“DU VRAI CHANGEMENT”

The thousands and thousands of Mauritians who took to the streets of Port Louis chanting in unison “fou li déor”, emboldened by the success of the march, are now more determined than ever to get rid of this regime. Online petition demanding the resignation of Pravind Jugnauth has already exceeded 25,000 signatures. Confident now of their collective might, the citizen’s movement intends to continue building up the momentum and turning the heat on the government- in the courts, in the media, on the streets and at the international level -till its logical conclusion- the overthrow of the current government.

Though reeling from the aftershocks of the uproar from the streets for PRA-20 to “tuite”, Pravind Jugnauth and his band of incompetent ministers and advisers have no intention of stepping down. On the contrary, they are more likely to unleash their underground forces trying the same old gesticulations and the same old tricks of engineering some fissures in the citizen’s movement and manipulating the fears and identity issues that have often brought the country to the verge of strife and confrontation.

We are being faced by one of the most challenging situations the country has seen post-independence— the economy spiralling deeply into the red while our community is in ebullition trying to free itself from the shackles that have impeded its progress so far. In such exceptional circumstances, the citizen’s movement has to stay vigilant and militant against factional interests and the forces of division and deception sent by its adversaries to outmanoeuvre and stamp it out before it becomes the present regime’s behemoth.

That’s why it is important that our citizens stay focussed on their goal, their greater vision, the yearning for change. This can be the greatest ally for the movement ; it will convey the vision, ambition and energy that is so transformational, so challenging, so change demanding, so reforming that it would create the moments to come together and re-turbo our engagement to bring in the change that Mauritius needs.

What kind of change? This is where I am a bit apprehensive; since our pre-independence days we have been going through this masquerade; to summarise it: before independence we had an establishment dominated by a specific community coming mainly from the middle class. Post-independence, the more educated and the well-off in this community- a very competent petit-bourgeois political elite- decided to migrate elsewhere handing over the establishment and the levers of power to a new upcoming community comprising of the “nouveau-riche” planters and intellectuals from a specific caste -this community, however, has been plagued, till today, by the scourge of casteism. During the past 50 years, we have had different variants of this community and its different combination of castes at the helm with some sharing with other communities which over the years have trickled down to a bare minimum. The only constancy was the consolidation of the economic elite and the pauperisation of the lower classes across communities, which was felt more acutely among one community and was categorised by some social analysts as a typical case of "exclusion or marginalisation sociale”.

A very important event that marked the independence period was the birth of the MMM. Those were the years when the only hope for most Mauritians was emigration to greener pastures elsewhere. But for those who stayed behind, by choice or by force, it was a question of eking out a living out of this quagmire of poverty and desolation. Baby boomers were flocking to the labour market in droves. The level of unemployment was estimated at more than 20%. Most affected were the young, educated and school-leavers. The Fabian socialism of the political elite was not delivering and was gradually being twisted more to the right. It was the ideal terrain for the MMM to propagate its radical ideas about the economy and the political system. It proposed, among others, a reform of the economic system dominated by some 14 families, a land reform, direct democracy and an eradication of communal representation. All these are now history.

The point I want to make is that, all through these power struggles, the economic elite ended up even stronger than before, successfully subjugating the wayward movements and forcing them to fall in line and restrict their revolutionary aims to a mere change/tinkering of the political system. Are we seeing more of the same ?

Not necessarily, we may be moving this time ,one step forward, with the possibility of a genuine reform of the political system - more representative and a better sharing of the fruits of progress (of the leftovers), greater meritocracy, more of inclusive institutions that are accessible to all citizens and do not favor a narrow group of relatives, cronies and community over the rest of society.

But ultimately, we will again be fighting for the few crumbs left on table by the economic elite and behind the façade of the rainbow nation we will continue with our petty little struggle of 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 reformed political and power set-up. Because, whatever the political elite, it will be a mere appendage of the economic elite and at its mercy. It’s the economic elite ,through the MCCI and the EDB, that is imposing its vision of the economy and deciding on the priorities of the country along the lines of IRS (which amounted lately to more than 75% of our FDI), Smart Cities and its gated communities, the High Net-Worth Individuals (HNWI) or Silver Economy or “le bétonage” of the island encroaching on our public beaches and environmentally sensitive areas …

Should we be surprised then that Government backpedalled on the 25% Solidarity Levy on the highest income earners, that they amended the Local government Act to take away the fundamental right of citizens to contest the private sector’s development projects that represent a danger to our already weakened ecosystem and that though the private sector is investing 45 billions in the Mont Choisy Smart City , the political elite continues to play mayhem with taxpayers's money bailing out the private sector while doling out a mere pittance to the needy, the informal sector and unemployed workers.

Fighting for a change of the political system is not enough , it will be limiting our demand to social justice in the narrow terms of caste and community socio-economic uplift without re-examining the use of our resources in relation to the country’s needs, including social and community needs, the natural environment and the impact of property development on our environment. Indeed, our quest “du vrai changement” should be, above all, a call for new economic paradigm that will dramatically change the socio-economic fibre of Mauritius, and especially one that will attend to the interest of "the many, not the few", for a rising economic tide that could lift all boats instead of polarising the country between few haves and many have-nots.

The true discourse is the needed changes and reforms to our present economic model of development and the accompanying political system. We are at the crossroads of some serious choices - either to continue with the present model of development with its huge and widening disparities of income and wealth or we choose a different destiny, a path of serious discovery and inventiveness, by directing our energies to more imaginative forms of planning and policies that produce altogether different outcomes that are more sustainable and inclusive. A new development model that will create a level playing field and promote inclusive growth by tackling the constraints of our dual economy rather than economic growth per se. This economic model will have to be built on a strong, vibrant and wider economic base which has the potential to improve the quality of our growth and to sustainably address the issue of equity.

That’s why we must stay focussed, we must know what our goal is- a new economic and political system- a new model of development for enlightened national interest rather than plutocratic private interests and with greater respect for the environment, learning from lessons of the covid pandemic and the oil spill and a reform of our political system that goes beyond proportional representation and abolition of the best loser system to tackle communal representation or identity politics.

12Prakash Neerohoo, Harish Chundunsing and 10 others

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12Prakash Neerohoo, Priyanka Vaidya and 10 others

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