Blog: Seeking Alternatives

The world is experiencing a crisis of penury of ideas. Conventional religion is losing its grip; traditional values that were enshrined in home school and respect for the elderly are being disputed. It would be strange not to expect this result. The Arab spring revolution testifies to the exhaustion of conventional government that, by virtue of its long stay in power has deprived itself of its legitimacy and has become the enemy of the people. In this case the people have reacted with violence, and the new power has itself been trapped into neoconventional models.

Is the Muslim fraternity that is ogling at power in Egypt, Yemen, Tunisia and other Islamic countries the model that can replace the discarded one? Does the hunger for democracy find a proper model that will be based on a free flow of information, visible tangibility of the peope’s power involved in government decision-making, justice, fairness, and equity and the urge to alleviate poverty? In the absence of such a party that can express a valid credible alternative in many European countries there is a helpless reliance on parties that represent a burlesque of democracy. The Neonazi party’s rise in Greece is due to the absence of good governance, the inability of previous governments to bring to book those who have for many years flouted government’s rule and reneged compliance. The successive governments have not been able to collect taxes from private enterprises, turning civil servants and the like into scapegoats of the system. Today when 1200 Greeks are committing suicide in four months the country is craving for alternatives. What else is available? Communist parties, Neonazi groups are hardly representative of the people’s wishes but, then, is there any other way out?

Xenophobic populism in Greece reflects the Marine Le Pen phenomenon in France. The European is living the nemesis of a life led in senseless extravagance and he is confronted today with the wages of his sins. We have, by the impulse of history, worshipped our former masters and have fallen at their feet with bound hands though freed from manacles. Today these very iconic figures have lost their anchors and are drifting into unknown lands. Possibly they are the first to know the terror of the failure of European financial management, the failure of global capitalism and the dire consequences of a life of moral bankruptcy. Greed, selfishness, immorality have become the foundational values of their existence. This is no doubt a caricatural representation of Europeans and like people.

The yearning for an alternative is the natural consequence of an impatience with conventional politics that has failed to satisfy the yearnings of a population for happiness and wellbeing. We, in the African world have always looked up to Europe as the epicenter of democratic rule, the cradle of good governance and regulatory exercise. Our experts have always hailed from there and we have ourselves edified ourselves with learning from these parts of the world and we have a great difficulty to reconcile western knowledge with the essential reality we live. Those who have implanted Western methods to the last letter are confronted today with the same emptiness that forces them to seek moderation. We suffer from the excesses of western materialistic ethics and, unless we adopt a policy of seeking equilibrium, we shall, one day, be faced with the aftermath of a life of excess. Europe betrays the picture of a swaggerer too confident of himself and inventing mysterious methods of management which have shown that they are fit to gratify the fat cats and the captains of free enterprise. The mis-investmont of J.P.MORGAN has led to the loss of two billion dollars which must be in the pockets of our new gods who are the financial managers. Have we not heard of insurance companies that have gobbled up bailout money loaned by government to save jobs for the poor.

The fate of Europe today is a looming threat hanging over all the organisations that violate the natural law of balance and equilibrium. Germany knows a Pirate party which is part of the international movement of Pirate parties. The party sees itself as part of an international movement to shape with their turn of digital revolution what is a circumscription for the transition into the information society.

We are witnessing a reversal of order and a groping in the unknown and in the dark as long as one is liberated of an asphyxiating system of government or financial management. The secret of the enigma lies in the application of moderation and the quest of equilibrium in all we do. The millennial values of the East are a sure guide in this era of uncertainty that follows a period of excess. A society that is guided by the hope that the more we make the rich richer the greater the salvation of the poor is a society which is living in the illusion of the basic bountifulness of man  like that of Nature. Man has alienated himself from nature so much so that he has lost his bearings and is seeking alternatives.

Unfortunately the alternatives are more frightening than the modes that have led to the present catastrophe. Mauritius is on a path that shares the fate of its peers. We were also colonised and we also worship our former colonisers by the force of history. We have the advantage of a blended origin and we are also guided by a philosophy that castigates the inflated ego games and teaches moderation. One example of the conflict of East and West is the battle between the Governor of the Bank of Mauritius and his members of the Monetary Policy Unit. Raising or reducing the repo rate brings into focus the European battle between the greedy rich who want to become richer and the concern for the common man who goes to the market to buy what he needs.