Epeli Ganilau Quotes

To all the families out there without their fathers they must remember that our eternal Father in heaven will be there for us at all times and we should celebrate because of that.

In any case paramount traditional heads of provinces should, in my view, welcome the fact that their people who have had education and experience can relieve them as in the traditional line of delegation from the many functions the chiefs are required to do now, particularly if they are public servants or have not had the background of education and service as their people.

There are those people who are acting irresponsibly … and spreading their gospel of fear and hate and not doing anything to help the ordinary people put bread on their table for their families.

It does not say much about the credibility of the Prime Minister for him to be saying publicly that the Christian churches support the bill after these deliberate acts of deception. (In response to Mataca's claim that Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase had misled a delegation of church leaders as to the true contents of the government's Reconciliation and Unity Bill, which Mataca and Ganilau both oppose).

Whether some people like it or not, Fiji is already a multiracial society. We have different races, but that does not mean we should only work for the good of our own race. We have to truly understand one another, learn each other’s languages, and truly work together. There is huge potential in Fiji, and we would be amazed to see what we will achieve, if we work together.

All of us are mere mortals and must consult. The spectacle of Parliament and the antics of our politicians serve only to distract us from the very real problems that we face as a nation.

No nation would refuse to fight an invading army because some expert argued it would be cheaper to invest in defenses against future invasions. It is not a matter of prioritising lives now over lives tomorrow.

We should not allow ourselves, individually or our ethnic communities to become easy tools for politics of race that will continue to segregate us mentally and emotionally.

Temples have been desecrated, places of worship are destroyed, all in the prejudice view that one religion is the true one and others are not.

We are here today, not so much as to launch a political party but more so and more importantly we are here today to project a vision that will inspire hope.

I would like to offer for the unity of our people, the adoption of multiracialism as the core ideal in searching for a clear way ahead. We need to get out of our comfort zones, our ethnic boxes and truly embrace multiracialism.

One (path) is confrontation and the politics of exclusion. The other is the path of cooperation and trust. We either embrace the concept of multiracialism or we go down the path of racial vilification and alienation.

If we learn how to love others, really, truly love them, not for who we want them to be, but rather for who they are – for the perfect souls that God has created – then we have learnt one of the greatest lessons of life.

We pay lip service to multiracialism but we fail to put it into practice because we continue to see most things and ourselves from our own ethnic perspective. So long as the personal attitude persists, we will not see us one people of Fiji and our future will not be secure.