The General’s Goose

The General’s Goose

Fiji's Tale of Contemporary Misadventure

Authored by: Robbie Robertson

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Description

His admirers said he was a charismatic leader with a dazzling smile, a commoner following an ancient tradition of warrior service on behalf of an indigenous people who feared marginalisation at the hands of ungrateful immigrants. One tourist pleaded with him to stage a coup in her backyard; in private parties around the capital, Suva, infatuated women whispered ‘coup me baby’ in his presence. It was so easy to overlook the enormity of what he had done in planning and implementing Fiji’s first military coup, to be seduced by celebrity, captivated by the excitement of the moment, and plead its inevitability as the final eruption of long-simmering indigenous discontent. A generation would pass before the consequences of the actions of Fiji’s strongman of 1987, Sitiveni Rabuka, would be fully appreciated but, by then, the die had been well and truly cast. The major general did not live happily ever after. No nirvana followed the assertion of indigenous rights. If anything, misadventure became his country’s most enduring contemporary trait. This is Fiji’s very human story.

Details

ISBN (print):
9781760461270
ISBN (online):
9781760461287
Publication date:
Aug 2017
Imprint:
ANU Press
DOI:
http://doi.org/10.22459/GG.08.2017
Series:
State, Society and Governance in Melanesia
Disciplines:
Social Sciences: Indigenous Studies, Politics & International Studies, Social Policy & Administration
Countries:
Pacific: Fiji

Reviews

In The General's Goose: Fiji's Tale of Contemporary Misadventure, Robbie Robertson undertakes an ambitious history and analysis of the political and economic causes and consequences of Sitiveni Rabuka's 1987 coups overthrowing a democratically elected government in Fiji.
—Karen Brison, The Journal of Pacific History, Volume 53, 2018
The full review can been read on the Taylor and Francis website

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