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Joni Madraiwiwi Quotes
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The Spirit of Rotary is to voluntarily improve the lot of their fellow human beings because it is the ultimate calling in life. Not for reward of for personal gain, but for the satisfaction of having made a positive difference to someone else. How different would life be if those of us with more advantages could all practice these virtues? This would be a society where the strong would be just and the weak secure. It is an ideal that we can all work towards.
Joni Madraiwiwi
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One wonders whether the ethnic categorization effort at finding solutions to problems that cross ethnic boundaries. Poverty is poverty is poverty. It does not have peculiar ethnic characteristics.
Joni Madraiwiwi
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It will be impossible to achieve this (keeping the people together) if the elders and chiefs have their own way and are too proud of their chiefly status to not bring themselves down to the people.
Joni Madraiwiwi
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We need to try and focus less on ethnicity in this country and concentrate on trying to improve the lot of the marginalized whoever they are.
Joni Madraiwiwi
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Opportunity marries with circumstance and is midwife to the resultant bartering of public office. The mutuality is advantage to the parties involved merely facilitates the spread of such practices. When it reaches the point of being commonplace and is pragmatically perceived as the most practical means of getting things done, it has become systemic and difficult to eradicate.
Joni Madraiwiwi
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It is not our background that will count but our individual actions and initiatives. Education is the great leveller: irrespective of origin, it places everyone on the same footing.
Joni Madraiwiwi
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When we exclude part of the community, we deny ourselves the participation and contribution of those left out. We allow the possibility of conflict in some future time, neither scenario we can afford. Everyone, irrespective of ethnicity, has a contribution to make no matter how humble or small.
Joni Madraiwiwi
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Should we retain our national flag that conveys historical continuity from the days of the Cakobau government to the period of British Colonial rule, or is it time for a new one?
Joni Madraiwiwi
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Ultimately, the best guarantor of the rule of law is not the state and the branches which comprise it but the recognition by people of its value and their willingness to fight for, and uphold it.
Joni Madraiwiwi
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It (education) broadens our minds and creates opportunities, equipping us with the skills and the knowledge to participate in the world beyond the classroom.
Joni Madraiwiwi
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Inclusiveness is disguised by the ability to offer a sometimes disturbed community a vision of themselves and the means to achieve it together.
Joni Madraiwiwi
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We need to move forward and beyond the point where we endlessly pursue the demons bequeathed us by our history.
Joni Madraiwiwi
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We all belong to this country, what are we going to call ourselves? Recognizing the sensibilities of most indigenous people here about the term 'Fijian', let us find some other name. But let us not leave it unresolved because it is an important symbol of belonging here.
Joni Madraiwiwi
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The politicians pontificate and manoeuvre with eloquent manifestos and pronouncements saying little about the challenges we must confront.
Joni Madraiwiwi
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Reconciliation and forgiveness is inextricably linked to the identity and unity we develop as a nation.
Joni Madraiwiwi
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It is easy to decry the nature of ethnic politics in this country. We are hostages to history and the ethnic compartmentalisation that began in the colonial era.
Joni Madraiwiwi
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However social integration cannot be forced and not proceed at the pace that the community considers uncomfortable.
Joni Madraiwiwi
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The issue which concern all of us as citizens of this country, irrespective of our political beliefs and ethnicity, is this: if we are to forbear all legal proceedings against the perpetrators of the events of 19 May 2000 what does that say about our sense of right and wrong? What does it say to those that were directly and indirectly harmed by their actions? Without an accounting, we encourage repetition of this conduct, make light of the pain and suffering people endured and suggest to the impressionable that such conduct is appropriate.
Joni Madraiwiwi
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They (Indo-Fijians) came as indentured laborers to this land and were treated harshly. They had little reason to be grateful to their colonial masters and like the indigenous Fijians. The British crown colony of Fiji was funded in part from their toil, yet they were treated like second-class citizens.
Joni Madraiwiwi
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The strength of Commonwealth lies in its diversity and it to be mindful of bearing economic, social, political and cultural systems which comprise its membership … Its commonality lies in its connection to humanity, in the main it has provided an invariable forum whose members to open and continue meaningful issues of concern.
Joni Madraiwiwi
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I trust you will bear in mind the deeply-held fears and insecurities Fijian have as an ethnic community. This is a subject I dwell on repeatedly because, while I do not share them, I am sufficiently Fijian to appreciate the depths of these emotions.
Joni Madraiwiwi
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We have survived bitter divisions in our society. Reconciliation requires us to put aside our differences and forgive the injuries done to us just as justice is essential to that equation. Those who have done wrong and broken the law must be punished. There can be no setting to rights or settling of accounts without that element. Until that is done there will be no finality to our collective nightmare. Until we all accept that simple fact the sense of hurt and betrayal continue.
Joni Madraiwiwi
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When national leaders address the people of Fiji in specifically Christian terms, whatever the occasion, nearly half of our people are excluded. When prayer in mixed company is uttered in terms of a purely Christian God, we unintentionally omit and diminish others present of different faiths. When we use Christian symbolism to promote reconciliation, forgiveness and unity, we discount the contribution and equally rich traditions extant in other faiths and cultural traditions.
Joni Madraiwiwi
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Our ethnicity is part of us, however, it should not isolate or distance us from the community in which we live. People of different cultures cannot not live peacefully together unless they have respect for each other. I accept that seeking further integration is a challenge and it cannot be imposed or done under duress; the feeling has to come from within ourselves. To create an environment for that to happen, we have to develop situations and opportunities that place people in a position to make choices and this is one of them. And unless we begin to see our neighbours as people, as human beings rather than by ethnicity, it is difficult to shed our stereotypes of each other.
Joni Madraiwiwi
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For it is only when we all believe that the Constitution and the rule of law protects all our people and their rights, can these guarantors of rights be assured.
Joni Madraiwiwi
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Quote of the day
Now if the harvest is over, And the world cold, Give me the bonus of laughter, As I lose hold.
John Betjeman
Joni Madraiwiwi
Born:
1957
Died:
September 29, 2016
(aged 59)
Bio:
Ratu Joni Madraiwiwi, Lord Madraiwiwi Tangatatonga is a Fijian lawyer, politician and was the Vice-President of Fiji from 2004 to 2006.
Most used words:
people
country
ethnic
ethnicity
community
society
colonial
fijian
rights
indigenous
law
time
reconciliation
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