Society

Amidst the flurry of reactions following the mosque affair, there is one piece that I would like to signal to your attention. It was written by one of my colleagues at the Faculty and was published by The Mauritius Times.

It is worth the read and I cannot but agree with her that it is high time for the Mauritian society to set the norms for living together ‘en bonne intelligence’ as sane, rational and respectful individuals rather than in a highly competitive religious environment where the muezzin’s ‘azaan’, the pandit’s incantations, the christian churches’ bells and so on are pitched one against the other.

It is up to us to build a true Republic, not a bazaar…

Read her article here

Have you noticed that the anti-abortion people (read ‘Catholics’) are extremely active these days? Since one week or so, they’ve been campaigning ferociously against the legalisation of abortion, a possibility which has cropped up after the MFPA’s debate around abortion and Minister Faugoo’s somewhat favourably-skewed abortion declarations.

The ‘Comité interculturel pour le respect de la vie’ has even bought (unless Radio One donated?) prime-time advertising space on the radio to air a pro-life message and to invite people to a talk on the issue. There’s a doctor who also regularly writes to the press (specially L’Express, methinks) to stress on the risks associated with abortions.

On the whole, their discourse is basically geared towards instilling a feeling of guilt in people, specially women. And today, Mgr Piat in L’Express declares that the State should not be neutral on that issue, claiming that the government should protect little children indiscriminately, be they unborn.

Ainsi, lorsque Mgr Maurice Piat déclare que “l’Etat ne devrait pas, dit-on, imposer un point de vue sur l’avortement et qu’il devrait plutôt rester neutre et respecter le pluralisme comme il se doit dans une société laïque”, l’évêque répercute ce qui se dit en général dans la société : ce n’est pas là son opinion. Au contraire, Mgr Piat affirme avec force que l’Etat ne peut rester neutre et ne peut se prémunir du respect du pluralisme quand il s’agit de défendre le droit des plus faibles.

Ironically, it seems what he’s actually saying is that the State should not be neutral ‘tout court’, it should take up the Church’s point of view. Yet the responsibility of catering to the distressed mother’s needs should lie with the State, according to him!

De plus, l’Etat a aussi le devoir de donner à la femme en détresse les moyens, le soutien dont elle a besoin pour respecter la vie qu’elle porte en elle

Now, don’t get me wrong. Of course, noone wants to go through the ordeal of an abortion, I would hate to have to do that myself… But I’m tired of the hypocrisy of those who want to dictate others, specially the poor simple-minded. It’s the same people who actually frown upon the poor who fornicate and put lots of children on earth when they can barely earn enough to feed them…

Some time back, Ishtiba posted a question about mixed marriages on her blog.

As I felt personnally concerned by the issue I posted the following comment on her blog:

Avinash comes from a Hindu family (though he is an atheist/agnostic) and I myself come from a mixed background (my dad comes from China and is supposed to be a buddhist and he was forcefully baptised on his arrival in Mauritius but he’s basically an atheist; my mum comes from a muslim family but she chose on her own to convert to catholicism as an adult). I myself was raised into catholicism and used to attend mass every sunday until adulthood but now I’m also an atheist/agnostic.

We had a real mixed marriage with both a hindu priest and a catholic one officiating on the same platform with them alternating the use of the microphone; not two separate ceremonies which is usually the case in Mauritius. There was no competition but collaboration and I think that this was already a good starting point. I have heard that many people in fact have two different ceremonies on two different days so that none of the two ‘priests’ may know that there’s another ceremony being performed. How about calling that cheating???

Though all of this mixity appears a bit complicated and could have generated lots of problems, thankfully, this was not the case. And there’s a simple word that can explain why: ‘HUMANISM’. There’s only one race after all: humanity. Religion is just a packaging around humanity. It is a pity that many people stop only at the packaging level and never get through the different layers to the core. Similarly, marriage is just another packaging around the idea of relationship. And whether the marriage is mixed or not is not really the issue as lots of same-religion marriages fail as well (maybe even more). If a mixed marriage fails, I’m almost sure it would have failed anyway even if the two were of the same religion.

I sometimes feel that I may need to write down the story of my family but I never actually sat down to do it. Will probably do it little by little on this blog though…

To start off, I’ll just add for the time being that although none of us actually practise any religious rites of our own initiative, we still participate in all family rites and celebrations. We feel involved in all religious ceremonies and festivities, be it Divali, Spring Festival, Assumption, etc. And up to now we have never felt excluded or unwanted by any branch, probably because we are not afraid of actively engaging in the activities, being honest about not being believers but also being non-threatening in our approach to others’ convictions which we respect…

We are currently being offered yet another episode of our local politics ‘mauvais cinéma’ since thursday. Rama Sithanen, Minister of Finance and Deputy PM has ‘submitted’ his resignation letter to the acting PM (Navin Ramgoolam being in Cannes for the Sommet France-Afrique before he hops to London for a short break). The main reason for this decision is allegedly Bheenick’s nomination as Governor of the BoM (most popularly known as ‘ministre trou’).

Apparently, the resignation is not valid as it should have been given to the President instead. And Sithanen knows it as he’s also waiting for the PM to come back to get the latter’s feedback on his proposed resignation! Which brings us to the question: does he really intend to resign or is he just brandishing the menace to the PM to gain more bargaining power?

In any case, from the public opinion perspective, this ultimate episode appears as yet another evidence of the lack of dignity of our local politicians: you either resign or you don’t before you make it official. Don’t bring your ‘états d’ame’ on the public stage…

Have you ever heard of another country where a major minister had resigned without really resigning and the nation’s got to wait a full week to know for sure?

Whether Sithanen goes or stays, one thing’s for sure: the credibility of our local politicians is going downwards!

Update (23rd Feb)
According to local radio stations, Sithanen has had two meetings with the PM yesterday and night, each time spending some two hours or more to discuss the resignation. Nothing official is yet out (they’re supposed to give a joint press conference today) but the media are saying that Sithanen is gonna stay even though Ramgoolam will not backpedal on Bheenick’s nomination at the head of the Bank of Mauritius.
In a speech at a banquet after the first meeting, Ramgoolam apparently declared he wants Sithanen to stay to carry on with the reforms and that he had asked his minister not to dwell on minute details/’peccadilles’ (i.e. the nomination of Bheenick). I also heard him say on MBC radio that ‘l’autre personne est aussi une personne qualifiée’ (i.e. Bheenick).
Radio Plus even announced that there might be a reallocation of ministries, with the PM taking over Min of Finance whilst Sithanen keeps the Min of Economic Devt!
Anyway, the way I see it, if Sithanen does stay under those conditions, he’d better wear one of those big coats + large hats + sunglasses at all times cos he would have lost all credibility and would be an object of ridicule.
This is really shameful!