Paradise Lost by Chetan Ramchurn (12/09/08 Le Mauricien/ 03/09/08 L'Express)

“Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world and all our woe…”
Paradise Lost

John Milton

Paradise Lost

Mark Twain’s now famous quote linking Mauritius to paradise now sounds like a bitter remembrance of what our fledgling democracy used to be. The state of moral decay that is gangrening our nation leads us to one conclusion; our motherland deserves a better class of leaders.

All guilty

Who should take the blame for further soiling our moral values? All of us are equal partners in crime. We, the “peuple admirable” for having and continuing to bear with hoards of self-centered egomaniacs that have and continue to fool us with lofty words and false pledges. Religious leaders for stooping to unknown levels of immorality in their quest for personal power. Political leaders from successive governments who failed to understand the nobility of serving of one’s country.

Dr Navin Mr Ramgoolam

Navin Ramgoolam, in the role of the greatest agent of chaos and now renowned for his inability to take bold decisions, has helped further tarnish the moral sanctity of our society. Our P.M carries the role of the incompetent leader with such aplomb that he makes the case for his cohort of even more ineffectual bootlickers. Navin is together with all those around him the silent culprits responsible for creating a system that thrives on incompetence and corruption.

From someone who represented change back in the mid 1990s to the master manipulator that he now is, Navin symbolises the degeneration of moral values our country has experienced over the last decade. Declared politically dead in 2000, he has managed a tour de force return to power heavily infused with newly acquired communication skills that focused on an all talk and no action stance .

The leader of the Labour Party has mastered the art of communication and understood that image is everything. Case in point: a scandal filled month with the Boskalis case, Cindy Legallant, Sada Curpen, Valayden’s resignation, Cunningham’s sudden departure, Bel Ombre S.E all making headlines and the only image that will be left in the voter’s mind will be Navin’s sega dancing skills at Le Morne.

Call to arms

The successive list of scams involving bearers of power is a cause for concern but what is even more distressing is that corruption and incompetence are now an ingrained part of our culture. There is no secret mantra to end this but only the will to stand for what is right. Dear co victims, let us extirpate ourselves from our lethargic state and bury those who have repeatedly failed us. Let us not be confined to a state of slumber, lulled in a sense of comfort and security by propagandists. Let us rise above the muck before it is too late.

Chetan Ramchurn