Fiji transforms into Nation Under Common Citizenship
Fiji is transforming into a nation of individuals that identify not with their race, ethnic group or social class but with their common humanity under a common citizenship.
Those were the sentiments of the Solicitor General, Christopher Pryde during Gandhi Day celebrations at the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial School yesterday.
“Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday, I understand, is on October 2. It is a chance for us to reflect on his life and his teachings and what his life means for us as individuals and also as citizens of Fiji,” Mr Pryde said.
“Mahatma Gandhi was a great man who inspired and persuaded not by the gun but by the word, in an age when empires were founded and maintained by military strength he managed to convince the British Empire, to quit India and give it independence.
“The fact that he achieved this, not through force of arms but by the force of his personality, his determination to right a wrong, and his steadfast belief that non-violence was the only way to achieve political change in India shows us the power of what one person can achieve if the will is there.
“Mahatma Gandhi shows us the power of one.”
The Solicitor General said Gandhi’s ideas had stretched around the world and across the generations to us here in Fiji.
Mr Pryde added the current generation needed to continue Gandhi’s dream of a world with a common humanity, a world, and a country that focused not on our differences but on similarities.
“We need to believe in ourselves as individuals and ourselves as citizens in a country that believes in itself, not as a nation divided but as a nation united in a common humanity,” he said.
“If Gandhi could transform the British Empire by a belief in himself and his ideas, we too can transform ourselves and our country in the same way.”
Those were the sentiments of the Solicitor General, Christopher Pryde during Gandhi Day celebrations at the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial School yesterday.
“Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday, I understand, is on October 2. It is a chance for us to reflect on his life and his teachings and what his life means for us as individuals and also as citizens of Fiji,” Mr Pryde said.
“Mahatma Gandhi was a great man who inspired and persuaded not by the gun but by the word, in an age when empires were founded and maintained by military strength he managed to convince the British Empire, to quit India and give it independence.
“The fact that he achieved this, not through force of arms but by the force of his personality, his determination to right a wrong, and his steadfast belief that non-violence was the only way to achieve political change in India shows us the power of what one person can achieve if the will is there.
“Mahatma Gandhi shows us the power of one.”
The Solicitor General said Gandhi’s ideas had stretched around the world and across the generations to us here in Fiji.
Mr Pryde added the current generation needed to continue Gandhi’s dream of a world with a common humanity, a world, and a country that focused not on our differences but on similarities.
“We need to believe in ourselves as individuals and ourselves as citizens in a country that believes in itself, not as a nation divided but as a nation united in a common humanity,” he said.
“If Gandhi could transform the British Empire by a belief in himself and his ideas, we too can transform ourselves and our country in the same way.”
No comments:
Post a Comment