Mahendra Chaudhry - We are not going to subjugate ourselves to a co

We are not going to subjugate ourselves to a constitution ... signing away all our rights and agreeing to be slaves.

Context

He was opposed to the existing Fijian constitution but could not muster enough political support to amend it. He therefore stated that he would ignore it. He was overthrown by a coup several weeks later. One provision that was particularly vexing to him was communal voting, which reserved almost two-thirds of the seats in the House of Representatives for persons registered on ethnic electoral rolls; this tended to polarize the nation and gave foundation to politicians with extreme views

Topics

Citations

Mahendra Chaudhry, Prime Minister of Fiji, Leader of the Fiji Labour Party, “The Legacy of Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara” Memorial Lecture, Lautoka, August 27, 2003, .

Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations

Related Quotes

George Washington

The time is near at hand which must determine whether Americans are to be free men or slaves.

Walt Disney

Once a man has tasted freedom he will never be content to be a slave.

Golda Meir

I'm a slave to this leaf in a diary that lists what I must do, what I must say, every half hour.

Niccolo Machiavelli

It is just as difficult and dangerous to try to free a people that wants to remain servile as it is to enslave a people that wants to remain free.

H. L. Mencken

I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave.

Harriet Jacobs

Death is better than slavery.

Jill Scott

I'm not interested in being commodified. I'm not into being sold. I'm not a slave.

Jose Marti

It is terrible to speak of you, Liberty, for one who lives without you.

Christo

To keep that absolute freedom we cannot be obliged to anyone.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter

I was determined to achieve the total freedom that our history lessons taught us we were entitled to, no matter what the sacrifice.

Zora Neale Hurston

No man may make another free.

Emmeline Pankhurst

Not by the forces of civil war can you govern the very weakest woman. You can kill that woman, but she escapes you then; you cannot govern her. No power on earth can govern a human being, however feeble, who withholds his or her consent.

Jhonen Vasquez

It's sort of what the Johnny and Devi stories are about, the idea of always being a slave to something.

Seamus Heaney

One doesn't want one's identity coerced.

James Otis

If we are not represented, we are slaves.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

People demand freedom only when they have no power.

Lajos Kossuth

The house of Austria has publicly used every effort to deprive the country of its legitimate Independence and Constitution, designing to reduce it to a level with the other provinces long since deprived of all freedom, and to unite all in a common sink of slavery.

Bao Dai

I would prefer to be a citizen of an independent country rather than Emperor of an enslaved one.

William Morris

No man is good enough to be another's master.

Stefan Molyneux

If you don't want to be a slave, stop acting like a slave.

Aristotle

He who can be, and therefore is, another's, and he who participates in reason enough to apprehend, but not to have, is a slave by nature.

L. Neil Smith

I'm tired of being considered property.

Jack Johnson

I have the right to determine who shall be my mate without the permission of any man. I am not a slave.

Johnson had a white mistress who accompanied him visibly at a time when Blacks were lynched for dating white women in many parts of the country. He was criticized heavily by whites for going with a white woman and many Blacks for the same.

Henri Frederic Amiel

Every despotism has a specially keen and hostile instinct for whatever keeps up human dignity and independence.

Henry Highland Garnet

Rather die freemen than live to be the slaves.

About the Author

Mahendra Chaudhry

Born: February 9, 1942
Nationality:
Profession:

Biography

The Rt. Hon. Mahendra Pal Chaudhry is a Fijian and the leader of the Fiji Labour Party. Following a historic election in which he defeated the long-time former leader, Sitiveni Rabuka, the former trade union leader became Fiji's first Indo-Fijian Prime Minister on 19 May 1999, but exactly one year later, on 19 May 2000 he and most of his Cabinet were taken hostage by coup leader George Speight, in the Fiji coup of 2000. Unable to exercise his duties, he and his ministers were sacked by President Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara on 27 May; Mara intended to assume emergency powers himself but was himself deposed by the military leader, Commodore Frank Bainimarama. After 56 days in captivity, Chaudhry was released on 13 July and subsequently embarked on a tour of the world to rally support. He was one of the leading voices raised in opposition to the Qarase government's proposed Reconciliation and Unity Commission, which he said was just a mechanism to grant amnesty to persons guilty of coup-related offences. In January 2007 he was appointed as Minister of Finance, Sugar Reform Public Enterprise and National Planning in the interim Cabinet of Commodore Frank Bainimarama, following another coup. Chaudhry was also co-chair of the task force focusing on economic growth within the National Council for Building a Better Fiji. In August 2008, he left the government and became an outspoken critic of it.

Mahendra Chaudhry Quotes