Published in MTimes 19 October 2018
Some years back,
following a comment on the “rodère ek donère
boute” syndrome present in our system, I had discussed the whole issue of
identity politics. I wish to take up some of the arguments from that article which
I consider relevant to this day because of the presence of an amalgam of the
same factors: the explosive growth of social media and the increasing feeling
of victimisation in a situation of rising inequality
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 for social justice in the
narrow terms of caste and community socio-economic uplift -- Affirmative
Action.
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 those who belong to their community. (All the
inhabitants of an island cannot be considered as being of such a community;
that will be cultural appropriation because that specific community had been
redefined, with a grain of justification, in a specific rhetoric of
frustrations and victimisation and uniquely entitled to reparation and
redress.) 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 deserve. 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 lack of opportunities and absence of
mature meritocracy in both the public and private sectors 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 unfair and archaic
system to continue.
The idea that an
outsider could not possibly understand the problems or needs of a specific
group creates more problems in the political arena and can take us to dangerous
conclusions. The surprise is that we accept their vile ways, their hate
mongering, we even encouraged them by aligning ourselves with the group that
most closely speak for us. Francis Fukuyma (‘Identity: The Demand for Dignity
and the Politics of Resentment’) argues that it is because in our multicultural
cities of the 21st century we don’t live together, we live side-by-side, in
neighbourhoods self-segregated by race, language, religion and ethnicity. And
Kwame Anthony Appiah (‘The lies that bind: Rethinking Identity’) explains it as
such: “Identity is a lie that binds when we allow it to imprison us but equally
it remains a lie when we suppose we’re free to choose our identities at will.”
Both authors are convinced that any hopes for human improvement are better
served by encouraging recognition of universal human interests than by pitting
group against group in a zero-sum competition.
