SOCIETAL NORMS AND INTRINSIC VALUES: Rethinking our Mauritian Aspiration ?

At the dawn of a new Age of technological economics, ‘real time’consumer expectations and immediate satisfaction, manufactured public consent, and ‘Third Way’consensus in political ideology, there lies a Vacuum in the manner in which we conceive our societal norms and intrinsic values and aspirations both at institutional and individual levels.
It is abundantly clear from the systemic financial meltdown in major world economies and the ensuing crisis of confidence in institutional procedures and stakeholders’behavioural paradox, that Nation States have become highly vulnerable. There is a gaping void in the roadmap to a holistic quality of life which stems from a reappraisal of civil society’s conception of national prosperity in terms of individual and collective welfare.
Mauritius is an entity which has reinvented itself across historical watersheds when cultural attitudes, political ideology, societal values, and religious dogmatism tagged on popular mind-sets, all framed our expectations of gratification and recognition.
Mauritius has graduated from the psychic ghetto of slavery and indentured labour along with entrepreneurial pirate spirit, and, colonial administrative flair and rigour, to overcome a sense of guilt and retribution, and thus proceed through various thresholds of Nation-Building towards Republicanism.
Deep historical scars and ideological anchors have permeated our political and administrative processes and still haunt the noble aspirations of our citizens in their quest for a sense of fairness and equity in our democratic system, along with equality of opportunity which is often a convenient political synonym to equality of outcome.
The flouting of elementary decency in political processes, in economic justice and in fundamental societal reforms pegged on welfare norms, has introduced a psychological posture in Mauritian civil society steeped in cynicism and sheer negativity.
There are core existential quests emanating from the New Mauritian Generation that draws from their apprehensive stance relating to the perceived bankruptcy of our political fabric and the resistance to change of our economic structure, notwithstanding major concerns related to corporate governance and ethics in the public domain.
Cosmetic manicure in our Establishment re-engineering, and a tiptoeing approach to essential evolutionary processes for our future salvation as a modern society that reflects a sustainable economic base and universal values of human rights and policy recognition of vulnerable groups exigencies, can only burden our Mission to aspire to a stable and harmonious Mauritian Society into the second decade of the 21st Century.
Innovative energies
A Nation building Paradigm cannot be imprisoned amidst a political comedy of errors which promote tribal allegiances, nepotism, dynastic culture steeped in abuse of dignity and civilised protocols, shady succession planning processes within the major political parties, and an opaque funding apparatus for electoral campaigns coupled with a fatal cocktail of religious establishment input to political aspirations of absolute power and privilege.
Issues of accountability in public office and a freedom of information charter are cornerstones of any modern aspirations within a civilised social structure, and thereby assume its pertinence as a consideration in a multi-ethnic social fabric. Political interference in journalistic freedom and free speech are yardsticks by which a maturing democracy is benchmarked.
The innate sense that the Apparatus of State finely wielded by a political establishment in a fundamental violation of the core constitutional rights of any citizen constitutes, per se, an impediment to creating the sine qua non conditions that are conducive to creativity, innovative energies, and a sustained growth impetus for national wealth creation.
Sabotaging the sense of belonging to our Motherland and the abdication of political responsibility in neutralising tribal tendencies and communal bias further exacerbate the drift away from a drive to secure allegiance to a national Vision, and anchoring a common Mission to consolidate economic progress and social harmony through development and fair redistribution across racial and religious bias.
A lopsided educational reform away from structures to more fundamental paradigms shifts towards modern approaches to core modern skills and versatile aptitudes to boost employability, efficiency and competitivess in our economic machinery is thwarted by lobbyists and social elites who perpetuate an intergenerational social stratification elitist privilege.
Total Quality Management in the public sector and enforcement of international standards in our goods and services production and distribution sectors seem to correlate oddly with morbid quality levels, excessive margins and upward pricing stickiness at the detriment of consumer rights and welfare. The battle cry of our Private sector lobbyists seem to be anchored on exchange rates, appreciation of our local currency, and further stimulus packages for growth creation and sustained advocacy for crude subsidies for maintaining employment ratios.
A credible rethinking of the Mauritian attitude is warranted at the highest levels in public office and private sector quarters alike, to instill in the popular psyche a sense of urgency in our core Vision to build a Modern Nation founded on a reinvention of our national aspiration to move away from ‘’Consensus Status Quo’’to a harmonisation of broad growth and development initiatives which enhance welfare across the wide spectrum of Republican Life.
Free enterprise is not synonymous to abusive pricing practices and political blackmail for subsidies and cross-subsidisation of sectors where concentration of power from common interlocking interests does not serve the common good.
Above all considerations is the erroneous idea that hierarchy of power grants to its beneficiaries the privilege of being immune from accountability and implied legal redress for the aggrieved parties.
When Justice is subservient to Political cronyism, and Welfare is confined to an apex of the economic pyramid, the Mauritian attitude of sheer fatalistic complacency would thus be relegated to a mere curse in a sea of vile abuses !

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