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By Root 868 0

Indian sugarcane farmer, are collected each month by the Native Lands Trust Commission and sent on to the local chiefs. These are inherited positions, and if there is a more lamentable form of governance than inherited power, I cannot imagine it. In Europe, of course, tax money is still dished out to a few royals. But today, this is really the equivalent of fattening up a duck for the hunt. In return for accepting the largesse of the people, the royals are subjected to hunters—known as paparazzi—who stalk them with zoom lenses, seeking out scintillating photos for the public. A good shot will result in abject humiliation and personal ruination for the royal, which strikes me as a fair bargain. Alas, Fijians still maintain a quaint reverence for all things chiefly, and when a paramount chief has dastardly deeds on his mind, there is little to stop him. It was the nefarious northern chiefs, people alleged, who were responsible for the coup and the subsequent army mutiny.

In Savusavu, however, I couldn’t quite understand why anyone would bother to trouble himself with something as nettlesome as overthrowing a government. With the morning sun, Savusavu revealed itself to be located in one of the most extraordinarily beautiful settings I had ever encountered in the islands. The town overlooked Savusavu Bay, an alluring expanse of blue water hemmed in by verdant peaks. Directly across was a small islet, and in the safety between it and the main island, a number of yachts were riding out the hurricane season.

I ambled down toward the dozen or so clapboard buildings that constituted downtown Savusavu, and four minutes later, after I had wandered from one end of the muddy town to the other, I caught a taxi in front of the covered market. For such an extraordinary locale, Savusavu was a modest town.

“Where will you be going today, sir?”

Sir? I wasn’t often called sir in Fiji. But then I noticed that I still had my FIRST CLASS stamp on my arm. I considered getting a tattoo to make it permanent.

I didn’t really have a destination in mind, just a vague desire to see a bit of the island and perhaps have a swim somewhere. I told the driver as much.

“No problem, sir. I will show you the area around Savusavu, and then I will take you to the beach. You go for a swim, and I will come back for you after one hour. What do you think?”

This struck me as an excellent plan. The taxi driver’s name was Saresh. He was an Indo-Fijian of a venerable age.

“I have one son who is a dentist in Canada,” he said as we followed a paved road into the hills behind Savusavu. “Another son who is a welder in Christchurch, and a daughter who takes care of her children in Melbourne. She is married to an accountant. Then I have three more left here. A son who is an accountant in Suva, another who owns a garage here, and a daughter who is still a student. You see? Everybody working. Not like Fijian people.”

It often struck me how Indians and Fijians viewed each other. Indians saw Fijians as a slothful and indulgent people who never thought of the future. Fijians saw Indians as busy worker bees who needed constant watching, lest they sneak off with Fijian land. In Suva, a multiracial city, such notions were softened through interaction. Elsewhere in Fiji, however, where Fijians and Indians did not live side by side, the prejudice festered.

“Look,” Saresh said, waving at the thick bush that lined the road. “This is Fijian land. They don’t do anything with it. No farms. Nothing. They lazy, you see. Now this,” he said, gesturing toward a sculpted garden and a sumptuous house with views over Savusavu Bay, “is European land. Very tidy, you see.”

There were a surprising number of Westerners in Savusavu, I learned, chasing paradise. They had built their bungalows on the ridges above the bay. Some of the homes were on freehold land, that small portion of island land that could be bought and sold. Other homes were on what was called native land, which could only be leased from the Fijian landowners.

“And see,” Saresh continued, “this is an Indian village. It is freehold