The road less travelled for Mauritius

The road less travelled for Mauritius

Achieving success like in Singapore depends on the leaders’ vision and ability to plan ahead.

Wesley OXENHAM
National University of Singapore
Wesley.oxenham@gmail.com


PM Navin Ramgoolam often refers to Singapore as an example for Mauritius to follow.
“I have a dream for Mauritius; but the desire is not enough for a dream – a vision – to come true.”

What I read everyday in the news about Mauritius makes me feel very much sad, discouraged and upset. It truly upsets me that poverty is increasingly leading us to violence, theft, murder, and suicide. More importantly, the cause of poverty and a rupee that keeps depreciating on the global market is the straightforward consequence of a visionless country.

“When there is no vision, the people perish”: Franklin.D.Roosevelt’s first inaugural speech 1933.

I believe we need to build up new and sturdy foundations for our country and people, and the best way to achieve this turning point is to learn from successful case studies from around the world, one of which is Singapore: a country with absolutely no resources, about 3 times smaller than Mauritius and with 4 times more people. Yet Singapore today is referred to as one of Asia’s economic “tigers”. Honestly it would bring no good to compare Singapore with Mauritius but, what I would like to point out is our failures in several areas which Singapore, on the other hand, successfully tackled. So why don’t we remain humble and learn from the strategies used by Singapore ?

Planning is probably the simplest word to describe Singapore’s success and Mauritius’ downfall. The key aspect we lack in is to ‘be farsighted’. By this, I mean planning for our future, for 20, 30, 40 years from now. We need to plan for our urban development, our education, our economy, our nation; we need to plan for sustainability and this planning must be in line with a clear vision. Not only that we need to create a sustainable growth, but at the same time, we need to sustain our efforts and keep adjusting to global forces. We need to understand that actions are effective, not words; because in Mauritius, especially Mauritius, we are strong with words but weak with deeds. Our politicians have huge power to influence our present condition since they are the one to set the basis for a vision. Politics is a milestone, as we observe in the case of Singapore where one political leader stood up to bring wealth and life to a country in despair in the early 1960’s.

Lexpress of Monday 27 Nov 2006: «Le PM a aussi fait un appel à la discipline des Mauriciens. L’exemple vient de Singapour, dont les routes sont d’une grande propreté et qui est, aujourd’hui, un pays qui réussit. Comme Maurice, dit-il, Singapour n’a pas d’autres ressources que sa population.»

L’express of Friday 1 dec 2006: Il (referring to our PM) a réitéré son admiration pour un pays comme Singapour.

Lexpress of Monday 18 dec 2006: Navin Ramgoolam a encore une fois pris l’exemple de Singapour qui est “plus petit que Maurice, qui a plus d’habitants et qui n’a pas non plus de ressources”. Pourquoi Singapour a du succès et Maurice pas ? s’est-il demandé. “Parce que les gens sont responsables, ils sont disciplinés et ils ont envie de travailler”, a-t-il répondu à sa propre question. Il a fait un appel aux Mauriciens de “sanz zot mentalite olie perdi letan al vey zafer dimounn.”


Utopian desire in mind

Our PM is not wrong when he says that people in Singapore work harder. But this hardworking population wasn’t achieved by asking the population to become as such; it is simply the end result of a team of extremely hardworking and visionary leaders, leading the country with a utopian desire in mind. A population reflects its leaders such as a child to his parents. The mentality in Mauritius cannot be changed, but it can be reshaped towards a particular ideal with skilful political guidance. In his book ‘From third world to first’ Lee Kuan Yew gives us insights on how he realised this dream, how he faced complex challenges and how he developed thoughtful strategies to finally secure Singapore’s competitive edge in various sectors such as economy, urban planning, defence and education.

The forces of globalization must not be an excuse for our economic failure. This is precisely the reason why we need to plan and be far-sighted. We absolutely need to understand the importance of becoming economically more competitive now, or else, we will soon be forced to become competitive to strive for a better living. We need to start thinking of the world as one country and our leaders have a tough duty to bring a sense of significance in the heart of our people, and invest more energy and money in human resources, as in Mauritius, we all have the potential and the skills, and yet, we only need someone with the right vision to lead us.

While tutoring here in Singapore, I observed how often they adapt their syllabus and curriculum to the students’ needs. They are amazingly flexible when it comes to adaptation and they do take necessary actions frequently. This country is only 42 years old now yet their national university is already ranked 19 th best in the world as well as 2nd best in Asia by the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES). The world’s education system is a constantly changing arena and advances at a fast pace. Mauritius however is keeping to its own pace which clearly leads us to our downfall. We need to be more flexible and constantly shape ourselves for a better learning environment that will benefit and help students in their learning process. But again, actions must be taken.

The tendency today for Mauritians is to go abroad and try their luck in a better living environment. And most of those who study abroad also want to stay in their host country after studies. Even the majority of laureates prefer to not come back, the reason being an overwhelming lack of meritocracy in our country. A shift to meritocracy will help many people from humble backgrounds; a shift to meritocracy will make it more interesting for Mauritians studying abroad to eventually come back; a shift to meritocracy will simply mean investing more in our human resources.

In order for the few elements stated above to be effective, they must be synchronized. If they improve and change all-together, the population will begin to recover the hope they lost. We already have a nation we can be proud of, but only our poor economy by itself has the power to create division and make the society vulnerable. If our faith towards a better future is lost, we might well reach a state of chaos before we may even have predicted it. However, having said that, we have in Mauritius one of the most precious assets which is ‘Talent’. Mauritians are extremely talented people, capable of doing marvellous things given the opportunity. We shouldn’t worry about failure. We should worry more about the chances we miss when we don’t even try.

If our children live with corruption, they will learn to become corrupted, if our children live with poverty and hostility, they will learn to develop hatred and will fight against each other; if our children live with encouragement, they will learn to be optimistic and always aim higher, if our children live with education, they will learn to think globally and if our children live with faith, they will learn to have a peaceful mind. So we need to ask us this question: What are our children living with today?

How many of us have ever thought of a better Mauritius? A Mauritius where meritocracy prevails, where economy reigns, a safe country, an educated nation, a country praised by other countries, a country with non-corrupt politicians; To this question many will simply give a smile, others may think for an instant but will soon forget and the rest will keep on hoping without acting; because we think, it is just unbelievable, absurd, ridiculous or even crazy. But how about… it is POSSIBLE? This is my vision of Mauritius and I truly believe a vision shared by many of us. I have a dream for Mauritius; but the desire is not enough for a dream (a vision) to come true. Hence we need to unite and act quickly. The actions I am undergoing towards that goal will be stated in a subsequent article. Nevertheless I hereby call for everybody, in Mauritius and abroad, to team up as one leading and influencing entity to “Anou vrémem redress nou pays!”










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