by Professor Clive Moore*
Sir Peter Kenilorea, one of the most senior statesmen of the South Pacific, will be awarded an Honorary Doctorate at The University of Queensland graduation ceremony at the UQ Centre, St Lucia, Brisbane, on December 3.
He will add this to a long list of honours bestowed on him, including membership of the Privy Council, a British knighthood, and the Order of Brilliant Star with Special Grand Cordon, the highest honour that Republic of China can give any foreign citizen.
On Malaita Island in the Solomon Islands, where Sir Peter was born in 1943, an araha is the name given to a secular leader. A man of prayers is called the hanasu. Although both are terms applied to traditional leaders, they encapsulate what Sir Peter means to the Solomon Islands, which celebrated its 30th anniversary of independence in the middle of 2008.
A village boy chosen for modern education, he was an early student at the elite King George VI School, and then trained in New Zealand as a school teacher. In 1971 he transferred from teaching to the public service, at the request of the British government of his islands, which wanted to accelerate training for the leaders who would take the then Protectorate through to independence. He rose through a variety of jobs from Assistant Secretary of Finance to become a District Commissioner.
Elected to the Legislative Assembly in 1976, he became Chief Minister and Prime Minister at independence in 1978, a position he held three times between then and 1986. He also served as Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister. In 2000 he returned to the Parliament, this time as Speaker (a position elected from non-parliamentarians) and is now serving his second term.
In between 1991, when he resigned from Parliament, and 2000, Sir Peter spent three years as Director of the South Pacific Forum Fisheries Agency, a regional diplomatic post based in Honiara. In 1996 he became the nation’s Ombudsman for five years, and onwards from 2000 was intimately involved in negotiating the peace process during the political crisis years, 1998-2003.
Kenilorea, the secular leader, has travelled the world, having visited seventy nations during his career. But the real Kenilorea is the religious leader and family man. The son of a South Sea Evangelical Church pastor, he is intensely Christian and is an important lay preacher in his church. His family is at the core of his life, and he has never lost sight of his origins and hopes to return to his island after retirement to help his chiefs record their history of his people and their genealogies.
Sir Peter Kenilorea is the grand survivor of Solomon Islands politics and the nation’s elder statesman. He is an old-school Pacific leader who survived and brought up a large family only on his salary, with never a taint of corruption. Sir Peter has been constant in holding his nation to the letter of the National Constitution, mounting many important private court cases against the Government when it has abused its authority under the Constitution that he helped design and was instrumental in introducing.
In 2008 he published his autobiography, Tell It As It Is, which was launched at the celebration to mark the 30th anniversary of independence. The book was edited by University of Queensland’s Professor Clive Moore. The great modern-day araha and hanasu is adding another honour to his exceptional life in receiving the award of Doctor of the University honoris causa.
* Clive Moore is Professor of Pacific at Australian History at The University of Queensland and Head of the University's School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics. He is also President of the Australian Association for the Advancement of Pacific Studies.
Media: Jan King 07 3365 1120.
