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Mauritius Times, Mauritius
Feb 23 2007
So Depressing - What are we to do?
-- Paramanund Soobarah
These are depressing times. Koffi Annan, a giant amongst men who
strove for justice and legality against very heavy odds, has been
replaced by one man whose only qualification was that he had the
support of the White House. Saddam Hussein, long time President of
Iraq who played the Americans' game by conducting an eight-year long
war with Iran, and who sadly turned the American weapons on some of
his own people he suspected of collaborating with the enemy, was
hanged with indecent haste in a most atrocious and shabby manner
after a mock trial. Even the worst criminals deserve a fair trial and
a decent execution.
Saddam's crime was no greater than that of the Turks, great allies of
America, who, because they suspected the Armenians among them of
collaborating with the British and French during the First World War,
killed more than a million of them. The only important thing in the
Iraq war seems to be the number of `American' lives lost. The seven
hundred thousand or so Iraqis killed is of no consequence at all. And
the carnage goes on. It is becoming clear even to Americans that it
needs somebody like Saddam to keep the peace among the various
factions in Iraq. (Nobody wants a free Kurdistan or an independent
Shia country in the Arabian Peninsula.) In the meantime violence and
fundamentalism are raising their ugly heads in Afghanistan again,
because the country was left unguarded in order to deploy resources
to Iraq, then a totally innocent country in what has been termed the
War on Global Terrorism.
The incubation area of this folly, North West Pakistan, nurtured by
Zia Ul Haq and Hamid Gul with the help of American arms and Saudi
money during the Cold War --ostensibly to drive out the Soviets from
Afghanistan -- was initially strongly encouraged and later ignored,
even though it cost thousands of Indians - of all religious
denominations - their lives. Who cared in those days whether Indians
lived or died? The violence also started in Pakistan, but for many
years it was fashionable to find in it `the hand of the enemy'
(namely India). But after three attempts on the life of President
Musharraf, the truth has come home to everybody. This week a lady
Minister in Pakistan was shot and killed as she was to address a
public meeting. The killer, a mason by trade, said he had no regrets
as he was doing God's bidding, and will do it again if freed: women
who do not wear the veil infringe divine law and deserved to die.
Such thinking is rife in Bangla Desh and South East Asia, and is
slowly gaining ground in India. Violence is also rife in Somalia and
western Sudan, and is raising its ugly head in Algeria again, where
more than a hundred thousand were killed in the eighties out of
disagreement among factions of the same religion. Nobody is at peace
in Britain and in Western Europe generally - a climate of fear is
generally pervading these countries.
Mauritius stands out as a haven of peace. We shall shun the obvious
question `for how long?'. The reason lies in the distribution of our
various ethnic groups in the population, and in our history. Some
politicians wish to change this distribution by relocating large
groups of people they think are likely to vote for them in areas
where a small change in the ethnic distribution of voters may improve
their prospects. They may be playing with fire. Let them turn to the
policies of Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam for inspiration. We must all
recognise that his son Navin is following in his footsteps in this
regard.
But how is Navin doing on other matters? When in the constituencies
we voted for Rama Sithanen et al, it was not for the love of them.
They counted for naught in our decision. We were absolutely fed with
the `mari deal' crowd who set sound legal advice from within the
government aside and went out to a private lawyer to justify their
murky transactions, and who plundered the coffers of the national
regulatory bank to feather the nests of their friends. We decided
that it was Navin Ramgoolam who should be our Prime Minister and so
voted for the fellows he sent us in our constituencies. One fellow,
who thinks he is a very big man and is surprised when the government
of the day does not act according to his wishes, puts our voting
choices down to the épiderme of some of the people concerned. When in
the forties the people revolted against the capitalists (who killed
Anjalay in the bargain), they paid scant attention to the épiderme of
the people they were opposing.
But what are we getting from Navin Ramgoolam in return, beyond his,
one must accept, sound communal politicking? He cannot blame Rama
Sithanen or Dharam Gokool or others for government policies. We did
not vote for them to lead the country. Had he sent us a monkey in our
constituency, we would have voted for it, for that would have been
the only way for us to get him as Prime Minister. And what has he
done so far, beyond the changes introduced in the first 100 days?
In his economic policies he has decided to favour the very rich and
the very poor with all sorts of incentives and to crush the middle
class - be they salaried people or planters or managers of SMEs. Let
him do an honest count of how much he has given to the very rich and
weigh that against what the so-called National Residential Property
Tax, the cancellation of the tax on first fifty tons of sugar, the
cancellation of the assistance with exam fees, the removal of the
subsidy on rice and flour,etc., will bring him. He will find that
these taxes won't even bring him ten per cent of the tax incentives
he has given to large companies and to the IRS people - a clear case
of robbing Peter to privilege Paul.
In education, he is abolishing the CPE exams. The people who copied
the `Key Stages' of education idea from the UK (nominally Steven
Obeegadoo), misled the Nation by not including a fundamental element
of that idea, namely the national assessment of progress at the end
of each Key Stage. They left us with just two of them instead of
four, namely at the ends of the Sixth Standard and of the Fifth Form.
>From Standard One to Six, it was all automatic promotion year after
year, and then blamed those who passed the CPE for the failure of the
rest. The same sort of whining went on in secondary education as
well. We all agree that the failure rate at the CPE is unacceptably
high. But is the abolition of the examination, and extending
automatic promotion up to Form III the solution? What we want is
examinations every year by the schools, and national assessment at
the end of each Key Stage. Then only will parents - regardless of
their épiderme -- have a true picture of the performance of their
children.
One feature of Navin Ramgoolam's administration is causing us a great
deal of concern. That is the suppression of information. The
government websites have gone dead. If you turn to the Legislative
Assembly website, you won't find any information on current
legislation. About education all you will find is Steven Obeegadoo's
Rat Race document. The MES have stopped giving detailed results of
examinations gradewise and schoolwise. If we don't know, we can't
comment and will leave them in peace - they think. Is this proper
behaviour from a government which pretends to be in favour of the
right to information? And what does the Attorney General think about
this?
Another feature of Navin Ramgoolam's management is the quality of
English his speakers use at the MBC. It is so bad that I have given
up watching the English bulletin. But this evening (Wednesday 21
February) my wife told me that there was something or other about
mother tongues on, and given my interest in Bhojpuri, I decided to
watch the 9 o'clock bulletin. What attracted my interest most was the
awful English of the male voice whose face thankfully not not
visible. The female newsreader was by and large quite acceptable (she
still has to learn the `fishmonger' rhymes not with `longer' but with
`hunger'). But the male speaker is absolutely hopeless. Is that the
sort of English we wish our children to learn?
This Friday, the 23 of February, is exactly the 200th anniversary of
the passing of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act by the British
Parliament, following a difficult but in the end successful campaign
by William Wilberforce. The forces of evil are at work again in the
world at large: it is quite possible for the people in the
SubContinent and in Europe to live in peace side by side, but they
are choosing not to. It is quite possible for the world to live
without oil and even without coal, but it is choosing not to; it
prefers to go on damaging the environment and financing global
terrorism. There is nothing we can do about in Mauritius.
But limiting ourselves to our own affairs, let us, on this
anniversary day, rededicate ourselves to the ideas of freedom and
justice for all. If the government continues with its policies of
suppressing information, favouring the few at the expense of the
majority financially, and wrecking our education system instead of
improving it, that will make slaves of all of us. We must begin to
think of an alternative.
Paramanund Soobarah
[email protected]
http://www.mauritiustimes.com/230207sooba.htm
Feb 23 2007
So Depressing - What are we to do?
-- Paramanund Soobarah
These are depressing times. Koffi Annan, a giant amongst men who
strove for justice and legality against very heavy odds, has been
replaced by one man whose only qualification was that he had the
support of the White House. Saddam Hussein, long time President of
Iraq who played the Americans' game by conducting an eight-year long
war with Iran, and who sadly turned the American weapons on some of
his own people he suspected of collaborating with the enemy, was
hanged with indecent haste in a most atrocious and shabby manner
after a mock trial. Even the worst criminals deserve a fair trial and
a decent execution.
Saddam's crime was no greater than that of the Turks, great allies of
America, who, because they suspected the Armenians among them of
collaborating with the British and French during the First World War,
killed more than a million of them. The only important thing in the
Iraq war seems to be the number of `American' lives lost. The seven
hundred thousand or so Iraqis killed is of no consequence at all. And
the carnage goes on. It is becoming clear even to Americans that it
needs somebody like Saddam to keep the peace among the various
factions in Iraq. (Nobody wants a free Kurdistan or an independent
Shia country in the Arabian Peninsula.) In the meantime violence and
fundamentalism are raising their ugly heads in Afghanistan again,
because the country was left unguarded in order to deploy resources
to Iraq, then a totally innocent country in what has been termed the
War on Global Terrorism.
The incubation area of this folly, North West Pakistan, nurtured by
Zia Ul Haq and Hamid Gul with the help of American arms and Saudi
money during the Cold War --ostensibly to drive out the Soviets from
Afghanistan -- was initially strongly encouraged and later ignored,
even though it cost thousands of Indians - of all religious
denominations - their lives. Who cared in those days whether Indians
lived or died? The violence also started in Pakistan, but for many
years it was fashionable to find in it `the hand of the enemy'
(namely India). But after three attempts on the life of President
Musharraf, the truth has come home to everybody. This week a lady
Minister in Pakistan was shot and killed as she was to address a
public meeting. The killer, a mason by trade, said he had no regrets
as he was doing God's bidding, and will do it again if freed: women
who do not wear the veil infringe divine law and deserved to die.
Such thinking is rife in Bangla Desh and South East Asia, and is
slowly gaining ground in India. Violence is also rife in Somalia and
western Sudan, and is raising its ugly head in Algeria again, where
more than a hundred thousand were killed in the eighties out of
disagreement among factions of the same religion. Nobody is at peace
in Britain and in Western Europe generally - a climate of fear is
generally pervading these countries.
Mauritius stands out as a haven of peace. We shall shun the obvious
question `for how long?'. The reason lies in the distribution of our
various ethnic groups in the population, and in our history. Some
politicians wish to change this distribution by relocating large
groups of people they think are likely to vote for them in areas
where a small change in the ethnic distribution of voters may improve
their prospects. They may be playing with fire. Let them turn to the
policies of Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam for inspiration. We must all
recognise that his son Navin is following in his footsteps in this
regard.
But how is Navin doing on other matters? When in the constituencies
we voted for Rama Sithanen et al, it was not for the love of them.
They counted for naught in our decision. We were absolutely fed with
the `mari deal' crowd who set sound legal advice from within the
government aside and went out to a private lawyer to justify their
murky transactions, and who plundered the coffers of the national
regulatory bank to feather the nests of their friends. We decided
that it was Navin Ramgoolam who should be our Prime Minister and so
voted for the fellows he sent us in our constituencies. One fellow,
who thinks he is a very big man and is surprised when the government
of the day does not act according to his wishes, puts our voting
choices down to the épiderme of some of the people concerned. When in
the forties the people revolted against the capitalists (who killed
Anjalay in the bargain), they paid scant attention to the épiderme of
the people they were opposing.
But what are we getting from Navin Ramgoolam in return, beyond his,
one must accept, sound communal politicking? He cannot blame Rama
Sithanen or Dharam Gokool or others for government policies. We did
not vote for them to lead the country. Had he sent us a monkey in our
constituency, we would have voted for it, for that would have been
the only way for us to get him as Prime Minister. And what has he
done so far, beyond the changes introduced in the first 100 days?
In his economic policies he has decided to favour the very rich and
the very poor with all sorts of incentives and to crush the middle
class - be they salaried people or planters or managers of SMEs. Let
him do an honest count of how much he has given to the very rich and
weigh that against what the so-called National Residential Property
Tax, the cancellation of the tax on first fifty tons of sugar, the
cancellation of the assistance with exam fees, the removal of the
subsidy on rice and flour,etc., will bring him. He will find that
these taxes won't even bring him ten per cent of the tax incentives
he has given to large companies and to the IRS people - a clear case
of robbing Peter to privilege Paul.
In education, he is abolishing the CPE exams. The people who copied
the `Key Stages' of education idea from the UK (nominally Steven
Obeegadoo), misled the Nation by not including a fundamental element
of that idea, namely the national assessment of progress at the end
of each Key Stage. They left us with just two of them instead of
four, namely at the ends of the Sixth Standard and of the Fifth Form.
>From Standard One to Six, it was all automatic promotion year after
year, and then blamed those who passed the CPE for the failure of the
rest. The same sort of whining went on in secondary education as
well. We all agree that the failure rate at the CPE is unacceptably
high. But is the abolition of the examination, and extending
automatic promotion up to Form III the solution? What we want is
examinations every year by the schools, and national assessment at
the end of each Key Stage. Then only will parents - regardless of
their épiderme -- have a true picture of the performance of their
children.
One feature of Navin Ramgoolam's administration is causing us a great
deal of concern. That is the suppression of information. The
government websites have gone dead. If you turn to the Legislative
Assembly website, you won't find any information on current
legislation. About education all you will find is Steven Obeegadoo's
Rat Race document. The MES have stopped giving detailed results of
examinations gradewise and schoolwise. If we don't know, we can't
comment and will leave them in peace - they think. Is this proper
behaviour from a government which pretends to be in favour of the
right to information? And what does the Attorney General think about
this?
Another feature of Navin Ramgoolam's management is the quality of
English his speakers use at the MBC. It is so bad that I have given
up watching the English bulletin. But this evening (Wednesday 21
February) my wife told me that there was something or other about
mother tongues on, and given my interest in Bhojpuri, I decided to
watch the 9 o'clock bulletin. What attracted my interest most was the
awful English of the male voice whose face thankfully not not
visible. The female newsreader was by and large quite acceptable (she
still has to learn the `fishmonger' rhymes not with `longer' but with
`hunger'). But the male speaker is absolutely hopeless. Is that the
sort of English we wish our children to learn?
This Friday, the 23 of February, is exactly the 200th anniversary of
the passing of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act by the British
Parliament, following a difficult but in the end successful campaign
by William Wilberforce. The forces of evil are at work again in the
world at large: it is quite possible for the people in the
SubContinent and in Europe to live in peace side by side, but they
are choosing not to. It is quite possible for the world to live
without oil and even without coal, but it is choosing not to; it
prefers to go on damaging the environment and financing global
terrorism. There is nothing we can do about in Mauritius.
But limiting ourselves to our own affairs, let us, on this
anniversary day, rededicate ourselves to the ideas of freedom and
justice for all. If the government continues with its policies of
suppressing information, favouring the few at the expense of the
majority financially, and wrecking our education system instead of
improving it, that will make slaves of all of us. We must begin to
think of an alternative.
Paramanund Soobarah
[email protected]
http://www.mauritiustimes.com/230207sooba.htm