I often sit in a darkened room and cogitate on life's iniquities; I worry over the obscenity that allows one man to be called a thief for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his children and another one to be called a politician for stealing millions of rupees from us. I look with despair at decent people who have borrowed money at criminally exorbitant rates of interest and end up losing everything they own, and I wonder how it can be possible for those telling us they are servi nou pei to borrow vast amounts of money and then see these debts vanish overnight with the mighty stroke of their friendly bank manager's pen.

When this gets too depressing, I like to imagine God with a great sense of humour and this allows me to look at the world in a faintly more positive light. If God does exist, He has a funny way of showing us his benevolence. Only a mind replete with practical jokes would inflict upon this nation so many politicians of such abysmal quality, non existent sense of integrity, and with such dubious morality that would compel a sewer rat to die of embarrassment; and I apologise to the sewer rat for putting it in such insalubrious and insensate company.

Three years ago, we were exhorted, harangued, and harassed to vote for one of the two sides contesting the general elections; we were told that the other side was horrible, corrupt, and evil, and that our lives would be much better with the wonderful people on this side. I never attend political meetings as I find that lying on a bed and looking at a plain ceiling is invariably more informative and healthy than listening to liars and cheats shouting abuse and invectives at liars and cheats on the other side. Consequently, I was spared the dubious privilege in 2005 of hearing Allet and Guimbeau calling Ramgoolam lazy, incompetent, racist, etc; in any event, we are all aware that these insults mean absolutely nothing because we know that, sooner rather than later, Mauritian politicians who love insulting each other invariably end up sleeping in the same bed.

On April 3rd 2006, Allet and Guimbeau decided that Ramgoolam was now a rassembleur and the best thing since sliced bread, and decided to join the racist, lazy, incompetent one of only nine months ago on the government benches. For the ten previous years, Allet had apparently been Rajesh Bhagwan's 'frere', an honorific title now replaced by the more accurate 'transfuge' and a challenge to Allet to resign his seat. Barely 17 months later, Berenger relied on constitutional niceties to declare that the post of leader of the opposition now belonged to the MMM, as the two transfuges trooped sheepishly back to the opposition benches… and Berenger's best friend now apparently is the individual he mercilessly tormented over many years as a 'pagla mamou'.

Ramgoolam won power by cleverly using the slogan 'Putting people first' to convince us that he will rule on behalf of all of us, not just a select group of old friends, relatives, and the relatives of those relatives. 'Putting people first' is an attractive slogan but it is hardly original. Bill Clinton coined it first and used it to overturn America's massive budget deficit into a surplus and to drastically reduce unemployment. What is the Mauritian version? It starts with replacing arse lickers of the previous government with brand new sycophants on salaries and expenses that defy all belief; some arse lickers are so adept within this department that they have no problems changing sides in order to find other, more convenient, and newly elected arses to lick. The country is in economic meltdown and 25 cents out of every rupee that we earn every year are used simply to service the debts that successive governments have imposed on us; the Rs 1 billion spent on free public transport and universal old age pension is borrowed as we have not had any surplus in our finances for years. Ramgoolam came back from India with a loan for Rs 3 billions and many of us applauded as if this money did not need to be returned. God knows what it will be used for but I can assure you that, judging on past experience, a significant proportion of it will go to an army of so called consultants, back handers to politicians and their relatives, and building contracts that inflate exponentially without anyone batting an eyelid at such bare faced thieving.

I had such high hopes when, shortly after the election results were proclaimed, Ramgoolam went on TV and gave a statesmanlike speech and promised to work for all the people. Well, I have not seen much work so far to change our society and his idea of working for all the people has been translated into giving work to only those who tell him how wonderful he is. I really expected him to exploit the massive good will that the people had shown him and hoped that in return he would bring about a root and branch transformation of our society. But has anything really changed? The gap between poor and rich has become bigger and extremely rich people call the crumbs that they throw at the poor 'Corporate Social Responsibility', a nice euphemism to placate the hunger of the snobs dying to be like them. The Civil Service remains grossly over manned and by and large provides a mediocre service with incivility as its badge of honour; a vast number of 'authorities' remain in place for no other reason than to provide cushy jobs for politicians' relatives and friends; a country that is dying on its feet still insists perversely to abolish car duties for its richer citizens and to sell petrol for these polluting monsters at prices that are among the lowest in the whole world; ministers, parliamentarians, politicians of every political persuasion, civil servants, 'authority' chairpersons/ directors/ members of its management boards still swan around the world at our expense to attend conferences that provide no benefits whatsoever to our country. And they have the
cheek to tell us that there is no money to supplement the Rs 100 per day expenses of 7,200 families and the 26,000 other families existing on less than Rs 10,000 per month! How come they have no problems at all in finding millions of rupees out of our taxes in order to purchase limousines for themselves and their idiotic friends? Or the Rs 30,000 that they take for every day on mission without ever providing any receipts? Throw in the chauffeur, the so called entertainment allowance, the free phone calls, the traveling allowance, an obscene bonus that in no way reflects their abysmal standards of performance and which is given irrespective of the quality of performance, and there is the money which ought to go to our poor citizens or at least to invest in the future of this country. So many other freebies are dished out and which never form part of any electoral manifesto that one is bound to ask this simple question: do these idiots ever pay for anything out of their own pockets?

There is a limit to everything and a constant diet of inane slogans, buzz words, and repetitive and outlandish mantras exulting the fallacy that gouvernman will do everything for us has resulted in a climate of cynicism; there are very few of us left who still believe a single word uttered by any politician in Paradise Island. And that is why the opposition parties are not drawing the huge crowds that they should do when faced with a government in a trough of unpopularity; people are simply fed up with the same old records being played and without a drastic change in mentality in evidence.

I have commented many times on a patronizing political class that considers the electorate as cannon fodder for its selfish ambitions; people no longer tolerate the nonsense peddled by politicians in search of some cheap votes to allow them to lead a luxurious lifestyle with our money. Promises of reducing the prices of everything and swearing that gouvernman pu doner are now met with incredulity. The opposition parties still have not realized that simply attacking the government is no longer good enough for us; we need to know exactly how their policies will differ from the lot in power now and whether their promises can be afforded by an economy in terminal decline. They would gain a great deal of credibility if they would stop parroting the usual opposition accusations regarding 'missions' and other ministerial excesses and tell us now how they will curtail these frivolous privileges. Otherwise, they are merely repeating what Ramgoolam said in opposition, and look what has happened since he took power: the same abuse of the hospitality that we have given him at the Hotel du Gouvernement as was practiced by their government.

The times have changed and only the politicians are finding it difficult to accept this simple truth. People are fed up with politicians and the culture of lies, deceit, selfishness, fanaticism, corruption, mediocrity, and greed that they have engendered. Apparently, 40% of the population wants to emigrate and I believe that to be a gross underestimation. How can you tell people that 'good will triumph over evil' when we can all see the evil done to our country by our politicians? How can I advise an intelligent person to stay here and work hard when we both know that his chances in life will be superseded by some idiot who happens to be related to or to share the same religion or casteof a politician?

I lie awake at night worried to death over Berenger's security and wonder how he must be coping with life now. You see, up until the 4th July 2005, the poor man had to travel in an armour plated car which, as usual, he bought with our money without asking us; the car was always in a convoy of several other cars loaded with police officers who are useless at doing proper police work, like catching criminals, and flanked by officers on motor bikes cursing their luck at missing out on all the usual  baksheesh for minor traffic infringements as part of their normal daily duties. Has the danger against his personal safety passed now that he is no longer Prime Minister? No, because there was never any danger to start off with and the purchase of that car was merely the manifestation of a gargantuan ego in desperate need to show people what an important man he is.
    
'Amul' Jeetah has once again shown us the extent of his incompetence over the flour fiasco; every time he decides to be the Clint Eastwood in the Wild West of consumer prices, he ends up as Calamity Jane. I am not going to say anything about Dharam Gokhool, Mahen Gowressoo, Sylvio Tang, Etienne Sinatambou, Madun Dulloo (sorry, he is no longer there, is he? But has anyone noticed his absence at all?), Anil Bachoo, Sheela Bappoo, Indira Seebun, Satish Faugoo, Asraf Dullul, etc. I give up, because it would be much easier to list on one hand the number of competent ministers in the cabinet. How much longer can Ramgoolam wait before he replaces the mediocrity on display with people who are patently more intelligent and capable but are currently vegetating on the back benches? Are they the wrong caste, or religion, or whatever other stupid criterion is used to measure competence in Paradise Island?

When will those who are never shy to put themselves forward as leaders of this country abandon the eunuch like mentality that offers impotence as the only response to mediocrity? When will they have enough cojones to realise that leadership means at the very least rising above the lowest common denominator?

Claiming that caste or religious considerations have to be taken into account or that la realite mauricienne stops any attempt to remove the cancers of our society is akin to the eunuch bemoaning the fact that he does not possess the tool to satisfy the residents of his harem. But he does not complain because he knows the limitations of his abilities and what his job entails.

If he didn't, he too would join the list of presumptuous individuals wanting to be Prime Minister and then sit impassively by the river of mediocrity passing slowly by whilst smugly singing 'Non, je ne regrette rien'.

R.A.J.
Email: servipei@yahoo.com