Blog: Disease of the SAME

Watching the national scene and observing the trends, I am afraid that we have caught the disease of the SAME. Nothing abnormal. We can hardly do much, perhaps it is unavoidable. Throughout the world, we find multinationals spreading their tentacles and Mauritius is no exception. Hypermarkets are cropping up everywhere. They display the SAME goods. They successfully change consumer behaviour. The stores look the SAME. All have trendy shops displaying international brands: drugstore, bookstore, food court.

The food habits of the population, particularly the younger generations are being changed in most cases for the worst posing even health problems. This is a worldwide trend. In America where all this started, corrective measures are being taken by banning fast food and sugary drinks in schools.

Watching TV fashion shows in all the capitals of the world, we find that the designers are creating the SAME patterns depending on the seasons. Of course, TV and cinema and magazines are helping this invasion, particularly in developing countries and markets. If you visit duty free or brand shops throughout the world, we find that all the products are comparable.

It only depends on the success of marketing or advertising for people to adopt a trend or another. The market is very vast. It is a world market now. Everything is planned globally and SAME dreams are being sold for the children for the young people and women.

Once America dominated TV productions. Some 80 percent of TV films and serials were produced by American companies. With the spread of technology, digital and satellite, thousands of companies have cropped up worldwide to produce contents to feed those channels. Hundreds of channels are available to those who can afford. Hundreds of news channels in different languages are being broadcast. Viewers keep swapping from one channel to other channel hardly anything to arrest their attention for a long period.

In India, it took a director like Ashutosh Gowarikar to make a four-hour movie on cricket with the hero wearing a loincloth in Lagaan, one of the biggest box office hits. Many big budget films like Kites and Raavan are failing at the box office.

The cars which are manufactured in the world are more or less the SAME with SAME engine capacity, having the SAME features. I experienced it last week when accompanying a friend of mine to choose a brand new car. I visited quite a few dealers’ shops. For the SAME engine capacity, most of these cars, either European or Japanese and at the SAME price.

Another trend is to spread or impose the SAME way of life, if not the SAME culture. The World Trade Organization is overseeing that there is free trade, free markets of goods. In fact, it is trying to create a level playing ground for manufacturing and selling goods throughout the world. In practice, they never thought that Asian countries like India, Japan and South Korea to mass produce goods and flood the markets of the West.

 At present, those countries, particularly the Western countries which wanted the developing world to pull down barriers are now themselves setting up barriers. In the name of democracy and freedom of expression, they also want to impose their way of life and governance throughout the world. This has resulted in conflicts with countries like Iran, Iraq, and Venezuela thus endangering world peace.

The net result has been that the world is becoming poorer in all spheres of life. Indigenous music, culture and languages are being destroyed. As far as the global modernization the world is suffering from ‘surendettement’. Even countries like Greece, Italy and Spain have not been spared. The new British government has taken drastic steps to reduce its deficits. Germany which is relatively wealthy is adopting hostility measures and forcing others in the European community to do the SAME to benefit from its hell.

The financial world crisis was brought by people who have been to the SAME type of school, went on creating the SAME world and finding the SAME solutions. They are known as three great Cs: the Chief Executive Officers, the Chief Financial Officers and the Chief Operating Officers.

It is only countries like China and India which had adopted their own values, way of life and hostility measures that have resisted in some way or the other the consequences of the global financial crisis.

I am wondering whether small countries like Mauritius can resist the consequences of the SAMEness which is invading us. Already, the vast majority of people in this country are over indebted. The credit card system is causing havoc. The small planting community is in danger of disappearing. The gap between the rich and the poor is widening. The performance at schools is average. The workers have lost all bargaining power.

Which model should we copy to reverse the trend? Of course, not Singapore. Our old system needs overhauling and a new mindset. In Bangladesh, Mohamed Yunus, a Nobel Peace price winner, trusted the poor with money and set up thousands of enterprises particularly by empowering women thereby creating the Grameen Bank and generating jobs.

The most recent example is Rwanda. On the World Bank list, Rwanda catapulted out of the neighborhoods of Haiti, Liberia and the West Bank and Gaza and sailed past Italy, Czech Republic, Turkey and the Poland. On one sub index in a study, the ease of opening a new business, Rwanda ranked 11th worldwide. Rwanda created a business revolution with a pro active support for the creation of some 72 000 small enterprises. Paul Kagame, the President rightly put it: ‘Entrepreneurship is the surest way of development.’

Studies consistently linked entrepreneurship with job creation and GDP growth. In Mauritius, it is only the State which has the muscle to spearhead the changes which are required. It’s time now to ensure that the management of important Institutions are left to dedicated Chairman’s and CEO’s. The multiple roles should be avoided as it just becomes a formality for the institution and the development thereof takes a back seat.

We have a valiant private sector which can in its own interest cooperate. Government has already established a program, but the implementation does not need the SAME approach. It should not happen that the operation is successful and the patient has died.

Do we have the people and the political will to implement the program? After the elections, there is a feeling that everything is SAME, except in some quarters. It’s high time things should start happening and seen to be happening.

Only then we can reverse the trend and not fall victim to the disease of the SAME.