DEV VIRAHSAWMY AND ICJM
(1) LET’S GET BACK TO IT!
Everybody agrees. Call it Economic State of Emergency or what you will. The situation certainly calls for urgent action but above all for a new way of looking at things, a new vision and a new project.
It all started in the sixties when the call for independence did not generate much enthusiasm. The upper class was against; an important fraction of the middle class, specially the intellingentsia, was simply not on; support had a clear ethnic colouring. Independence came and we need not be surprised that a feeling of national identity and a sense of belonging to a nation has never really developed. The opposite is true. Speeches and emotional pleas will bear no fruits.
Political leaders have their fair share of the blame. Have we not recently witnessed – O how revealing – the pedestrian delving of our chief histrionic bungling botcher in a mess of bouillabaisse in Rue de la Canebière feverishly looking for his roots?
More importantly, neoliberals who control media houses now conceitedly clamour the end of history and the death of ideology.
The end of state capitalism commonly known as – the so-called – communism does not mean the end of history or ideology. Probably it’s only the end of the beginning. The serious problems engendered by capitalism (ecological disaster, oil crisis, etc.) should on the contrary drive us from entropy to new creativity in thought and action, to a new outlook or ideology, to more soul-searching solutions. Less government, privatisation and globalisation under the thumb of US imperialism will simply not work.
A neocolony which Mauritius is has to get back to the drawing board. The present shambles at all levels can be tackled only if we take the right road. We must break the neocolonial shackles. We must chart the course to New Independence which will be nationalistic and democratic or will not be.
To achieve this we need the right approach, programme and leadership.
25 August 2004
(2) POLITICS AT THE HELM
A combination of long-term difficulties eroding the efficiency and performance of export sectors, including tourism coupled with our dependence on an increasingly expensive fossil fuel mean that we have to rethink our development strategy and lifestyle.
Besides judicious adjustments and innovations to keep our textile and tourist heads above water, we need new energy producing schemes but for heaven’s sake let’s not go ‘nuke-crazy’. The sugar industry will willy-nilly have to become ‘the cane energy industry’ and sweetener will be just a mere byproduct. Parallel to this we must develop an energy-saving mindset and culture. New daring town and country planning leading to locally-centered economies which encourage the use of bicycles will also be part of the new landscape. Most importantly food production (food security) must top our political agenda and that would probably mean an agrarian reform capable of releasing our creative and productive potentials. Import substitution of a new kind could be envisaged. It will be argued that WTO rules rule this out. This is true if protective administrative measures are taken but if the people of Mauritius freely choose to buy Mauritian it would be undemocratic to stop them.
This new orientation to our economy and culture will not be the oeuvre of bureacrats or technocrats of the old mindset. It requires new thinking and new leadership at all levels to mobilise national human and material resources.
Of course ‘compradores’ will initially be dead against. But world economic and ecological reality will eventually force them to join national efforts. This survival strategy rests on a class alliance which is all inclusive. This is not to be interpreted as a reneger, an abandonment of class struggle. The struggle against neocolonialism is an expression of class struggle.
There is no doubt that in the process of rebuilding our motherland, establishing strong links with our immediate neighbours (Indian Ocean Islands, SADC etc.) and adopting environment-friendly policies we will strengthen Morisianism (positive nationalism) and build a new forward-looking culture.
This new culture will have to be based on tolerance, justice, caring and sharing. Above all it will have to be democratic. We will have to build a democracy which is not just a system of government but has become a way of life and is vibrant at work, at home, everywhere. At the heart of it there must be gender democracy .
The most difficult task at present is to find the leadership which can incarnate all this. “Anne, ma soeur Anne, ne vois tu rien venir?”
26 August 2004
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