Blog: PM's Call for Solidarity

Of the three major motives of any revolution liberty, equality and solidarity or brotherhood, the last one is what sustains societal change and gives meaning to new relationships.

Liberty and equality are political operatives that need laws, constitutional guarantees, institutionalised tools for their existence. Liberty has to be defined within a legal framework. Equality needs checks and balances to become concrete, otherwise it is sheer rhetoric. Both depend on what  society does to make brotherhood a living reality. Without brotherhood liberty is the privilege of a few. Without brotherhood equality is an empty desire. If liberty and equality need the overriding presence of government, brotherhood is an oil that lubricates relationships between different groups, ethnic, racial, national, beyond the visible differences that apparently separate man from man. Brotherhood is a civil society phenomenon that flourishes if the state gives its assistance, but can exist even without state intervention.

The Arab spring revolution is first and foremost a society wide call for brotherhood. The thirty years of democracy in countries like Tunisia, Egypt, Libya disturbed the contents of freedom and perverted the very idea of equality among disparate groups forming the Tunisian nation or the Egyptian nation. The perversity of liberty and equality in these countries caused dysfunctional structures in the economy. Today the distribution of wealth in these country favours a few because liberty has been accaparated by a few. Equality has been emptied of its real meaning and yet the word has been bandied to deceive millions. Even in India the greed of those in power has deprived deserving middle-class and deserving poor of basic rights. Corruption is the term used to define a society that has a warped view of liberty and a falsified perspective of equality. Governments become instruments of those in economic and political power who oppress the weak in the name of equality and liberty. Corruption is an economic evil created by the economic structure of our society. A hundred policemen made to watch over wealth finally leaves the soul of the guardians of safety themselves tainted. The eradication of corruption does not lie in the hands of government or so-called independent institutions. In fact our society must reinvent a sense of brotherhood to attenuate corruption. Anna Hazare’s fight is that of a civil society’s attack against the institutional tyranny of the state which itself produces corruption. Politicians have railed against corruption and yet they have nowhere succeeded in eradicating it.

Brotherhood gives a soul to liberty. It makes liberty meaningful across society, forcing one to respect the dignity of the other, urging one to provide space to the other, to cherish diversity, to seek platforms for free expression and share them. Brotherhood is also the prerequisite for equality. Otherwise laws need to be enforced to punish all forms of imposed injustice. Civilization itself relies on brotherhood to attenuate the inequalities created by nature.

Why the webcall for 15,000 patriots failed?

Mauritius has known a deep sense of brotherhood in the wake of its democratisation policy. The country has cultivated by the very nature of its history a strong sense of togetherness. Riots have not had lasting effect on Mauritian life.

The call for 15,000 volunteers on Facebook was a call of genuine seekers of future through civil action outside the framework of laws, institutions and state interference. However genuine it lacks an intrinsic, self-justifying rationale. It sounds like a superimposed practice transferred from one context into Mauritian reality with little justification. Should what worked successfully in Tunisia and Egypt be effective in Mauritius which knows a strong commitment to brotherhood? What is the Facebook congregation concerned with? Should corruption, the fact that some politicians make dirty business out of politics, eradication of poverty becomes strong enough causes that can pull thousands on a common platform? It is not to raise public awareness that the Facebook supporters are brandishing these three causes as their warcry. In fact these themes stand high on the agenda of government action already. What can the Facebook protesters achieve without a political structure? The Facebook brotherhood does not convince us because they lack an intrinsic selfcreated origin. It sounds as if someone impressed by the social platform that motivated the Arab uprising were to say - let us try it here. We’ll see what it gives? It is not strange that two or three thousand out of an expected 15,000 responded.

My contention is that it is not the three themes that moved the protesters. There is no doubt an unease in the population. The multiplying cases of corruption in spite of government’s anti-corruption acting, the mounting violence in our society in spite of the citing of figures that are meant to placate an anxious nation, the mushrooming of cases of poverty despite government’s philanthropic actions - all these create a confused state of mind. It is a sense of collective frustration that is being expressed. It is not another political party that will solve the problem. It is not by political means that we can dissipate the frustration. We need, in fact, more solidarity among one another. Solidarity with those who are failing CPE every year. Solidarity with those thousands of drug addicts who are forced to steal in order to buy their dose, solidarity with the poor who are being ill-treated in schools, hospitals and all those platforms where they have a legitimate right to dignified treatment.

Liberty without national solidarity is the tyranny of a few. Equality without brotherhood is the supremacy of an arrogant elite. Solidarity alone makes the freedom of one coterminous with the freedom of the other. Solidarity makes equality bring rank and file together.

The Corporate Social Responsibility is a state-controlled instrument of solidarity. Many examples of Mauritian generosity testify to the presence of solidarity. However, solidarity is sadly absent at the level of politicians. In spite of all the rhetoric in favour of liberty and equality, our political masters have not understood the value of solidarity among parties. We are constantly living sentiments of mutual hatred, wishing the elimination of our political adversaries. Alliances are only preambles to deeper hatred once coalitions dissolve. The population pays the price of this animosity by staying in watertight camps slinging venom at each other. This forbodes ill for the strength of our democracy.