Page 35 - IB August 2020

Obituary Obituary

a dedicated passion or they loved him. There was no middle
ground.
This effect on fellow human beings was, by equal measure,
a reflection of an unyielding application to everything in life
and a forthright approach that did not necessarily endear him
to Fijian sensitivities.
It would be too simplistic to throw labels such as ‘racist’
at him for here was a creature of contradictions – an intrigu-
ing paradox that defied a templated stereotype. Here was
an iTaukei activist with a leading traditional status within his
Vanua and a Muslim convert, to boot, who numbered among
his closest friends and associates Indo-Fijians, Chinese, Euro-
peans and part-Europeans.
I suspect he preferred their company and free-spirited
ideas. He thrived in their open intellectual debate – unfet-
tered by the constraints of customary Fijian vakarokoroko or
respect.
The lawyer, and former National Federation party Leader,
Siddiq Koya, was a trusted mentor and lifelong family friend.
The bond of friendship continued with Koya’s widow, Amina,
and the Koya children, Faiyaz, Faizal and Shainaz
As Faisal Koya said in his eulogy at Tora’s funeral, the Indian
farming and Islamic communities particularly in the Western
But as one academic recently shared with this scribe, Ratu area of Fiji, embraced him as a generous individual – a fellow
Mara himself harboured his own resentments against colonial- traveller in the struggle for justice.
ism and might have even been smiling quietly at the viavia- To his detractors however, his principal role in the iTaukei
levu attitude of the underling in his command. Movement and the coup of 1987, puts paid to any such re-
It therefore comes as no surprise that Tora looked up to fig- demptive notion.
ures like Nasser, Fidel Castro and the great Martin Luther King When it came to Tora’s engagement with the iTaukei, this
for inspiration. He could relate to their struggles for equality was primarily through the prism of the Vanua at which time,
and justice. I remember him being quite upset and sad the the traditional hat was donned along with its customary ex-
day King was shot. pectations and responsibilities.
In the general election of 1963, Tora ran as the young- Tora was never under any illusion about what he referred to
est candidate against Tovata Chief Ratu Penaia Ganilau who as the Fijian’s weaknesses.
ended up defeating him by more than 6000 votes. As a landowner in the Sabeto sugarcane belt, he employed
Tora had laboured long and hard during the campaign sugarcane workers to harvest and cut the cane for him. This
period. He would walk on foot from village to village in the was backbreaking work that began before dawn and continued
western part of Fiji where, in a number of villages, he was through the blazing heat of the day to sundown.
violently ejected. As he recalled in a conversation I had with He once told me that when he hired Indian workers and
him, some villagers literally stoned him, infuriated over his instructed them to meet him at his home at 5 o’clock in the
audacity in challenging a paramount chief. morning, they would arrive, without fail, several minutes
Ordinary Fijian people at that time believed and, I would before the appointed hour.
suggest, even now, to a degree, still subscribe to the notion of To his mind, it spoke volumes about the level of discipline
a divine right, or mana, of the Chiefs to rule. among his Indian workers which guaranteed their reliability
In her book, Caste – the Lies that Divide Us, Isabel Wilker- and dependability.
son writes that caste “embeds into our bones an unconscious Fijians he felt, needed to nurture the patience of the Indi-
ranking” of human beings and lays down the “rules, expecta- ans who had the capacity to save their hard-earned cash, and
tions” of where one fits in society’s ladder. persevere over long periods of time for an uncertain future.
When that status quo is challenged, it can be deeply dis- That said, Tora was painfully aware of the cultural obliga-
turbing – even for the subordinate class at the bottom rung tions – or kerekere – to which Fijians seemed perpetually
of that ladder. And yet, Wilkerson goes on to say, it is not yoked. The Vanua’s expectations for cash and other contribu-
uncommon for this class to defend the very hierarchy that tions to the never-ending cycle of life’s events – from births,
suppresses them. deaths to weddings – is the enduring narrative of the iTaukei.
Apisai Tora was a man who elicited only two kinds of emo-
tional responses from people. They either reviled him with Continued on page 38

Islands Business, August 2020 35