August 2024

“Sit down everyone, sit down, this is a take-over. Ladies and Gentlemen, this is a military take-over”. With these words the young colonel Sitiveni Rabuka (presently Fiji’s Prime Minister) forever altered Fiji’s political trajectory. This week we discuss the various actors and interests behind Fiji’s first coup, its neo-traditionalism, and the subsequent shift to Indigenous supremacism in the 1990 Constitution. Following this rocky period of inter-racial and intra-Indigenous fragmentation, we look at Fiji’s the multiracial pushback leading to the 1997 Constitution (which was also supported by a now reformed Rabuka!).

Week 5: Coup II. Speight’s terror

Thursday 5 September 2024

While Fiji’s 1987 Labour coalition government only lasted one month, Fiji’s 1999 Labour coalition government lasted one year before it was ejected at the barrel of the gun. The Speight coup – a populist coup of the vanua – however, was a very different and disorderly beast compared to Rabuka’s more controlled takeover. It was also the coup that bitterly pitched chiefs against chiefs and split the military from its previous Christian-nationalism, and so began the political career of the new promoted naval officer to military head, Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama.

Week 6: Bainimarama’s revolution

Thursday 12 September 2024

Bainimarama’s 2006 ‘coup to end all coups’ and his modernising 2013 Constitution promised to transcend Fiji’s politics of race. His landmark policies of a secular state, a common electoral role and zero-tolerance for race-based discrimination were revolutionary, and yet his continuing strong-arm reign – long after he promised to return to the barracks - increasingly hinged on recalling the very spectres his coup promised to banish. With Bainimarama’s electoral defeat and the new and electorally ensconced government now exceeding more than one year in office, Fijian democracy ventures into new territory.

Meet our Instructor

Teaching Fellow Dr Tom White, PhD

Tom White is from the UK, and studies the histories, politics and effects of secularisation and religious change in the Pacific Islands. He was awarded his PhD in 2020 from the University of Otago, with his thesis, The Constitutional Politics of Religion in Fiji, passing with distinction. He is currently a Teaching Fellow in the History Department at The University of Waikato and a Senior Research Fellow with the Centre for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences at Leipzig University. He has held research fellowships at the University of Otago and the University of the South Pacific, and before coming to Aotearoa New Zealand led the School of Social Sciences at the Fiji National University. Tom has undergraduate degrees in Philosophy and Politics (MA with honours) from the University of Edinburgh (2006), and in Religion and Society (MA) from Durham University (2011). He cycles an old, rickety road bike around the Ngāruawāhia hills, coaches kiddies’ soccer and drinks too much Good George cider, though not all at the same time. You can find out more about his research at tomwhite-research.com

Location:

This class is a hybrid class with both in-person sessions in our classrooms and streamed live via Zoom.

All in-person classes are held at the EarthDiverse offices and classrooms located at 401 Anglesea Street, Hamilton Central, Hamilton, New Zealand (located just north of the Hamilton Central Bus Station) (entrance is located on the side of the building, see map below). Those looking for parking for our evening classes can park just in front of the building in any of the available car parks. Daytime parking can be found in our dedicated car parks, or free 2-hour on-street daytime parking can be found just in front on Anglesea Street.
Location

Course curriculum:

Week by week new material will be posted throughout the duration of the course. Video recordings of each weekly session will be posted here after 1-2 days after each class.

    1. EarthDiverse Course information

    2. EarthDiverse Zoom Instructions

    1. Week 1: The Chiefs, the Cross and the Crown

    2. 20240808 T3.1 HIS340 Intro and 3 Pillars PDF

    3. 20240808 T3.1 HIS340 video

    1. Week 2: Indenture and the Indo-Fijians

    2. 20240815 T3.2 HIS340 Indenture and the Indo-Fijians PDF

    3. 20240815 T3.2 HIS340 video

    1. Week 3: Independence via the ‘Pacific Way’ and the Three-Legged Stool

    2. 20240822 T3.3 HIS340 Three-legged stool and independence PDF

    3. 20240822 T3.4 HIS340 video

    1. Week 4: Rabuka and the 1987 Coup

    2. 20240829 T3.4 Rabuka and the 1987 coup PDF

    3. 20240829 T3.4 HIS340 video

    1. Week 5: Coup II. Speight’s terror

    2. 20240905 Brij Lal biography PDF

    3. 20240905 T3.5 HIS340 Fiji - 1992 to Speight's coup pdf

    4. 20240905 T3.5 HIS340 video

Additional course info:

  • Video and PDF content of class presentations or whiteboard notes are uploaded weekly after each live session
  • Begins Thu 8 August 2024
  • NZ time: Thursdays 7:00-9:00pm

Pricing options:

• All prices are in New Zealand dollars and include GST.

• Unwaged includes students, seniors, retirees and unemployed.

• Prices remain the same regardless of your chosen method for accessing this course.

Distance Learning:

This course has distance-learning options for those unable to attend the live class sessions in Hamilton, New Zealand. Students have three options for attending our courses once they have registered:

  • Attend in-person classes in our Hamilton classrooms at the regularly scheduled day and time.

  • Attend our live on-line classroom sessions via Zoom at the regular scheduled day and time.

  • Watch the live-recorded class sessions at your leisure, at a time, day and place more suited to your schedule.

Distance-Learning options:

Live Zoom sessions or Video-Recordings

  • • In addition to our in-person classes in Hamilton, our courses offer distance learning options for those unable to attend classes in-person. Live-streamed Hamilton classes are available via free Zoom software for those living outside the Waikato. Live-streaming allows you to participate fully in your own learning, ask questions of the instructor and participate fully in the same way as if you were in the physical classroom.

  • • Those unable to attend the scheduled date and time of the actual class sessions, or those who need to miss a class or two due to previous engagements or unexpected illness, can watch any or all of the live-recorded video sessions on their computers, laptops, tablets or mobile devices and study at their own pace and in their own time.

  • • Detailed instructions on how to access our distance learning components will be sent after completing your registration. There are no additional fees for this service. However, distance learners will need access to a desktop or laptop computer with a good quality web-camera (tablet devices and mobile phones can also access our live-streamed classes), a built-in microphone (most modern laptops have built-in microphones) or a headset with a microphone. You will also need to download and install the free Zoom software on your computer or device. Those accessing the video recordings will be able to do so with a simple web browser on any device.

Notes:

Those who cannot make the class meeting day and time via live Zoom sessions may consider accessing this course through the weekly recorded video sessions. Class videos are usually posted within 1-2 days of each live class session and are available for your own personal learning on a day and time of your choosing.

  • • This class has no assignments, required readings, quizzes, tests or exams.

  • • You will not need to purchase any additional course materials.

  • • All classes encourage questions and group discussion.

  • • PDF copies of each class presentation are posted weekly to the course webpage usually 1-2 days after each class so that you are free to focus on class content rather than taking notes. You are most welcome to come, sit back, relax, take part in and enjoy the discussions!

  • • If you’re attending in-person, course fees include tea/coffee/snack at each session. Help yourself!

  • • There are no refunds for missed classes. If you miss a class, you can watch the video recording!

  • • Guests of registered participants are welcome to attend a single class at no charge.

  • • If, however, this course is cancelled due to insufficient enrollment please note that your registration fee will either be refunded in full or you may select to receive a course credit. Your choice!

  • • Certificates of Completion for any particular Term Course or Series are available for Professional Development purposes upon request at the end of each Term or Series.

Prerequisites:

a keen desire to learn more about Fijian History.

• There are no prerequisites for this course.

• Open to adults and children aged 14 and above.