QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"As soon as fear approaches near, attack and destroy it"
-- Chanakya, Indian politician, strategist and writer

The Week In Review

In America, it was mostly Georgia and Saakashvili on the media

-- PARAMANAND SOOBARAH  

Perhaps the most important development of the week has been the announcement of an agreement between the American and Iraqi governments for troop withdrawal. Details were not yet available as of writing, but it seems to be the final failure of President Bush – he who would not think of leaving Iraq has been forced into a position where he has to agree to a withdrawal. This development also pulls the rug from under Senator John McCain’s feet, who once said that America should stay in Iraq for a hundred years. Senator Obama can deservedly gloat about this. But this development came late in the week; before that there was nothing but Georgia and Saakashvili on the news.

Some think that the Georgia episode was provoked deliberately by Vice-President Dick Cheney to improve the chances of Senator John McCain at the forthcoming presidential election. This sort of thinking may be of the same type that had the Americans deliberately planning 9/11 in order to find reasons to take on the fundamentalist Islamic forces.

However it may be, Senator Barack Obama’s lead is narrowing. He is expected to announce the name of his running mate shortly; Senator McCain will announce his on Friday 29, after the Democratic Convention which is coming up next week. People will be watching what former President Bill Clinton and his wife Hilary will be saying at the Convention.

The Russians are pulling out of Georgia very slowly, provoking NATO into making some belligerent statements, and the US into entering into a missile defence treaty with Poland. Russia is extremely unhappy about this development. One just has to look at the map of the area to see how America has been slowly but surely encircling Russia. In the nineties there was a lot of talk of inviting Russia into NATO. Actually with the break-up of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, there was no need for NATO to continue as a military alliance. In any case Europe was quite capable of looking after its own defence. But NATO has continued to grow and increase in strength and geography, absorbing the Warsaw Pact countries, the former allies of the Soviet Union, in the process. The Cold War is back. Many say it never went away; former President Gorbachev thinks that Russia has been misled and cheated by America. It is not clear yet how exactly this will affect the other war of the present West, namely the “War on terror”.

I have said that “present West” deliberately, because the face of the West is set to change. A recent US Immigration Office has stated that by 2050, non-whites will be in a majority in America. More importantly, the population structure of European countries will change – the native components are likely to decline, and it will be the immigrant population that will contribute towards any increase. One is bound to wonder about the status of NATO and of the War on Terror in 2050. It is a mistake to think that any aspect of Islamic ideology will be wiped out by violence, however sustained. 

MENA – The Middle East and North Africa

The area has been characterised by bombings with scores of people being killed. On Tuesday 19 August, a bomb in Algeria killed 43 and wounded 38. On Wednesday 20, another bomb in the same country killed at least 11 and wounded many others. In Iraq, bombs killed Shia pilgrims in large numbers.

One new development in the area is most worrying for us. This week three large ships have been seized by pirates in the neighbourhood of Somalia. A Malaysian tanker was seized on Wednesday 20 August, and on Thursday 21, three ships, one Japanese, one German and the third Iranian, were seized. Our sea route to Europe via the Suez Canal is no longer safe. It is surprising that the major naval powers of the world are allowing such a thing to happen. Somalia is a member of both the Arab League and the African Union. These two organisations, perhaps the Arab League a little more than the African Union, have a responsibility towards the international community for getting order back in Somalia.

Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries provided very strong financial and material support to the Eritreans when they were fighting the Ethiopian government for their freedom. Those who help militants in this way have a responsibility to step in when the militants they would have gladly helped against other countries cannot agree among themselves.

The Turmoil in South Asia

The Taliban are gaining ground in Afghanistan, even though the number of deaths on their side is also rising.

In Pakistan, following the resignation of President Musharraf, anarchy is setting in. The two main parties have not so far been able to agree on a replacement for the post of President, nor on the question of the restoration of the deposed judges. Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is threatening to withdraw support from the government and sit in opposition. Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, two violent organisations indulging in all sorts of sabotage actions in neighbouring India, have reopened their offices which had been closed down by President Musharraf. The Taliban are killing people left and right within Pakistan – 40 on Tuesday, 50 on Wednesday, and over 100 on Thursday. That they had a plentiful supply of young highly-motivated suicide bombers was not an empty boast. The Army is reportedly engaged in serious fighting against insurgents in the border areas with Afghanistan.

In India, the Kashmir unrest still continues. Many people have been upset by Shabana Azmi’s statement on TV in an interview with Karan Thapar that Indian democracy has been unfair to Muslims. But she still thinks that India offers them the safest place in the world. On top of all this, scores of people have been killed in floods. 

National Matters
First things First: Bravo Bruno Julie and Thank You

You have done this nation proud Bruno Julie. Never before had so many millions around the world heard the name of Mauritius simultaneously. There are billions of people around the world who had never heard the name before – whatever we may think about it here. The whole nation prays for your success in this afternoon’s event (our time) against your next rival, the Cuban Yankiel Leon Alarcon. It is a great stroke of luck for us that even your first rival, the Venezuelan Hector Rangel Manzanilla, was also from Latin America. Our country is practically unknown in the Spanish-speaking world, which is a very large part of the world, and a very important one economically speaking.

Spain is also a country that can generate a considerable number of tourists for us. Spain, inclusive of its Balearic and the Canary Islands, is itself one of the most important tourist destinations in the world; in fact it is in Spain that the world’s most important Travel and Tourism Fair, FITUR, is held annually. As far as I am aware, Mauritius has never participated in that fair. Now that Bruno Julie has introduced our name to the Spanish-speaking world, we would urge the authorities concerned to capitalize on Bruno’s gains.

Thank you again, and we all pray for your success.

To be a Mauritian in the world

Because of my employment in international organisations concerned with the aviation industry, I have had the opportunity of going around the world a bit. We tend to think in Mauritius that we are well known abroad. That is only partly true. Of course we are well known in France, Britain, India and Africa. Because of our history as a unit of the British Empire we are also well know in Singapore, Malaysia, Cyprus and other places with a similar history. We are also still remembered in the Caribbean, where of course there is the additional link of the Creole language in the French-speaking islands. But in the bulk of the Western Hemisphere, until Bruno Julie’s feat this week, we were largely unknown. Quite often, when speaking to people in that part of the world and telling them where I come from, I would, after a scrutiny of my face, get the question “Which part of India is that?” I am sure other compatriots with different complexions may have got similar questions with “India” replaced by some other country.

In Africa, we are well known because it is our region, and also because SSR was chairman of OAU following the annual meeting of that organisation in Mauritius in 1976. Sir Gaetan Duval was also very widely known and very popular, particularly in the OCAM countries. Folks from “l’Ile Maurice” are always welcome everywhere in French-speaking Africa.

Although our history books tell us that it was the Arabs who were the first to visit this Island, readers will be surprised to hear how little the country is known in the Middle East. The situation may have improved since Emirates has started operations to the country. But it was quite bad before that. It is true we have long had an embassy in Cairo, but then most Middle East countries had broken off diplomatic relations with Egypt following the Camp David accord between President Anwar Sadat and Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin. They did restore relations in the nineties, but that did not improve the image of Mauritius.

I was posted as a regional executive in that region for nearly eight years; with the exception of Egypt and Iran, I always had to explain where my country was. Once in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the Immigration Officer looked at my passport, and said: “You are from Mauritania?” “No,” I said, “I am from Mauritius”. “You are from Mauritania, I say,” he said, and stamped my passport and let me through. He should have remembered Mauritius at least from the annual Haj operations, I thought.

In Damascus, Syria, which I visited several times, on one occasion the officer would not even let me in, even though I had a valid visa issued by the Syrian embassy in Amman: according to the officer’s books, Mauritians were not allowed into Syria. I had business with an airline, and we had to do it in the transit lounge. Even in the country where I lived for three years, Jordan, where I was also issued with a diplomatic card, I would be asked the same question every time on returning to the country after my trips to other countries – which happened practically every other week.

Only once did I see an article in the press about Mauritius. It was a full-page article in Jordan Times, one of half a dozen or so very respectable papers in the region. It was all about pigs, about how the country stank all over of pig manure and about how the country had but one subject of conversation, that is to say pig-rearing. I have never been so ashamed in my life. For some time even people who knew me well kept their distance from me. That was when I lost faith in journalism and journalists.

I am convinced that the publishers of the paper had been taken for a ride by a journalist who had an axe to grind. To what extent can you trust what people write? I recall a story of our esteemed history master Désiré Picard at RCC about Sir Walter Raleigh. The latter spent many years in gaol after the death of his protectress (and part-time mistress) Queen Elizabeth. While languishing in gaol, he wrote his “History of the World”. On one occasion, different visitors gave him totally different accounts of some event that had occurred in the country. If people cannot agree on what is happening now, how can I be sure, he asked himself, that what I am saying in “History of the World” is true? We will leave it to historians to deal with the question. 

Bhojpuri culture under attack: A timely reminder

This section is addressed to my fellow Bhojpuri speakers. Those who preceded our coolie ancestors to this country somehow thought that they had a total monopoly over culture and education. Everything about us was despised – the way we lived, the way we ate and the way we spoke. Our customs and our language were the object of special ridicule. Of course, with only Bhojpuri as the medium of communication with the world, they could not be expected to master the sounds of Creole and still less those of English and French immediately on landing here. But linguists all over the world agree that there is nothing wrong with that – but then linguists are people of education and culture; the people that our ancestors were handed over to had neither education nor culture – they were however good field supervisors and slave drivers. Sociologists also know that every community in the world has a right to its customs, and no set of customs is superior or inferior to those of others – whether the community concerned lives in Paris, London, Africa or New Guinea.

I recall reading an account in a textbook at school of the travels of an English gentleman in India. He could get by in Hindi, and at one point, when he had to meet a villager, he called at his place. His wife came out, and said the father of Ram (pointing to her child) was not at home. The traveller tried several ways of getting the woman to say her husband’s name, but he did not succeed. He even tried to get her to mention her relationship to him, but he could not.

In those days some women in other areas of India might have agreed to refer to their husbands as their “patidev” – their lord husband – but the woman in our story would not agree even to do that. The traveller had to leave without having succeeded his somewhat mischievous bid.

Comments went their several ways in class. Much to my shame I will confess that I kept quiet. I could not bring myself to tell the class that my mother (still going strong at 96, bless her) never called my father by his name, never called him by the Bhojpuri equivalent of “toi”, and always referred to him by pronouns of respect (for those who don’t know, the entire Bhojpuri language is divided vertically by pronouns and verbs in normal mode and “respectful” mode). Whenever she had to refer to him when speaking to other people, she would call him “Parmanund’s Father” – never as “my husband”. The word “husband”, or its equivalent in Bhojpuri is absolutely taboo. The Creole term “mari” is totally beyond the bounds of thought even in the toilet.  For my mother, that is still the case today, even though my beloved father is no longer around.

It took me a long time to realise that there was no need to feel inferior about any aspect of my culture and my language. Today I am surprised that I should have given way to feelings of inferiority, particularly as in my academic studies I was always among those with the best results – except in French where I never made it better than sixteenth on a class of thirty. But I also realise that we were oppressed and crushed by those who thought they were infinitely our betters civilisationally.

In my home we had a hand-written copy of Ramcharitmanas which my great-grandfather had brought with him; but later when printed copies became available, the manuscript copy was put away and subsequently irretrievably misplaced. As a child I did not look upon it as anything of value – that laboriously written work which was the translation of a prized literary work originally written 3000 years ago when most of the advanced nations of today (excepting notably the Greeks) were living like savages. It was by my family’s association with the Bissoondoyal movement that I gradually came to realise the value of our own cultural heritage. The only problem with that was that the movement pushed Hindi rather Bhojpuri as the medium of culture.

Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam had no hesitations about Bhojpuri, perhaps because he did not master Hindi to the same extent as Pandit Bissoondoyal, but the reason matters little to me. I am thankful to both the Bissoondoyals and to SSR for giving me back my pride in my total culture. “On matters of your own language and culture, always hold your head high,” was their message. “We have sorted the country out. Never again will anybody insult any aspect of your culture.” To put it in contemporary language, they gave us what Barack Obama is giving the Blacks of America today – a belief in themselves.

Lo and behold, two generations after that promise, here is one fellow who publicly tells a fellow-Bhojpuri lady “all rode ène mari!”. Apparently he has apologized for it, but that is beside the point. What it shows is that in some quarters there still are people who ignore aspects of our culture, who think they are far too important to learn about the ways of “inferior people”. We have nothing to be ashamed of in our language and our culture, and we will not allow anybody to tread on us. To those who think they can get by striding triumphantly on our sensitivities, let me remind them of another example – that of the Danish cartoons. People everywhere in the world, including the powerful United States, think twice before they tread on other peoples’ cultures.

I will even add that those people are not confined to any one particular community. In fact many who one would think belong to the Bhojpuri community are most contemptuous of the Bhojpuri language and aspects of Bhojpuri culture. Unless something is done about this, this form of oppression will continue and our ancestral culture will disappear. I call upon all who are interested in our culture to press for the allocation of resources and the appointment of scholars to compile all the aspects of our culture for posterity. Many may think that Bhojpuri is a dead language and not relevant to our developmental needs. This is a mistake. With the poet Mistral, I will say that “Un peuple qui a perdu sa langue a perdu son âme.”

In the last century, in language studies in Universities around the world Latin, Classical Greek and Hebrew were called “dead” languages. The Jews who were scattered around the world later decided that they were not going to accept this, and when they got their own territory, however rightly or wrongly that might have been, they revived their language and that’s what everybody speaks in Israel today. It is a lesson to all people who want to have pride in themselves. In fact we need resources to compile an international Bhojpuri language, uniting us not just with Bhojpuri speakers in India but also with speakers around the world. Wherever Indian workers were taken, Bhojpuri also also went. We have a worldwide community. 

How far can Civil Servants go?

Not every civil servant is corrupt. Some do find themselves in situations where they disagree with decisions taken by their superiors, or other people vested with authority to take decisions. If you are in such a situation, and you feel strongly aggrieved by the decisions taken, what can you do? The government is not likely to allocate resources to you to take the matter to court. All you can do is to register your disagreement internally, and carry on “under protest”. Fellows around you will be mean enough to victimize you, but you if you have such strong views, as a rule you are also strong enough to put up with victimization. If you are dismissed unfairly, then of course you can take everything to court, but in general things do not happen that way. If you have reached early retirement age, that may be the best way out. If not, you may be faced with a difficult decision.

But one thing you cannot do is to go to the press and make statements against those who by law can take the decisions about which you are aggrieved or which you don’t approve. That would be against the religion of the Civil Service. In no country would such behaviour be tolerated – not even in Canada. In that great country, on one occasion the Auditor General was unhappy about the decision of a Minister who had not given him free access to the documentation relating to an important transaction. He appealed to the Prime Minister, then Pierre Eliot Trudeau, but the latter also denied his request, laying out in great detail why it was not receivable. The Auditor General went to court, but lost his case. He was still unsatisfied, and went to the Supreme Court. The latter turned down his appeal, with costs.

I do not doubt that the Auditor General was motivated by a sincere understanding of his duties and of the national interest, but the government and the courts also were equally entitled to their views on the matter. There may be two views on any one thing, and it is the view that the court takes which carries the day, however unfair that may seem to some. This is the rule of law, and our country is, like Canada, a country governed by the rule of law.

The former Comptroller of Customs, who hails from Canada, must be fully aware of this, although in his anger he seems to have forgotten certain limitations that his position as a Civil Servant and even just as a citizen impose on him. I am a great supporter of all actions against corruption, and I have no doubt that he has made a positive contribution in that regard to this country. But by his recent statements he has lost the support and the sympathy of many. That he has the ear of foreign embassies is neither here nor there. That such a matter has been mentioned in the press as a very important consideration is a matter of shame for us. Nobody would have dared print such rubbish in, say, Singapore. The former Comptroller must of course be provided with all the measures necessary for his personal security, but he must also undergo the same processes of the law as any citizen in this country or in Canada would have to undergo in similar circumstances. 

Aircraft Accident at Madrid Airport

In an aircraft accident that happened at Madrid Barajas Airport yesterday, 153 persons are reported to have been killed. The government have declared three days of mourning. The aircraft, an MD-80, known as a DC9 before MacDonnel Douglas was bought out by Boeing, was taking off for the paradise island of Gran Canaria in the Canaries when, due apparently to an engine explosion, it veered off the runway into the strip, and went into a depression where it collided with the ground and caught fire.

This accident has certain lessons for us. At Plaisance, when the ILS was being installed way back in the seventies, there was a sort of hillock covered with dense vegetation in the depression at the end of the runway. A gantry was constructed behind this hillock to support the antenna of the system. Everything was done in accordance with ICAO and national regulations. Any aircraft running off the runway end would have hit the hillock first. If did not stop before that, the sort of thing that has happened at Barajas would have happened. We are extremely fortunate and thankful that nothing of the sort ever happened.

Later, funds became available and a wall of stone all along the northern boundary of the airport, on the Mahebourg side from end to end, left there by the Admiralty when they built the airport during the war, was removed. On the same occasion the hillock in the depression was examined, and it was found that under the thick vegetation it just consisted of big boulders piled up there by those who had built the airport. The hillock was also removed – a good move no doubt, but then with the consequence that the first “obstacle” to stop a runaway aircraft would be the gantry. Can you imagine what the mainstream press will say if ever an aircraft hits the gantry, particularly with the Barajas-type of consequences? Of course they will forget the unanimous resolution of the Assembly asking for the airport to be moved to Plaine des Roches on safety grounds.