Joni Madraiwiwi Quotes

It will be impossible to achieve this (keeping the people together) if the elders and chiefs have their own way and are too proud of their chiefly status to not bring themselves down to the people.

The essence of traditional leadership is learned by osmosis. The next generation learns from what their elders and the current generation does. This was appropriate in a society where the pace of change was gradual.

Our ethnicity is part of us, however, it should not isolate or distance us from the community in which we live. People of different cultures cannot not live peacefully together unless they have respect for each other. I accept that seeking further integration is a challenge and it cannot be imposed or done under duress; the feeling has to come from within ourselves. To create an environment for that to happen, we have to develop situations and opportunities that place people in a position to make choices and this is one of them. And unless we begin to see our neighbours as people, as human beings rather than by ethnicity, it is difficult to shed our stereotypes of each other.

We must begin to trust each other if this country is to progress the way we want it to. But before that we have to lay the preparatory work to engender that trust by building relationships every day.

Those who decry the rule of law as a Western principle or an imported construct, misunderstand the concept. It is about abiding by a set of standards for the well-being of society as a whole.

We have survived bitter divisions in our society. Reconciliation requires us to put aside our differences and forgive the injuries done to us just as justice is essential to that equation. Those who have done wrong and broken the law must be punished. There can be no setting to rights or settling of accounts without that element. Until that is done there will be no finality to our collective nightmare. Until we all accept that simple fact the sense of hurt and betrayal continue.

When you (Military personnel) serve in uniform, you serve your country, not your mataqali, yavusa or particular vanua. You serve the larger vanua that encompasses all of us.

Ultimately, the best guarantor of the rule of law is not the state and the branches which comprise it but the recognition by people of its value and their willingness to fight for, and uphold it.

It is not our background that will count but our individual actions and initiatives. Education is the great leveller: irrespective of origin, it places everyone on the same footing.

The Spirit of Rotary is to voluntarily improve the lot of their fellow human beings because it is the ultimate calling in life. Not for reward of for personal gain, but for the satisfaction of having made a positive difference to someone else. How different would life be if those of us with more advantages could all practice these virtues? This would be a society where the strong would be just and the weak secure. It is an ideal that we can all work towards.

Cadet corps instill discipline in its members, where you are taught basic skills such as survival in the wilderness, unarmed combat, tracking and learning how to strategise.

Who would have planted the cane, run the mills and funded the colony if they had gone to battle?

Part of them (citizens of Fiji) wishes to believe that we are all one people and as a nation must move forward together. Another part of them is fearful that the hand they extend in friendship will be either spurned or crushed.

The politicians pontificate and manoeuvre with eloquent manifestos and pronouncements saying little about the challenges we must confront.

All our communities have to make the effort to reach out to each other rather than waiting passively for gestures that may never be made. We need to write our stories and sing our songs together not necessarily in unison or in tune but in a way that makes space for all of us.