Dear Participants,
FIRST , do not give in to identity politics- many of these loud-mouth ignoramuses will be spitting their disgusting venom about ethnic politics- ignore them for they are the ones among our many simpletons who imagine and perceive the other group(s) as a threat and enemy to the furtherance of their community’s interests. They cannot think beyond the sharpened communal and other socio-political cleavages.
(Identity politics is the syndrome in which people’s beliefs and interests are assumed to be determined by their membership in groups, particularly their sex, race or community, sexual orientation, and disability status)
SECOND, while we are having them on board, we are aware that 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 because it is the concern of every Mauritian that we are allowing such an unfair and archaic system to continue.
THIRD, we have to demarcate ourselves from people who move towards identities radicalism and tend to fall back on themselves or the vested interest of the group and seek support from their own caste/communities rather than appeal across castes and communities. This notion completely leaves out the need to assess the quality of ideas out of the realm of identities to be determined as good or bad thus essentially forcing people to discard their fight of ideas and move towards identities.
FOURTH, we have to continue our efforts in unmasking our political leaders who are also playing an important part in the assertion of various identities and power struggle between various sections of people ensuring that these identities also function as “an instrument” to access material gains in the present political and power set-up - a share of the gâteau national pu nou ban. The political system has frozen mobility in social structures and socioeconomic relations. Ethnic groups and castes have increasingly become competitive horizontal groups; their main demand is social justice in the narrow terms of caste and community socio-economic uplift.
FIFTH, be sure of what your goal is. It is not a question of us against them. It is not a narrative guided by identity politics and polarised in a rhetoric of victimisation entitled to reparation and redress. It is among others, and above all, a call for reform of the system, for a sharing of the fruits of progress, for more meritocracy, for inclusive institutions that are accessible to all citizens and do not favor a narrow group of elites, cronies and community over the rest of society.
AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST, note that identity politics has made deeper inroads in the Mauritian psyche and altered the terms of the economic and political discourse. The true discourse is the economic dominance of a rejuvenated version of the old propertied oligarchy which has imposed its model of development. A model of development, with its huge and widening disparities of income and wealth, that advances the private sector’s interests by liberalizing land to unlock massive potential for profits in real estate development for large land owners, the granting of more advantageous IPPs in energy, encouraging its employment of foreigners and promoting hotel development for the business oligarchs with public infrastructural investments. The political elite is a mere appendage of the economic elite and is at its mercy. They would not be providing us with an alternative vision of the country, a fairer and more balanced model of development that can offer better and wider economic opportunities for the next generation. No, we will end up with more of the same, safely anchored in the status quo.
Any hopes for human improvement are better served by encouraging a recognition of universal human interests than by pitting group against group in zero-sum competition. That’s why we must stay focussed, we must know what our goal is; this regime is showing serious signs of running out of steam and is being strained to breaking point. It is becoming harder for it to cover the cracks and the chances of its collapse are greater than ever before ; the time is ripe now to flex our muscles and grow into a wider movement for a new combative approach for change- a new model of development with greater respect for the environment, learning from lessons of the covid pandemic and the oil spill.
Rendez vous Samdi 29 août à Port Louis !
