Against communalism of the best-loser system - Lalit Mauritius

after day. This really is a proof that “race” is an ideology and not a fact -- anti-semitic racism
exists in the absence of the “Jewish race”.
Race has recently been the rallying ground for the “Malez Kreol” movement. The Comité
Premier Fevrier came forward with a list of grossly communal demands, including:
* That a “Kreol” become President of the Republic.
* That there be adequate “Kreol” representation on political parties' lists of candidates.
* That “Kreols” be named at the head of important Ministries.
* That there be a number of “Kreol” ambassadors.
* That there must be a “Kreol” representative, and access to the Presidence of the Public Service
Commission, the Police Service Commission and the LGSC.
As if to highlight the irresponsibility of this kind of communalist platform, Gaetan Duval soon
became spokesperson, and announced that if he, himself, was president (“in the long run”, he
specified, being slightly more polite than the Comité Premier Fevrier was, to the incumbent), if
Herve Duval went to the PSC, if his sister was made Ambassador, and if his son was made an
important minister, then the “Malez Kreol” would disappear. And, of course, the PMSD has
directly benefitted from this campaign, getting into Government.
As if Gaetan Duval was reminding everyone that those “in power” at any one time, are only a
few clans.
Later, spokespersons of the Comité Premier Fevrier also started to militate for “Kreol” best
losers, and for the creation of a new “community” for the purposes of best losers. (For analysis
of the best loser system and its anti-progress dynamics, we refer readers to the MAC document
on the best loser system, L'Express.)
Recently, there are groupings of people on purely race criteria, in the wake of the “Malez Kreol”
movement. Again, the demands of this movement have quickly been of direct benefit to the
PMSD.
Religion
The Constitution of Mauritius is clear about it: “Mauritius shall be a sovereign democratic
State”. This means that Mauritius is not a religious state anymore, as it was, technically
speaking, prior to the advent of the Republic; the Queen, as old head of the Mauritian state, was
also head of the Church of England. We are at last free from this religious hold on the state.
Even in modern times, religion, as Philippe Forget pointed out in an important editorial in
L'Express 26th April 1995, is often not freely chosen. It is, in general, imposed on young people
“sans recours a la légitime défense”, in different ways by different religions. The ideal of a
religion freely chosen by adults (or by mature young working people) is still very far away.
Our Constitution guarantees freedom of conscience and says that “..no person shall be hindered
in the enjoyment of his freedom of conscience, and for the purposes of this section, the said
freedom includes freedom of thought and of religion, freedom to change his religion or belief,
and freedom either alone or in community with others and both in public and in private, to
manifest and propagate his religion or belief in worship, teaching, practice and observance.”
MAC from our founding document onwards, believes in freedom of conscience, and we defend
every citizen's right to the religious beliefs or thought of his or her choice.
All religious classification which takes place outside of the sphere of religion, is dangerous. And
in Mauritius, this is at the very heart of communalism: communalists are always seeing people
as a “Hindu”, “Catholic” or whatever.
For example, our Constitution, for the purposes of the Best Loser system, has recourse to
religious classification, which together with race classification, makes up the grid that is unique
to Mauritius's own communal classification. In MAC, we are against the Best Loser system for
this reason.
As Father Sullivan mentioned recently, only some 20% of people who were baptised Catholics
are “practising Catholics”; the figures are similar or lower for most religions in most places at
most times, if one takes as “practicing” meaning a minimum qualification of, say, more than one
activity a week. To then call people by this religious “identity” when they go and wash clothes
at the river, or vote, or play volleyball, or work in the free zone or go to prison, is patently
absurd. This is the kind of classification by religion (or race) that we object to.