MAURITIUS: Millions of petrodollars to shut down criminal cases and buy MPs?
We all know that Mauritius is a tiny, vulnerable and dependent country. But recent events on the Island suggests a dark future for its population involving petrodollars, corrupt legislators and indeed the media that are at daggers drawn.
It reminds us of the book entitled ‘Who Moved My Cheese? An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life,” published on September 8, 1998.
It is a motivational business fable. The text describes the change in one’s work and life, and four typical reactions to those changes by two mice and two “little people,” during their hunt for the subject of desire: cheese.
In our story about the recent events in Mauritius, we have 14 travel bags that landed at the airport and belonging to one of the two “people” who is a powerful personality, and a turncoat – who broke a record in revealing and in recanting a criminal case. They are complimented by two mice “Sniff” an “Scurry”. There is no cheese story without mice, right.
They live in a maze, a representation of one’s environment, and look for cheese, representative of happiness and success. Initially without cheese, each group, the mice and humans, paired off and traveled the lengthy corridors searching for cheese.
One day both groups happen upon a cheese-filled corridor at “Cheese Station C.” Content with their find, the humans establish routines around their daily intake of cheese, slowly becoming arrogant in the process.
The humans represents the MPs and of course, the ordinary people. The MPs now controls the corridors of power while the ‘small people’ are at times turncoat or passive viewers.
The power structure is now established with the MPs in firm control and the people the non-active actors on the scene. They got to wait for a probable date in which they can chose who become MPs to show their power.
And how do we know all these stories? Through the news media indeed.
But who are the rats? They are business people who does not bother about the politics, or the suffering of the people. They just want the money and they do get the money, always.
Here is how the story ends:
While on the hunt for cheese, both the humans and the rats found a chamber full of cheese. They were happy. They started to pick on the cheese stock on a daily basis. But one day, when the rats came for the cheese, they could not find any. That did not dampen their urge for cheese and they went on to scurry for more cheese in other chambers along the line. They eventually find more cheese because behind them, the two humans were arguing over the loss of their cheese.
Instead of following the rats to get find more cheese, they were bickering with mistrust settling among them. But the powerful politician left the people behind to go on a solo search for his cheese. On the way he finds bits and pieces until he reaches the room full of new cheese that were found by the rats before him.
The rats were now in control of the situation, they were the most powerful among the four while the people were once again, left behind since they were not sure whether they should go on a search for more cheese.
The moral of the story is that in Mauritius, the people has been left behind while the capitalists-big-businessmen have found the pot of gold and they are sharing with the MPs who are willing to screw their voters for bits and pieces.
It is the complacency among the people that has turned the situation against them in a democracy where the people should have remained the most powerful one, and the MPs should have always been at the service of the people.
In such a democratic system, the millions from the petrodollars or laundered money should not have found its way to the MPs who took them.
The truth is money is fast exchanging hands between a certain group of individuals in Mauritius, where billions of Rupees were laundered through an online betting site.
That money is now being used to buy over who the rats want to buy in order to appease the corrupt MPs.
This is now known as ‘Saudi Money’, said our New Delhi correspondent. But the local media is also to blame.
The fifth estate in the democratic system is also showing signs of corruption. Some media is relaying the stories of corrupt practices, hitting hard against a regime that has been blemished with all sorts of scandal, while others are wrecking havoc as if they are bent on killing some of the flagrant cases.
With the downfall of the media, the mechanism that is supposed to be fair, independent and incorruptible, the people is going to lose even more grounds and will be left further behind while the rats will leave even more bits and pieces behind for the MPs to dole upon.