Dr Robert Norton, an anthroplogist at Macquarie University, Sydney, carried out field research on politics in Fiji since the 1960s. His study of politics and government in Fiji, Race and politics in Fiji, was first published in 1977.

Political speeches, delivered in the national election campaign in Fiji in 1966, by Apisai Tora, Andrew Deoki, Ratu Josua Tonganivalu, Ratu David Tonganivalu, Ratu William Tonganivalu, Uraia Koroi, Sakiasi Sovanivalu (leader of the Fijian Teachers Assoc.), A.V. Sikivou, S.K Sikivou, Ratu Livai Volavola, Ratu Noa Nawalowalo, Ratu Livai Volavola, Ratu Filimone Loco, Loloma Livingston, Pandit Ajodhya Prasad, A.D. Patel, Deo Narayan (Sugar Mill Workers Union), S.M. Koya, C.A. Shah, Madhavan, K.C. Ramrakha, M.S. Tikaram, M.T. Khan, Irene Jai Narayan, Pratap Chandra Sharma and C.P. Bidesi.

The translations are of Fijian and Hindi language speeches, but a few were originally in English as indicated. Fijian language speeches were translated by Mr Neumi Raibosa, clerk at Fijian Development Fund Board (brother of anthropologist Dr Rusiate Nayacakalou). Hindi language translations were made by Mr Pathik and Mr Ram Narayan Govind, lecturers at Nasinu Teachers College, Suva.
<b>See Finding aids for details.</b>
Audio recordings of the speeches are available at PMB AUDIO 47-62.

This is a collection of 134 digitised slides of Falefa, on the northeast coast of the island of Upolu, 20 km from the Samoan capital Apia. With a population in recent years of over 1500, Falefa comprises four ‘sub’ villages - Sagapolu, Saleapaga, Gagaemalae, and Sanonu. Its leading matai [chiefly] ali’I titles Leutele and Salanoa and leading tulafale [orator] titles Moeono and Iuli figure prominently in Samoan political history, particularly in relation to the district title Tui Atua, and Tama Aiga titles Tupua Tamasese and Mataafa.

The photographs were taken in Falefa by Robert Norton during four periods of sociological field research - October 1975-January 1976, August-September 1977, December-January 1980, February 1982. Norton was studying aspects of social and political change, particularly influences of the growing remittance economy. The large scale emigration of Samoans to New Zealand for wage employment was encouraged by the hurricane destruction of banana plantations in 1966 and an increasing need for industrial labour in New Zealand. Norton began his research in Falefa just nine years after the commencement of this exodus of young people to earn money to send home.

Many of the photos illustrate the changes in housing underway funded mainly by remittances in the early years of the labour emigration. A family’s success in establishing members in New Zealand’s work force was soon displayed and measured by the construction of modern houses. The change had slowly begun some years before the labour emigration wave, but was greatly accelerated by it.

Some families were a lot more successful than others in their access to remitted funds, having established several members in overseas employment. So the new era of migration and remitting brought a new dimension of economic and social inequality in the village. The inequality was sometimes quite stark in housing contrasts even between different households of the same aiga [land-owning descent group] - Traditional fale [houses] were still common in the village. Some families also used the new income to make a strong showing in their funding of fa’a’lavelave - important and expensive events such as weddings, matai title bestowals, funerals, and church dedications. The new source of economic inequality led to new dependencies between different households within an aiga.

Remittance income to village families was spent to a lesser extent in capital investments in plantation production, copra driers, utility vehicles etc; Vehicles were very few in the village during the 1970s [around half a dozen]. Although some people became successful entrepreneurs on their aiga land with the aid of remittances, more became less interested in their plantations and more contemplative of anticipated regular money gifts from emigrant family members.

Before the labour emigration wave, money income was gained mainly by the sale of produce from the land and sea [taro and other root vegetables, coconuts and copra, fish]. A few households included members with salaried jobs in town or in the village itself [the school, and the health centre], and several maintained small shops with everyday commodities purchased in Apia, Samoa’s main town. Travel to Apia 20 km to the west was mainly by bus - to schools, to visit and attend social events in other villages, or for shopping or visits to government offices, banks, hospital, lands and titles court etc

Norton also gave particular attention to leadership and authority, eventually publishing an academic paper on electoral politics at the village level. To enable him to sit with the matai [aiga titled chiefs] in the village fono [council] meetings he was given an honorary title.

Many of the photos were taken at Fono meetings - at village, sub-village, and inter-village levels. Some photos are of a Fono meeting functioning as a court hearing and judging minor disputes and imposing fines. These photos are restricted access. Norton himself once faced the prospect of attracting a fine that would be levied on the matai head of his host household if he refused to remove his beard. The village fono had for a year or two decreed it an offence for men to grow beards or long hair and for women to wear slacks. The rule expressed tension between the Fa’a’Samoa [Samoan way] and the Fa’a’Palagi [European way] that had strengthened a little with the impact of the labour migration, not just on material living conditions and social competition, but on popular consciousness, particularly in the youths who became accustomed to interactions with emigrants returning to the village for important social celebrations and to display their successes and tell stories about life in New Zealand. Norton didn’t hesitate to shave for the duration of his short stay in 1977. But by his next stay three years later the anti-beard rule had been dropped.

This collection of slides and photographs was taken by Robert Norton on his first research trip to Fiji, which took place during the 1966 Legislative Council elections campaigning.

The general Legislative Council elections were held in late 1966, just over a year after the first constitutional conference in London, and five years after the British government announced its plan to prepare Fiji for self-government.

The indigenous Fijian leaders were initially very anxious about this objective, viewing it as a threat to the protection they believed the Fijians had enjoyed under the colonial government’s policies, based in part, on the government’s interpretation of the Deed of Cession by which nearly 100 years before the leading chiefs had entrusted the islands to the British crown.

The Fiji Indians who in the 1960s were 51% of the population, and generally more advanced economically than the Fijians (43% of the population), looked favourably on the prospect of an end to colonial rule and their principal leaders called for a common franchise to replace communal (ethnic) political representation. The very influential but tiny European minority, concerned to preserve their longstanding privileged political representation, stood with the Fijians against radical constitutional change.

The 1966 elections were the first in which broadly-based political parties competed for a substantial power in the colonial parliament. The 1965 constitutional conference had changed the parliament (legislative council) from a council dominated by colonial officials appointed by the governor, to one dominated by elected representatives: 14 Indigenous Fijians, (2 elected by the Great Council of Chiefs), 12 Indians, 10 General electors (Europeans, Part-Europeans, Pacific islanders other than Fijians, and Chinese). The new constitution completed the expansion of the vote to a universal franchise, begun in 1963. Only four seats were reserved for colonial officials.

Most of the electorates remained ethnically defined, and all the seats remained ethnically reserved.

But overlaying the many communal electorates, were now three very large Cross Voting electorates covering the entire colony. They were multi-ethnic, made up from the communal electorates, and each had three reserved seats: Fijian, Indian, and General. The electors were entitled to four votes - one in their communal electorate, and three in their cross-voting electorate. Voting was not compulsory, and to cast a valid vote an elector need tick only the communal seat ballot paper if they wished. Communal seats numbered 9 Fijian, 9 Indian, and 7 General; there were 3 Fijian, 3 Indian, and 3 General cross-voting seats. Indigenous Fijians enjoyed additional representation by the two Council of Chiefs members of the parliament.

The intention of introducing the cross-voting electorates was to give people experience in supporting candidates of different ethnic identities from their own - a step, the British said, toward an eventual common franchise without reserved seats. It was hoped that political parties would each field candidates of different ethnicity, and that these would campaign together - the communal candidates assisting the campaigning of their cross-voting partners.

Some of the slides and photos illustrate this joint campaigning in western Viti Levu, by Fijian, Indian, and General candidates of the Alliance Party. All the pictures were taken on Viti Levu, Fiji’s major island.

The Alliance Party, whose main component body was the indigenous Fijian Association, won 22 seats (12 Fijian, 3 Indian, 7 General). The Federation Party (later the National Federation Party) secured only the 9 communal Indian seats; the party fielded only one non-Indian candidate, Fijian cane farmer Penaia Rokovuni (photos 48-54). Three General candidates were elected as independents.

References

Robert Norton 'Race and Politics in Fiji', University of Queensland Press, 1977, revised edition 1990

Roderick Alley 'The Emergence of Party Politics'. In 'Politics in Fiji' edited by Brij Lal, Allen & Unwin, 1986. Pp28-51