Africa-Press – Mauritius. The authorities and representatives of the good people in their diversity take seriously their role of arbiter and mediator that public television takes care to transmit to all households in the country.
The intention is to spare the susceptibility of some, a defect accentuated by the insularity and the sacrosanct status of the identity of each other, and on the other hand, to restore the official vision of any controversy that floods the media space where overheated speakers give themselves to their hearts content.
On the national screen, at the gathering of all households in the evening, the exercise of restoring serenity is rather successful. And so much the better.
Bottle brush in hand, the most recent of this type of exercise was performed at a mass in honor of a saint whose qualities laymen and pagans alike know little about.
Big words such as our people ’, our country’ – a very popular possessive pronoun in the rallying exercise punctuate the speech. The “diversity”, also at the rendezvous, looks good. Mass has been said. So be it.
It must be admitted that the exposure in broad daylight of the so-called “sensitive” subjects, usually benefiting from an omerta supposed to preserve harmony, lifts the veil on the truths which annoys.
The speeches try to present as so much ‘negativity’ what, in short, is the truth. And U. S ? Our role is not to please, but to unveil the truth above all other considerations that are supposed to preserve “harmony”.
More than a role, it is a duty. At what price ? Whatever the price. If the sense of duty, an obligation par excellence advocated in the Bhagavad Gita, imposes a certain requirement, the method of expression can sometimes border on mockery and irony, and sometimes provocation.
A sense of humor is not the strong point of a country where the palaver of males with high testosterone levels is constantly produced and displayed. Any attempt to humorously present the facts of society, here and elsewhere, is doomed to failure.
Everything is taken at face value, and they all get on their high horse at the slightest provocation. Anger is part of their daily life. Besides, we are surprised that there is not more violence in this country.
Their usual reaction is to take revenge. Revenge and reprisals are their strong point. A few years ago, an Algerian friend in Reunion who had some setbacks here followed by reprisals made this very correct observation: they are not well there.
Over there ’is here in the much-vaunted nou zil’ land. This mentality, which some say is infantilizing, has not changed over the years in this country where religion and prayers are widely displayed. Palavers pass for sensible speeches, spread in the press and social networks.
This negative trait of the males here served us as a foil and filled us with enough disgust during our teenage years to push us to pack up and see life differently under other more lenient skies where the evolution of society has given way to Reason in exchanges and social relations, a reason which favors civilized relations, and consequently, appeased.
If it was only the males! Over time, it seems that “females” in the truest sense of the word have internalized the same behavior in the media space, made worse by island silos.
They have cowardly joined the ranks of males and, for some, those of their clan, thus making themselves accomplices in all the faults of the latter. They thus made the foil ugly.
Message to political leaders and representatives of “sensitive” identities: Without the contribution of Reason, the desired appeasement will remain superficial.
A formal dress covered with gilding intended to draw the eye to the “appear”. As for “being”, it requires a great deal of thought and reflection. This is not the strong point of the country either.
For their part, elected officials try as best they can to make their opinion more credible on controversial subjects of general interest, management of dubious generosity of the state bank, the tournaments of Air Mauritius, labor laws and drift of a ship which had the bad idea of approaching a barrier not to be crossed.
The good stars are not ready to line up for the whole world or for us. Long before the pandemic, the economic situation was sending alarming signals in many countries. A coup de grace – flanked by a virus – brought the world to its knees.
Taking advantage of this situation created by a chain of catastrophes, by brandishing the great principles and the great causes of which they are the ardent defenders, multiple voices have created a permanent cacophony on the airwaves.
And this is to the delight of the audience of the most restless among them. Lucky are those who manage to see clearly in the discourse that invites street demonstrations, a habit whose idleness is likely to create the demand to demonstrate every fortnight.
Apart from the discontent aroused by the management of crises, according to some, there would be a thirst to seize power at any cost, an eagerness to fire everything and a fire with the slightest spark.
The very one who swears to ‘reform’ by the party he founded seems animated by a spirit of revenge against the party and the clan of which he was once a friend and sworn defender, and staged by a gracious male hand kiss to male. He seems to be pouring all his energy into destroying today’s enemy, yesterday’s friend.
\ In need of heroes, the public has set their sights on one of the figures highly publicized by the times which run, seeing there, according to the optical angle, a Martin Luther King, a Mother Théresa and why not a Nelson Mandela against apartheid.
The causes: the fate of the fishermen, that of the squatters, housing, the labor law, the oil spill, anti-dictatorship and everything. Self-portrait: a sea bass accustomed to dangers and very upset against the action or inaction of rulers.
Its principle: not even afraid of dying. He seems to take his role seriously. Among other things, the Government plans to compensate fishermen, the housing plan for the poor, and the assurance of a report on the ecological state of the seas in the south.
And if the definition of apartheid and dictatorship is very clear, unless we are in very bad faith, one wonders if this is a spectacle of a Don Quixote at war against the windmills to which the country will attend this weekend.
If we are not up to date in our perception of the various press and media organizations as well as the stakeholders, the confinement has made it possible to become fully aware of it.
Enough to find the ugly foil of our adolescence which, even by sorting through this nest where destructive passions swarm, the war of egos, the thirst for power, palaver, revenge and reprisals, pushes to scan the sky for the next flight and to contemplate the ocean for its beauty in a desire to take the sea and the air.
Samad Ramoly’s ‘Can Mauritians think?’ Would be of great benefit to the public if it is a real invitation to hard thinking ’. Roll on the opening of the borders!
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