Law & Empire in the Pacific: Fiji and Hawai`i

1 Introduction

Fiji and Hawai‘i, two chains of high volcanic islands at one time controlled by powerful chiefs, lie a few thousand miles apart in the Pacific Ocean. Colonized in the late nineteenth century, both developed a thriving sugar plantation economy based on imported Asian laborers. In each case, colonial officials formed a coalition with the indigenous people and excluded the immigrant sugar workers from land and political power. The workers responded by organizing into labor unions and mobilizing politically to improve their lot. By the end of the colonial era, the indigenous people in both places were more or less outnumbered by the people of other nations who had come to work the land. British and American law and bureaucracy were layered over a system of chiefly authority in both places. The duration of the colonial period was similar: The British controlled Fiji from 1874 until 1970; the Americans ruled Hawai‘i as a colony from 1898 until 1959. Fiji became independent in 1970; Hawai‘i became a US state in 1959. Fiji is now independent but economically dependent; Hawai‘i is a state but retains a neocolonial economic relationship to the United States. Both are neocolonial, not postcolonial, 3 1 Introduction Sally Engle Merry and Donald Brenneis 3 in the sense that they are nominally self-governing but as economically dependent as they were under colonialism. Native Hawaiians remain in an essentially colonial status within the state of Hawai‘i, excluded from their lands and politically subordinated in state politics. However, ethnic conflicts in these two places varied dramatically during and after colonialism. In the years following direct colonial control , both Fiji and Hawai‘i faced ethnic tensions and indigenous nationalism , along with ongoing and unresolved charges of social injustice. In Fiji, ethnic Fijians feared economic domination by the Indo-Fijians, even though ethnic Fijians own the vast bulk of the land in perpetuity. Indo-Fijians were elected to political leadership, but ethnic Fijian–led coups quickly deposed them in the name of indigenous rights and primordial connections to the land. Two coups in 1987 and one in 2000 excluded elected Indo-Fijians from political power and allowed ethnic Fijians to retain political control. However, this came at the price of political stability. Ethnic Fijians now feel economically secondary to the Indo-Fijian community and are seeking affirmative action to equalize their position. Hawai‘i, in contrast, appears to be a successful multiethnic state. The descendants of European and Asian plantation workers, Native Hawaiians, American colonial elites, and mainland US immigrants live in peace under a democratically elected government. Certain immigrant groups have achieved political power and economic affluence. Other immigrants, such as those from the Philippines and the Pacific Islands, are caught at the bottom of the social hierarchy. The indigenous Native Hawaiian people are a dispossessed and largely poor minority struggling to recapture their culture and their control over land. The ongoing but unresolved demands for land and sovereignty in Hawai‘i by Kanaka Maoli—Native Hawaiians—have fueled an energetic and sometimes angry sovereignty movement since the 1970s. The movement seeks to restore political power to Kanaka Maoli through a range of remedies, from independence to a system of reserves, but there is no consensus within the community about the best path to selfdetermination . Although the political turmoil in both places is usually understood as ethnic, the causes are equally economic and political. Many are rooted in the legal and institutional arrangements of land and goverSally Engle Merry and Donald Brenneis 4 nance developed during the colonial era. This book explores how the colonial legal legacies of Hawai‘i and Fiji contributed to their contemporary political instability and ethnic turmoil. Comparing the ethnic situation in Hawai‘i with that of Fiji highlights the impact of colonial legal arrangements on the shape of contemporary ethnic conflict. Among the most salient differences between these two societies are their sharp contrasts in the legal regulation of land and citizenship. These systems of land and citizenship grew out of different theories of colonial governance. Hawai‘i was colonized by Americans who sought to privatize the land, Christianize the Hawaiians, and convert them into free laborers independent of the chiefs. Governance shifted from a system of chieftains to a constitutional monarchy with an elected legislative body. The result was a weakening of the chiefs, the massive loss of land by Native...