“The world is our village: if one house catches fire, the roofs over all our heads are immediately at risk.” - Jacques Delors

My dear Billy,

The long-announced and much-awaited cabinet reshuffle has finally materialized. All present-day ministers except one (who in any case was merely virtual), have puffed a sigh of relief, as they have been maintained in the cabinet, albeit with new portfolios in a number of cases.

The government has also been reinvigorated with some new blood, as four fresh ministers have joined the club.

With this remixed version of the cabinet, the Prime Minister expects to terminate his present mandate on a positive note. He had promised to change people’s lives, he will have changed many other things besides. If he has given a second lease of life to all his ministers but one, he has not failed to warn them that he has not yet uttered his last word on reshuffles and that they had better behave as others might follow. This must be particularly heeded by all those who have been tossed from one chair to another, except for people like Arvin Boolell who, as the Prime Minister says, has in fact been promoted.


Sinatambou is the only one to find himself in disgrace and without a portfolio at the end of the exercise. It’s a pity because he was a very competent minister, most intelligent and enlightened, highly capable, who produced exceptional results; and I believe every word of it, my dear Billy, because he said it himself.

So sad that the Prime Minister hasn’t been able to recognize the only rare gem around him. But while snatching the ministry from Sinatambou the Prime Minister said that the holder had not been demeritorious in any way. Maybe the Prime Minister didn’t want to drown his dog and give him a bad name too! Some wicked tongues are wagging and clamouring that it’s good riddance to bad rubbish. But we can’t subscribe to such attacks on the floor, nor are we partisan to flogging somebody who is writhing on the ground.

But I must admit I feel sorry for his attendant lackeys though, the dhobis and the bhandaris who had got themselves appointed to very specialized Boards. With the new legislation slamming posters, they cannot even go back to poster sticking unless the association of printers gets the law amended or repealed.

Among the other casualties that the cabinet reshuffle has left in its wake, also figures the Ministry of Arts and Culture. I don’t know why, but I have a feeling, my dear Billy, that people at the top have this nasty habit of looking down upon the arts in general and culture in particular. Or are they afraid of artists?

This phenomenon does not occur uniquely in Mauritius. In times of war they will burn down libraries, bomb museums and steal works of art from galleries. In times of peace, they will often gag the press, imprison writers without trial, ban their books remove statues from their pedestals, forcefully take away paintings from exhibitions.

In Mauritius, we are generally fortunate to be spared such ordeals. They use the painless therapy. They pay a huge amount of lip service to the arts, pander to artists, flatter them to the point of fawning, cajole them, promise them heaven with all the stars…and then conveniently send the Ministry of Arts and Culture packing to find refuge in a small garage at the Ministry of Education.

After creating a Ministry of Arts and Culture and never really bothering to give it the means, either material or human, to function satisfactorily, they have again relegated this Ministry to a Cinderella status by appending it to the Ministry of Education & Human Resources. What is being damningly overlooked in the whole process is that education is a part of culture, not the other way round. Culture is thus being given a lift in the Education car, which is itself full of problems and is running on used tyres and has frequent engine breakdowns.

The new Minister will thus have to shuttle between Phoenix and Port Louis to manage his two departments. But we know that Vasant Bunwaree will be able to rise to the occasion. He need not invent a world class anything.
In matters of arts and culture what he needs to do is have a clear vision and make plenty of space and opportunity for creativity. Art, after all, is the signature of civilization.

Mahen Gowressoo has got two Mauritian nostalgic spots inscribed in the list where they write down the names of World Heritage sites at UNESCO. He also runs the risk of being remembered as the last of the Mohicans.