By Alain Leveque

Open letter to the Minister for Housing and Lands Port Louis Mauritius

Sir, a few weeks ago, you were quoted in le Mauricien, as saying, that Autonomy was not Independence and that the central government still had ultimate control over Rodriguan lands. Sir, I hasten to add that Autonomy is one thing, but a handcuffed backwater local council, administered by puppets, is quite another.

Media reports suggest that due to complaints received by your office, from Rodriguans, that you were prompted to investigate the local administration’s handling of Rodriguan public lands, with a view of centralizing it.

Here, Sir, I smell a small rodent. You see, the passive people of Rodrigues, who down the ages, have had to run the whole horrifying gauntlet of slavery, colonization, exploitation, occupation, and now political domination, have no history of complaining.

Solicited complaints, lodged by convenient phantoms and propagated by monopolised media to justify the repression of one group by another. Ayo baba, so often have I been exposed to this tactic, that I have almost become desensitized to it. It is not a recent addition to the tyrant’s bag of tricks. Despots, from Mussolini to Adolph Hitler, from Idi Amin to George Bush, have all used it at one time or another.

It would be easier for a mongoose to pass through the eye of a needle, than it would for me to swallow this Taurus excretus. On the other hand, it would not be too difficult to imagine, a few malcontents with an axe to grind, being recruited from the ranks of disgruntled opposition supporters or party hacks.

Either way, whatever the pretext; the further disempowerment of an occupied people, bespeaks of nothing less than political domination. Sir, there is little honour in that.

Dear friend, had you run for public office in the constituency of Rodrigues, how many votes do you think you would have attracted? Let me suggest that you could have counted them all, on the fingers of your hands, and still had fingers leftover.

In that case, how can you, who were pre-selected to a specific region and elected by a particular group of people, 560 kilometres across the ocean in Mauritius, then claim, with a straight face, a legitimate mandate to control the lands of a different group of people in faraway Rodrigues; people who did not vote for you, and who cannot remove you? Similarly, what do you think would happen, if a fresh-faced, newly-elected Seychellois, who, on the strength of his election in the Seychelles, went to Algeria, and claimed a mandate to control their lands? After much derision, I expect that, he would probably be sedated and removed to a sanatorium for psychiatric evaluation.

Even, if we factor in, the fabricated nonsense of manifest destiny, of Eurocentric history, of divine rights and accept imaginary lines drawn by colonialists, on a map, to be real - In the twenty first century, would anyone, who can see beyond the end of their nose, still believe Mozambique to be a district of Portugal? Would anyone not carved out of chocolate, still accept Indochina to be the rightful possession of France? Then, why are the children of Rodrigues still being forced to baa in unison, to recite the mind-numbing absurdity, that Rodrigues is a district of Mauritius?

Until its controversial annexation by Mauritius in 1968, Rodrigues was a British colony. For administrative expediency, it was governed from Mauritius, by the British for the British. I submit, Sir, that Rodrigues was no more a territory of Mauritius than Botswana was a district of India. To put it bluntly, I have never heard of a slave owning another slave nor a colony under foreign rule owning another colony.

It is, frankly, grimly ironic, that in historic terms, so soon after the age of Colonialism that one of its victims, should want to subjugate a fellow victim.

I am sure that there are many grey-haired Mauritians, of good conscience, who can still remember, as I do, having to face a foreign flag at school assemblies, and sing – God save the mighty Queen; I am sure that they can identify with the people of Rodrigues who are now struggling, as they once did, for their own self-determination. I am equally as sure, that many of them, in a moment of quiet reflection, in their heart of hearts, can appreciate the fascination that the hope of freedom has on those, who are not free.

I have always held the view; I still do, that you cannot improve on something which is intrinsically evil. When one country or one people govern another, without that other’s consent, no matter what euphemism is then attached to it – it is still the embodiment and epitome of evil, and as such, should be looked upon by all of humanity, with due contempt.

One cannot be half free, in the same way, that one cannot be half pregnant or half dead; we are either free or we are not. We have waited the best part of three centuries to determine our own affairs without external interference – we are still waiting.

We do not want experimental electoral systems forced upon us, we do not want affirmative action, we do not want injustice administered fairly – we want our country.

Our people who were slaves to the French, servants to the British, who have subsisted as second class citizens in our homeland for over thirty five years, who fought side by side with the Allies against the Fascists during the Second World War; such a people, sir, must be free and independent.

How can freedom be considered to be a glorious and crucial condition for the descendants of Indian indentured labourers in Mauritius but a petty and irrelevant one, for the descendants of African slaves in Rodrigues? Does a slave feel the anguish of domination any less than a coolie?

Are one people, somehow more deserving of self-determination than another?

From the grave, the haunting words of Martin Luther King go out to this island of black pain: “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressors; it must be demanded by the oppressed”.

When the local Armies of old ignorance are done clashing amongst themselves, the raw choice for Rodriguans will be as it has always been: Independence or eternal subservience. No country, no people, no individual can live a life of never-ending domination, and therein, I suspect, lies the future of Rodriguestan.

Vive Rodrigues … Libre

Rodrigues Island