Identity Politics
Today
as the millennium heads towards its adolescence, it will be worthwhile to mark
a pause and think hard on the Vicar-General criticism, in the context of his
New Year’s message, of the “ rodère ek donère boute” syndrome present in
our system. Should we be surprised that our whole system has degenerated to
nothing but rodères boutes. Have we not tolerated, even encouraged them?
Were we not found wanting when our institutions were crumbling, when insecurity prevails; when we sided with an elite that is incapable of erudite opinion and paralysed in its own elitism, with an intelligentsia that preferred to have no political voice; when we watch passively as the media loses ground and its moral fibre while government tightens its grip on the system; when we make our choice by aligning ourselves with the groups that most closely speak for us. And in so doing, our congregation in this millennium is by communities of interests, not just communities of locality; when we allow ourselves to be goaded by a mass-media that stupidly mirrors the desires of the public and generates all kinds of tension and mobilisation and when it takes up a supposedly popular or partisan cause and runs with it nonetheless subject to viewer ratings.
Were we not found wanting when our institutions were crumbling, when insecurity prevails; when we sided with an elite that is incapable of erudite opinion and paralysed in its own elitism, with an intelligentsia that preferred to have no political voice; when we watch passively as the media loses ground and its moral fibre while government tightens its grip on the system; when we make our choice by aligning ourselves with the groups that most closely speak for us. And in so doing, our congregation in this millennium is by communities of interests, not just communities of locality; when we allow ourselves to be goaded by a mass-media that stupidly mirrors the desires of the public and generates all kinds of tension and mobilisation and when it takes up a supposedly popular or partisan cause and runs with it nonetheless subject to viewer ratings.
Globalisation,
liberalisation, new markets and technologies have become all-pervasive in our
everyday life. But these developments bring in their wake insecurity and
volatility. The greatest danger posed by unrestricted globalisation is that it
may exacerbate the problems of nagging poverty and uneven development, and
create grave infrastructural mismatches. The widening of economic and social
disparities accentuates the problem of social exclusion and marginalisation and
intensifies feelings of frustration. Panic and fear spread fast. Appeals to
emotion leave appeals to logic in the dust. And emotion moves people more
powerfully than fear, and stirs more powerful emotions. Because the subject is
so complicated, people are unable to balance their emotional reactions with
rational ones. Moreover, appeals to fear, anger and hate really gain traction
when ignorance is wide and deep. These constitute real threats to social
cohesion and integration and have far-reaching implications for the economic
and political stability of the country.
The
Guru of the Third Way, Anthony Giddens, reckons that with globalisation,
autonomy and freedom tend to replace the hidden power of tradition with more
open discussion and dialogue. But these freedoms bring other problems in their
wake. A society living on the other side of nature and tradition is one that
calls for decision making in everyday life. The dark side of decision-making is
the rise of addictions and compulsions. As the influence of tradition and
custom shrink on a world-wide level, the very basis of our self-identity -- our
sense of self -- changes. Self-identity has to be created and recreated on a
more active basis than before.
Those
growing up after this globalisation and liberalisation brouhaha no longer go
through life’s grind with the sole objective of looking for avenues of escape.
They have been brought up in a never-ending diet of hype, of success stories
without any sense of cultural inferiority. More so the empowerment unleashed by
the technologies of the 20th century -- the liberalisation of the airways for
example -- have given people a peep into other lives and other possibilities.
They are fed up of accepting the choices made supposedly in their interest by
those who are not one of theirs. In addition, the frustrations of a repressive
working life go in search of a safety valve. They have suddenly become more
socially conscious, they feel that they have to refashion the democratic set-up
their way and find that the easiest way out – instead of allowing social
consensus to sustain its energy and develop as profoundly as it needs to. They tend
to fall back on themselves or on the
vested interests of various groups and are trapped by the contradictions
inherent in a plural society with its diverse communities. These social tensions are shaping politics
and we thus see the rise and consolidation of identity politics. Lucia
Michelutti of the South Asia Centre calls it the Vernacularisation of
Democracy, that is, identity or popular politics thrives when ideas and
practices enter and transform domains of life like family life, caste, kinship,
ethnicity and popular religion. Ethnic
groups and castes increasingly become competitive horizontal groups; their main
demand is social justice in the narrow terms of caste and community
socio-economic uplift. These new vernacular leaders often tend to pitch their
message and policies and draw support from their own caste/communities rather
than appeal across castes and communities. These groups use a variety of
cultural resources such as the redefinition of their identity, myths of origin
and heroic traditions to refashion their communities and reconfigure who
belongs to their community. The mobilisation strategies of rival groups
contribute to competing ideas of social justice which create not only stronger
caste and ethnic identities but legitimize low-level conflict and division.
Recently
we have seen that the competition over State resources and for government posts
have shaped what some groups think they are entitled to (their share of the
gâteau national) and what they think other communities are having -- a
relatively greater share than what they merit. Lies, damned lies and misleading
statistics flourish. By focusing so much energy on a specific political agenda,
practitioners of identity politics are just as closed-minded or exclusionary as
those they claim are oppressing or marginalising their group. For example the
rejection of CPE system should not be argued from the narrow perspective
of communal or identity politics; but because it is the concern of every Mauritian
that we are allowing such an archaic system
based merely on rote memorisation to kill creativity.
The idea that an outsider could not possibly
understand the problems or needs of a specific group creates more problems in
the political arena. The surprise is
that we accept their vile ways, their hate mongering; they are also the rodères
boutes who tend to forget that those living in glass houses should not be
throwing stones at others.
The
EPZ sector: still fumbling
Back
in 2005, our protagonists (to be known later as TINAwallahs) had the right
solutions for all the problems of the EPZ. “ ….il y a eu l’erreur capital de ne pas demander la
dérogation de Third Country Fabric à temps. Et pendant deux ans ou on n’a pas
eu la dérogation… 20,000 emplois ont été
perdus dans le textile……”
But
with the dismantling of the Multi-Fibre Agreement (MFA), no government could
not have done anything to prevent the loss of jobs and stop the Hong Kongese
and Taiwanese firms from leaving Mauritius because the era of quotas had come
to the end in 2005. Between 2000-05, the backloading of the quotas caused the
loss of some Rs 24,000 jobs.
There were also the proposals that “il y a un rapport d’un high powered
committee sur la Zone Franche qui dort dans un tiroir et qui préconise une
série de mesures correctives et incitatives qu’il fallait prendre pour amortir
les coûts ». They had also recommended recourse to equity funds;
we have seen the quasi-equity funds in
operation recently under Additional Stimulus Package and we can safely say that
the EPZ firms would have preferred direct relief spending which is a more
powerful stimulus than equity investment in troubled businesses and is better
aimed at the neediest. Four years down the lane, despite an earlier bout
of depreciation of the rupee to artificially boost the sector, the plethora of
fairs and shows of Entreprise Mauritius and the Additional Stimulus Package to
restructure les canards boîteux, our TINAwallahs seem to have failed in
revingorating the sector: 94 firms in the sector have closed down and 5000 jobs
have been lost since 2005. The recent US ITC Report ‘Sub-Saharan African
Textile and Apparel Inputs: Potential for Competitive Production’ highlights the constraints faced by the sector, namely
,the rising costs in terms of energy, land prices, and labour, which impede
sector competitiveness. “… For example, one firm stated that spinning is
more expensive in Mauritius than in China because of energy costs.”
So
again the divisive issue of the strong v/s weak rupee is back on the agenda.
The TINAwallahs have yet to deliver on their promise to provide appropriate
corrective measures to enhance the sector’s competitiveness. Meanwhile we will
have to keep on trying to withstand and ward off the pressures of the
exporters’ lobby for a weaker rupee and we seem to be having the support of the
Bank of Mauritius in striking the right balance for the exchange rate. “We
are concerned with the exchange rate of the rupee; we have done such a good job
on the exchange rate front that people are now complaining about the rupee at
its current level. They want the dollar to trade at Rs35; we have saved
consumers money because of the Rs5 less that the dollar costs, and that is
money that has stayed in the pockets of consumers,” Rundheersing Bheenick,
Governor of the Bank of Mauritius reassures us.
Zone
d’Education Prioritaire (ZEP): Have we passed?
The
failure rates in the ZEP schools are being decried by some of the main
stakeholders of the education sector -- « le
gouvernement a cru bien faire en copiant le système éducatif français. C’est un échec cuisant. » Others are proposing a different curriculum
and programme for the ZEP schools that will extend over eight rather than the
present six years of primary schooling. Still some decry the measures adopted to patch up the system : « C’est
n’est pas en instaurant un ZEP Council, qui est censé se réunir deux fois l’an
que le ministre Bunwaree résoudra les problèmes des ZEP ».
The
ZEP system was set up with the main objective of providing the necessary
environment conducive to favourable learning conditions for children living
mostly in the less developed regions based on specific pedagogical programmes.
The strategy is to reduce school inequalities and in a broader perspective to
address social inequalities by providing equal opportunities to all primary
school children.
The
essence of the project is to build a bridge between the school and the social
environment of the pupil at his home. It was essentially conceptualized to give
a new orientation to teaching and learning processes in the classroom by
adopting techniques of inclusive pedagogies. The latter consideration puts the
child at the centre of any pedagogical undertakings. The work and the
enhancement of the child’s mental and psychological capabilities are closely
monitored and followed up by the class teacher and the latter reports the
changes in a Pupil’s Progress Card. The same is made available to the parents
and other agents who have at heart the interest of the pupil’s progress.
Parent
Mediators working closely with the Head Teachers of the ZEP schools were to
foster a new understanding on the value of education. The Parent Mediators were
trained in techniques aimed at talking to parents and involving them in work
sessions on life values. The Parent Mediators, the Head Teacher and the
teachers in the school work out and identify a list of needy students who
cannot perform due to lack of basic needs. The Pupil Progress Card is given to
the Parent Mediators as a source of invaluable information as the same card
will contain not only the academic performance of the child but also his/her
psychological profile. The Parent Mediators will then either work with those
parents in group sessions or if the case demands, these officers will visit the
parents at their place and try to understand the problems faced by the parents
of the child.
The
Parent Mediators are useful social agents in the ZEP Project which also
promises to knit a network of partnership with NGOs and community-based
organisations to help securing a better environment for the development of the
child. During the course of the field work, the Parent Mediators identify and
contact appropriate NGOs and community-based organisations most likely to give
a helping hand in their work. Parent Mediators offer essentially psychological
support to the parents facing problems while the NGOs and government provide
for material assistance to needy families.
Have
we really tried these? Have we exhausted all the possibilities of improving the
ZEP system? One of the top linguists
Dev Virahsamy believes that the “résultats sont de plus en plus décevants. Car
on a oublié de revoir la politique de langue… Si on pouvait donner à ces
enfants une éducation dans leur langue maternelle…” At Stanley GS, the success rate is 60.78%. At Bois des
Amourettes ZEP school, it is 61.11%. What is their secret? They believe in the
system as it was conceptualized and thus gave it a chance to succeed at least
by “encadrer les parents avant de
parfaire l’éducation de leurs gosses.” And the possibilities are there to
continue refining the system for better outcomes. Only then can we say that we
have passed!!!
Financial
Times (FT): Lotto and Household Debt
The recent issue of FT that extensively covered
Mauritius and its successful reform programme,
seems to have missed out on the prevailing high unemployment rate of 7.4 % which had reached
8.3% in the second quarter of 2009. In the third quarter of 2009 it was
estimated that there were some 42,100 unemployed comprising 14,900 males (35%)
and 27,200 females (65%). More than 100,000 Mauritians are living with less
than Rs 4,000 per month. And 40,000 families are caught in the debt spiral.
What ‘s more shocking is that 27% of the
working population are having problems in meeting their debt liabilities .We
are finding it ironic and shameful that in such a situation where the numbers
in debt are gathering pace and the size
of the personal debt mountain facing many households are peaking and when our
domestic savings rate has reached a catastrophic low figure of 11.4%, one of
the lowest over decades, the Authorities
have launched the Lotto games. Some poor households are betting as much as Rs
100 per week . This is a tax on the poor for the money that goes to government
coffers and is redistributed through its social schemes never reach the poor.
Who will deny it that in the education system, for example, the elite captures
all the redistribution. So is it in the health sector. Instead of manipulating
the budget figures to show a higher
budget deficit than what has actually
been realised by including transfers and not what has been spent over the period, some
of the extra revenue collected could
have targeted at reducing reliance on Lotto receipts. From rodeurs boutes , we
are painfully graduating to a “ Nation
of Zougadeurs” as predicted and coined by Sir Satcam Bollell some years back.
