Fiji is a bit like Churchill’s Russia, a ‘riddle wrapped in a mystery inside
an enigma.’ Here is an island nation, easily the most developed in the
South Pacific, with a talented multiethnic population that would be the
envy of many a underdeveloped nation, the hub of regional
transportation and communication links, the home of international
diplomatic, educational and aid organisations—it has everything going
for it. And yet, despite this good fortune, it is strangely prone to debilitating
self-inflected wounds that hobble its prospects and dent its future. The
two military coups in 1987 and the attempted putsch in 2000 have strained
race relations, damaged the economy, infected public institutions with
the virus of mismanagement and failing accountability, nurtured religious
intolerance and periodic acts of sacrilege against non-Christians,
disrupted improvements to essential infrastructure, education and social
and medical services, and led to a mass exodus of some of its best and
brightest citizens.