{"id":1397,"date":"2011-12-09T07:31:26","date_gmt":"2011-12-09T07:31:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/2011\/12\/09\/professor-j-manrakhan-8\/"},"modified":"2019-12-02T13:42:07","modified_gmt":"2019-12-02T09:42:07","slug":"professor-j-manrakhan-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/professor-j-manrakhan-8\/","title":{"rendered":"Always on Duty, Forever Smiling"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Memoriam: R\u00e9gis Finette<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

By Professor J. Manrakhan<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Family and friends are grieving over the passing away from an implacable malady, at 77, of R\u00e9gis Finette, academic at R\u00e9duit, politician and Minister at Local Government and at Health; as well as President of L\u2019Alliance Francaise<\/em> in Mauritius.<\/span><\/p>\n

Indeed, in his particular case, it was true that<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018In my Father\u2019s house are many mansions\u2019<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

(St John, 4.2)<\/span><\/p>\n

And he never forgot his \u2018many mansions\u2019: from law and order to the cooperative spirit; from French flair, academic freedom and autonomy, to ministerial responsibility and collective solidarity. Yet, he remained profoundly human, with kind words and compassion, for the very many, while striving all the time to fulfil his onerous duties as diligently and honestly as possible. And all the time his ready smile was there, to assure and reassure, everyone — including himself.<\/span><\/p>\n

For he had to adroitly manoeuvre round various crossroads in academe, in politics, and elsewhere, with associated risks and rewards. And he accomplished all of those with great charm and courtesy.<\/span><\/p>\n

There was a time when he had to weigh the alternatives of \u2018Cooperative Development\u2019 or \u2018French Studies\u2019 at R\u00e9duit, when all of a sudden, the potential of \u2018University Public Relations\u2019 cropped up. That confusion was made \u2018worse confounded\u2019 when politics joined the fray \u2013 and ultimately won. The rest is history. But not for R\u00e9gis: he never forgot the past. Time and again, whenever we met, he would recall memorable events of the past.<\/span><\/p>\n

Indeed it seemed as if it was only yesterday, when he informed me in the centre of Rose Hill that he had become President of L\u2019Alliance Fran\u00e7aise<\/em>: his eyes glowed with justified pleasure: la cr\u00e8me de la cr\u00e8me!<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

That, I assert, must have finally succeeded in convincing him of his own great worth.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018For many are called, but few are chosen\u2019<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

(St. Mathew, 22.14)<\/span><\/p>\n

He will be sorely missed by family and friends, even as he now rests in Elysium.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

* Published in print edition on 9 December 2011<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Memoriam: R\u00e9gis Finette<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":261,"featured_media":6560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9019],"tags":[8279,20531,20530],"class_list":["post-1397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-obituary","tag-in-memoriam","tag-president-of-lalliance-francaise","tag-regis-finette"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/MT-Logokk.jpg?fit=1200%2C880&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8QzSF-mx","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/261"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}