Commentaire sur l’interview de Roukaya Kasenally :
 

Ms.Roukaya: On n''''a pas choisi d''être Musulman, Hindou, Catholique etc. avant d''être Mauricien. If you don’t know it yet, if you are born in Mauritius you are AUTOMATICALLY BOTH, depending on your parent''s heritage. Hence it is a futile exercise and a flawed argument to ask us to relegate our religiosity in favour of "être mauricien." You are comparing Apple with Oranges!

Musulman, Hindu , Catholics etc, defines in broader terms a system of belief ( 99.99% in God), you can have many belief systems and be a Mauritian, French, British , Indian , Pakistani etc. So can you see the point! Mauritius is NOT and will NEVER be a monolithic entity whereby a single substantive political culture can be forcefully imposed onto its landscape.

From day one of our history, Mauritius has existed NOT as a Nation of Individuals and citizens, but a Nation of COMMUNITIES and a community OF CITIZENS where there is both unity and diversity in BOTH public and private realms. Our Landscape both private and public is and has always been PLURALISTIC AND MULTICULTURAL. Lately Masonic attempts are being made to impose a MONO political culture with its inherent oppressive uniformity relegating our rich diversity not to a Private realm but into an abyss of no return.  This endeavour stems principally from a fictitious bankrupted and “utopic Laicité à la française”, polluting our young minds into believing that our religious, racial and cultural diversityis an anti-thesis to our common sense of belonging and our collective Mauritian identity.

There is no single culture that we all can assimilate under a false concept of Mauritianism. Indeed assimilation, the Trojan horse of French Laicité, is a fabricated fantasy and it depicts intolerance of difference. Assimilation aims at suppressing all differences and creates second class citizens for those who cannot and refuse to submit to a dominant culture.

All citizens must by default be integrated into the ONE NATION, but as Roy Jenkins, the Interior Minister in Harold Wilson Government said in a 1966 speech, “integration is not a flattening process of assimilation, but as an equal opportunity, accompanied by cultural diversity in an atmosphere of mutual tolerance."

Our pluralistic identity and heritage is a dynamic one and not a static intolerant one.  Our communities, despite their complexities and the ever present threats that they face, are always in a process of continuous change. This  reflects the dynamics of gender, religion, generations, globalisation and even the internet era. Despite their inherent uniqueness, our different communities are not isolated from each other and actually overlap on its own terms, borrowing from each other as they deem fit.

There are many examples where members of different communities display a natural ability to accommodate several modes of life as if they are “cross-cultural” navigators. To ensure that our One Nation Mauritius is a place where every colour is a good colour and where every individual of any community is valued and respected, where racism and discriminations of all forms are not only checked but eradicated from our landscape, and above all from our psyche, we need to address a formidable challenge and invites several searching questions.

We need to identify a core of COMMON VALUES and loyalties that must be shared by all communities and individuals alike in the One Nation. But such sharing of common good cannot be achieved in a climate of social exclusion. The principle of equal moral worth cannot take root and flourish within a structure of deep economic or social inequalities. Every stakeholder must own up to their responsibilities, be they communities or individual citizens. In addition, we need to strike the right balance so as we can achieve the need to treat all citizens equally, yet at the same time treat them differently.

A different treatment does not mean a less treatment or an inferior treatment nor does it mean be relegated as second class citizen.

PLOUM PLOUM.