‘The original Mauritians’ – A crime against humanity

Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of Justice – Nelson Mandela

Over my time living in Australia, I took a keen interest in the plight of Aboriginal Australians. There is an ongoing and divisive debate happening right now in Australia around how to best improve the livelihoods of the first people of Australia, with some advocating for a constitutionally recognised advisory board constituted of Aboriginal Australians while others are seeking a treaty before any talk of reconciliation can begin. Everyone has a view on this and my view differs slightly. I have come to the view that whatever we do, however much money we throw at the problems facing Aboriginal Australians, nothing will happen unless we find a way to return human dignity and honour to the longest living civilisation on earth. 

The reality is that over centuries of British colonisation, Aboriginal Australians have been made to believe that their culture was uncivilised, backwards and unwanted to the point that it was government policy at one point to wipe their culture off the face of Australia. Over centuries, their sense of self-worth, their human dignity and their honour has been taken from them bit by bit. 

Ironically, after so much engineered trauma and dispossession, blame is being laid at their feet for being in the position that they are in. This is something I have a lot of trouble understanding. 

I also have a lot of trouble understanding the blame being laid at the feet of the first, the original Mauritians, for the situation many of them find themselves in today. Many Mauritians of slave ancestry finds themselves in a situation of economic poverty, low literacy, broken families, domestic violence, drug abuse and other societal issues. We employ many people of this background, and I have first-hand experience of the situation many of these people find themselves in today. A lady working for us returned from to work 14 days after having given birth. When I queried why that was, she told me that her husband left her with 3 children aged 4, 2 and the baby and if she did not work, she won’t be able to feed her kids, let alone sending them to school.

I took an interest into why this situation continues to exist despite what seems to be, at surface level, equal opportunities like free education being offered to all citizens of Mauritius. I spoke to many people including the ex President of Mauritius, Honourable Cassam Uteem who during his presidency consistently fought against poverty and to Stephan Buckland, our national athletics hero who is doing a lot of work to help people in need. As a Mauritian of Hindu faith myself, in many of my conversations, I have been blaming other Mauritians of Hindu faith for not doing enough to help their fellow countrymen break this cycle of economic poverty. My blame has been directed at the fact that many Mauritians of Hindu faith have made significant generational economic progress given their own extremely difficult start in this country and that if not as duty of care for another human being, then at least to improve their own safety and avoiding another flare up of economic tensions such as that which occurred during the ‘Kaya riots’, that knowledge and systems of how to break through should be shared with those stuck at the bottom of the economic ladder.

My journey has taken me to this point up to now. 

1. Economic poverty in Mauritius has been over simplified. I have been told many times that Mauritians are lazy which is why they are poor, that they don’t want to work, which is why we are having to bring overseas workers. The story of that lady who came to work 14 days after giving birth shows a different reality. We seem to be living a self-fulfilling prophecy where we believe so much in the ‘laziness’ of Mauritians that we have now created a reality around this.
2. We seem to believe that Mauritians should work regardless of the work conditions on offer. We seem to believe that Mauritians, specially those stuck in generational poverty, should be grateful to have a job instead of employers creating the right working conditions for them to want to keep working in the same place of employment. We have seen this in our work where if the people working for us do not feel valued and respected at work, that they won’t hesitate to look for another job. In my view, we have a steep societal hierarchy in Mauritius where employers ask for subservience from their employees and when that is not met, the employees are deemed lazy or unwilling to work. 
3. An important note was made by Mr Uteem when he told me that ‘Asians in Mauritius seem to forget that they came to Mauritius with significant cultural support. They brought with them religious texts that have for millennia been helping people break out of the cycle of mental slavery. We fail to realise that slaves were brought to this island devoid of any such support’ and that over more than ten generations, were made to feel less and less human by their masters with every passing generation. By the time slavery was abolished, those slaves had had everything taken from them. By the tenth generation, their sense of self-worth, a critical ingredient for the realisation of economic prosperity, could have been completely extinguished, leading many to continue to believe that they are only worth what they are worth at their lowest point. This is not true for Asians who came to Mauritius as economic migrants with a mind set on succeeding. Asians in Mauritius also had significant support from their religious and community leaders in breaking out of what had begun as a cycle of exploitation when they first arrived. Unfortunately, Mauritians of Slave Ancestry did not benefit from this same kind of support leading to many remaining stuck at the bottom of the economic ladder.
4. Over the time of indentured labour, Asians were offered agricultural land by their landlords so they can cultivate the land. Their success on those lands were helped by the mindset of the economic migrant, who was ready to do whatever it takes to succeed in this country. When slavery abolished, there was no reparation offered to the slaves. Ironically, reparation was offered to the slave owner, who was deemed to have lost ‘stock’. Slaves each went their own ways into the wilderness of Mauritius, and wild it was back then, resulting in an inability for those slaves to be able to organise themselves in ways that would foster cooperation. 
5. Asians in Mauritius held political power in Mauritius after independence in ways that allowed Asians to supercharge their economic prosperity. Civil service jobs were created and occupied mostly by Mauritians of Asian ancestry. A lack of representation of Mauritians of Slave ancestry in the parliament of Mauritius or in the top jobs of the civil service ensured Asian prosperity at the expense of a broader representation of all Mauritians, specially the original Mauritians. It is often argued that ‘Creoles’ benefitted from private sector job in greater proportionality and while this is undeniably true, it is also a fact that those job benefited those known as ‘Grand Creoles’, i.e. those of mixed heritage who had historically benefitted from colonisation compared to Mauritians of Slave ancestry who never benefitted from neither private sector jobs nor government jobs.
6. Another key element of the lack of economic prosperity among descendants of slaves is the enclaves in which they lived, commonly known as ‘Cites’. Once a chef came to work for us in Australia. He carried all the stereotypes of a Mauritian who the system had rejected. He was of slave descent, yet he was the owner of a commercial kitchen that catered for textile factory workers. He was one of the first chefs to have featured on Beachcomber’s hotel magazine and was the president of a Rotary Club in Mauritius. One night I asked him how he had achieved his exceptional success. He told me, ‘Girish, I grew up in New Grove. My neighbours were all Asians. We all started the same way. We were all very poor, living in straw houses. Then one day one of my neighbours upgraded to a tin house. I was inspired and followed him in doing the same. Another upgraded to a brick house. I was inspired and copied him. Another started a small dal puri business. That’s when I started my own catering business. Another invested in their children’s education, sending them to university. I also followed suit’. He then told me that the reason for his success was his neighbourhood. I love the ‘Cites’ of Mauritius. I think this is where true Mauritius and true Mauritians live, bound by something bigger than themselves. I however realise that in some ‘Cites’, the situation is so dire that the people who live in those enclaves find it hard to find inspiration because every day is a battle for survival. Poverty cuts across communities however Mauritians of slave ancestry are over-represented in the group suffering economic poverty and a lot has to do with the physical environment they were pushed into, with a minority being able to break out.
7. We expect Mauritians of slave ancestry to level off because of the surface level ‘equality’ we see such as free education and ‘anti discrimination laws’ etc… The reality is that if this was a 1000m race, with all communities in Mauritius asked to participate, the white colonisers would be the race organisers, watching, judging and smoking cigars from their boxes, ‘The Creole Bourgoisie’ would be starting the race at the 500m mark, Asians would be at the 1000m starting line and the original Mauritians, the Mauritian of slave ancestry would be at the 2000m mark and as the race would be run, we would all be asking the slave descendant to run faster to close the gap when in reality, they have not only been asked to start further back, but they have had their feet chained up. Its been an unfair race from the start and it remains so today.

We seem to have forgotten that slave descendants are the first people to have laboured the land and cleared forests and built a lot of the infrastructure we enjoy today. Many of us have worn blinkers, pretending not to see the reality that we are living in ‘The original paradise’ that Mauritius is supposed to be. One of my uncles told me. ‘Please dont lay blame for what is happening with slave descendants at the feet of Hindus or Muslims of Mauritius. Our forefathers battled hard to take us to where we are’. I agreed with him because in the discussion, I realised that while we are all fighting amongst each other, the people who created this system have washed their hands off their responsibility to repair the damage caused by their forefathers. I realised that the Franco-Mauritian community has the primary responsibility of beginning to bridge the widening economic gap between Mauritians of Slave ancestry and other Mauritians. I realised that they have been so silent about this that we forgot that they exist and that their ancestors were at the core of this crime against humanity. I ask our brothers and sisters of the new generation of Franco-Mauritians who have built their enormous wealth off the back of slaves to own up to their responsibility and think of ways we could correct this injustice.
I also realised that Asians of Mauritius, having now learnt how to break the shackles of mental poverty and improve their own livelihoods now have an opportunity and maybe a responsibility if we look at it from a more religious perspective of how Hindus believe all of humanity to be one big family, to help those who have not had those same opportunities. There is so much to be taught and so much to be shared. When I talk to our employees who are mostly of slave descent as our factory is in one of those ‘cites’, I realise that they don’t know what they don’t know and that judging would be easy, but sharing and empowering will be so much more liberating for all. In a discussion with the Honourable Mr Arvin Boolell, he reminded me of how much had been done to bridge the gap. He reminded me of initiatives like positive discrimination, ‘zones d’education prioritaire’ (ZEP) and many other programs to bridge the gap. He asked me not to forget that. He also acknowledged that a lot must be done to continue closing the gap. Returning honour and dignity must be chief amongst them.

As usual, they are only my views and feel free to share, comment, support or criticise the ideas offered as different perspectives always help broaden perspectives.