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Poem by Ratu Joni Madraiwiwi - SGDIA |
Ratu Joni Madraiwiwi (shortly afterwards appointed Vice President of Fiji) kindly accepted our invitation to address the end-of-year dinner for the Post-graduate Diploma and Masters students of the Pacific Institute of Advanced Studies in Development and Governance (PIAS-DG).This was the first such event for PIAS-DG and I believe that it is a wonderful tribute to the Institute that a person of Joni’s intellectual standing and integrity agreed to share some thoughts with us on the importance of good governance for the economic and social development of the Pacific Island countries. I believe that Joni is one of Fiji’s national treasures, not only for the brilliance of his insights on the political situation in Fiji but also for his courage in stating publicly where there can be improvements in the governance of the country.
Joni did not make a speech at the dinner but read the following poem, which he had composed. It is a powerful statement of the problematic power relationships in the country and the injustices that can arise in the exercise of power without appropriate constraints.
Ron Duncan
As you enter
As you enter the world beyond
Let me speak with you awhile,
Of honour, truth and compassion
Virtues that do not excite.
Presumed as out of fashion
But oftentimes proclaimed
As beacons to light your way.
Why is it of concern?
Is it what you wish to hear?
When the God Mammon beckons
Youth deaf is to mortality’s ear.
Hark the seamless passage of time,
Which looks not backward or behind
Taking lives with stealth sublime
Allowing no reprieve from death.
This you overlook at random
In the arrogance of one’s prime,
Yet none, no one is spared
The mortal ravages of thine.
What of honour do you ask?
Much denied and much maligned.
It has taken flight from here.
Followed is it so sparingly
And mocked openly in the breach.
In your hearts lie difficult choices
Only one can make,
Let it be for conscience’s sake
May it be for right,
Restore faith in our leaders stake
It begins with you this night.
To redress the balance evenly,
Fraught the path ahead be
As the stars guided aeons past
Let this journey gird thee.
With thoughts of greater things
The obligations of advantage,
And the willingness to serve,
Those Pacific peoples
Fate’s wisdom has besmirched.
Whether without land in Fisi
Taukei and Indian alike,
Or little heard to the East,
Voiceless, where Gaughin once walked
Bougainville mothers mourning dead
Dispossessed, despairing in Mendana’s stead,
A litany without end or distinction
Crying out to be righted
In the ocean fastness of home.
Truth lies with each of us
Seek it in quiet reflection
One’s instincts whispers thus.
Away from distraction and dejection
Congestion, communities visit on us
Constraining of custom, culture and tradition,
The exclusiveness of faith.
It is not our leaders’ preserve
Conduct bespeak their misdeeds,
The compromising of high office
And the endless pursuit of power.
The ascent for you has come
Will one like them succumb?
Most of the people tarry
And are cast aside like scumb.
Who will look after them?
Are there among you so inclined?
To be prophets to your people
Inspiring hope and as well as joy,
Nudging chiefs to release their people
Securing your representatives from barter
Likewise merchants from temptation.
Where there is this recognition
Therein, seeds of the future lie
A better society for us all
In this, our ocean home.
Compassion is the greatest virtue
Good deeds from it flow
It is claimed our raison d’être
Predating Christian theatre
Upon these verdant shores.
History a different picture paints
Of violence, blood, intrigue
Now in these times a clash
Of cultures, old and new,
Where in your quest for riches,
Your kin, Kainaga, wekada
Are left abandoned in ditches
As upwards you start your climb.
Supreme the market is now
Again you are told, again
No place there is for feeble
The disadvantaged more pain
That is the way of others
Compelled you are to feign.
Only one may decide the issue,
Considering the merits thereof
To embrace the cult of self
Little thought spared for others
Onward, ever upwards and alone.
A life lived thusly sans t’other
Is one devoid of life.
John Donne recognized this reality
Alas, which offers only strife
In the struggle of daily banality
Hold fast to it one must.
It is the essence of ourselves
The ties of blood which thrust
Across this wide ocean home.
This was not a saga destined
Rather reluctantly a parable intended
Something to reflect upon,
That one doth think about.
Leaving the haven at Laucala
Ambitions to pursue fulfillment
Our realms are under siege.
Little there is one can resist
The borders are too porous
Engage must we to exist,
While there is yet life, hope
In the resilience of our cultures
The fortitude of the vanua.
Therein lies the answer
In one calls Tagatawhenua
You are part thereof
The chords of comity
Which envelope one at birth.
Grow not far from them
They enrich this life on earth.
So remain close at hand always
In this there is great wisdom
Of belonging, being complete and whole
In our ocean home.
Joni Madraiwiwi
17th November 2004
