Daily Inspiration Quote by Kamisese Mara

Trust is the currency of politics, and Mara’s line spends it with a hint of alarm. “Whom am I going to trust if I have to back again” reads like an off-the-cuff complaint, but it carries the hard logic of a statesman who’s learned that loyalty is never abstract. The grammar is slightly skewed, almost breathless, which matters: it sounds like someone speaking under pressure, mid-crisis, when you can’t afford the luxury of polished rhetoric. That roughness signals urgency and a private frustration leaking into public language.

The phrase “back again” does double duty. On the surface, it suggests having to reverse course - to retreat, to re-enter a negotiation, to depend once more on people who have already disappointed you. Underneath, it’s an indictment of a political environment where alliances are provisional and promises are situational. Mara isn’t only asking who he can trust; he’s implying that the existing roster has failed the basic test, and that circumstances are forcing him to return to them anyway. That’s the tragedy of governance in divided societies: you don’t get to choose your partners, just your compromises.

Placed in the context of Fiji’s post-independence tensions and repeated constitutional and political upheavals, the line becomes less personal and more structural. It captures how leadership can feel like steering with worn ropes: you pull, it slips, and you still have to keep the boat moving.