Address by Ambassador Peter Thomson, Permanent Representative of the Republic of Fiji to the United Nations, to the Fiji Day Luncheon, New York, 13th October, 2010.
Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen. May I welcome you here today in some of the languages of Fiji, ni sa bula vinaka, noa’ia e mauri, salaam aleikum, namaste.
Any of you who have experienced India, will recognise that last greeting as the beautiful Hindi invocation of peace. In the early 1970s, when I was a Fiji district officer in the rural province of Navua, a local pandit told me that the namaste invocation means, “the highest in me greets the highest in you.” I suggest to you, that in the halls and committee rooms of the United Nations, it is this invocation we should pass amongst ourselves as we go about our daily work in the cause of international upliftment.