Cogito, ergo sum. I think, therefore I am. (René Descartes, mathematician and philosopher,1599-1650)

Sunday 18 December 2011

Weekend Reading Spread over Two Days

Friday. 
Subhash Appanna : From Democratic Dictatorship to Democracy in Fiji 
Jioji Kotobalavu : An Argument for Elections, Power Sharing and a Government of National Unity


Saturday
Fr David Arms : An Accountable Electoral System
                                                     Allen Lockington's usual column
John Samy :  Reflections on the People's Charter and What Could Still Go Wrong (video)

SCROLL DOWN TO ACCESS THE READINGS.

9 comments:

Well he would... said...

Jioji Kotobalavu? Arguing for elections, power sharing and a government of national unity? Are you kidding, Croz? Well of course he would, having been Lai Qarase's right hand man and having been turfed out of the top job in the bureaucracy by Frank Bainimarama. Tell us something we didn't know.

Anonymous said...

There seems to be no links to
"Weekend Reading Spread over Two Days".

Crosbie Walsh said...

Anon ... There are no links. They are scheduled for publication on Friday and Saturday at different times.

Anonymous said...

Joji Kotobalavu, on the road to Damascus. After reading this, one would wish he was this enlightened when he had the keys to power under Rabuka and Qarase. He was the chief architect of the policies of Qarase Government which led to the fall of Qarase and the ashes of today. He has seen the light courtesy of FB or has he? His legacy speaks otherwise. How sad. How many opportunities missed?

Anonymous said...

Joji Kotobalavu might be find himeself more relevant and credible if he advocated the establishement of a Truth Commission. He even wokred under the 1990 Constitution without protest. "Where were you when we needed you"? One can only cry and ask. One would hope not enjoying the trappings of power and ethno-nationalism while the rest of the country was descending into greater poverty. Where was our Christianity then? History has already answered these questions. It might bee better that Joji remains a scholar of History and not of posterity.

Ram Dass said...

This post is merely to register my contempt for Jiogi Kotobalavu, a self-serving public servant.

Islands in the Stream said...

@ The Damascene Jioji Kotobalavu?

We shall not fall for this guise, surely? Almost thirty years of prostituted scholarship and learning, presumably exclusively funded by ourselves over a prolonged period of time and to what outcome? A projected GDP of 0.7% in 2012?

Whatever Kotobalavu studied it was most markedly not Economics nor Game Theory. Does he play chess? Emulating the eminent Harvard Professor Ken Rogoff? One suspects on the evidence he does not. For three decades or more he has presided over a disaster of economic policy and a Politics of Despair for many in Fiji. Despair since 1987 set the scene for the unravelling of reason. Earlier, 'Government by Tantrum' prevailed. Presumably he went along with or orchestrated this 'behind the arras'?

"History punishes those who arrive late" - How often must it be repeated, that now well worn statement of Mikhail Gorbachev?

This is no Damascene Conversion - this is an accommodation by the defeated preparatory to a 'Come-back'. Where and on Whose Turf?

"If pursuing disadvantage after the disadvantage has become obvious is irrational, then rejection of reason is the prime characteristic of folly...........
Ambition, anxiety, status-seeking, face-saving, illusions, self-delusions, fixed prejudices".

"The March of Folly" B. Tuchman

Sound familiar in this historians' context? So who now pays for this 'stab at a resurrection? We really MUST ensure that we ask and wait for a reply. Someone else has always footed the bills and therefore the responsibility for all past policies. All thirty or so years of them.

Anonymous said...

Joji Kotobalavu, a Samoan now! A Chameleon! He has found refuge in Samoa to get paid for his "stab at a resurrection", advising the Samoan PM to bad mouth Fiji and to rob Fiji off its hosting of regional and international organisations based in Suva. He destroyed us to ashes and seeks to return as a "fireman". Joji, pls accept that you are a failure who robbed Fiji of its innocence like you robbed the young and innocent Auckland university students access to history resource material by stealing them for yourself. This man has made selfishness into an art and now a "fireman". Confess to our Lord and take responsibility for our misery of today. Ask HIM for fogiveness so you can find Salvation. Joji, until then, you are no longer relevant and pls stay in Samoa and keep your dirty paws out of our resurrection into a modern State of Fiji.

Anonymous said...

Joji has no need of the Lord.

With a bag full of "Buli Kula", Joji is set to make a resurrection in a Fiji that is now pre 1874.

Samoa, ya better frisk him before he departs, or ya might find he got ya "mana" packed in his juju bag, then what ya gona do.