The frustrations of most Mauritian citizens is that we seem to be caught in a loop about culture management whereby we need to keep all existing traditions content in acknowledgement, performance and financial support while yearning for a space where all these traditions would create a bridge to something new, innovative, transformative. In the line of thinking directly derivative from colonial influence it is often thought that opposing the apparent secularism of Western culture, where historically the line between the Church and the state has been forcefully drawn, is the only way to present this space of neutrality. But we all know that this is a false neutrality.
Firstly, because neutrality can never exist and secondly because within this post-nineteenth century secular approach the cultural presence of western ideas, way of life, approaches to aesthetics, ideology, politics is inescapably present. In itself there is a lot to learn from these insights. But when that implicit reality connects with the hierarchical social, cultural and economic pyramid of a small country like Mauritius we are left floundering for words to express our unease about the implicit perpetuation of cultural dominance on one side and the erasure of difference, alterity and historical subalternity on the other, or sometimes privileging some alterities at the expense of others, because that is what international discourses do, and we are it seems unable to evolve a new model which will reflect our more complex cultural reality. This is of course not something which can happen overnight.
But it does seem that we are doomed to reproduce the same perpetual structures of contained cultural management for decades to come, unless we are able to evolve a new paradigm within which to envision the new direction where cultural strategies should go. In the first place, it is important to clearly spell out why culture is important. Traditionalists will say that cultural representation in all its forms is a given right, and unfortunately this right was suppressed under conditions of colonization and its aftermath.
However, we are more than five decades into our political agency and we should by now be able to take the next step and understand that culture exists not only as an external reality but as an expression of an inner reality. Individuals can choose to align themselves with the existing reality or oppose it or choose which parts of the structure they want to embrace. Had we been living in a monocultural state it would be fine to leave matters at that. But since that is not the case, it is important for public spaces to exist, independent of specific affiliations, to showcase, educate and invite discussion and reflection on our multiple inheritances. In the process, we need to enlarge the reference point and introduce the larger human history and cultural realities which go beyond our two hundred year or so of existence, as well as beyond the multiple ancestral affiliations exclusively. Societies are transformed when the individuals are transformed and culture in its larger sense, through material culture, non-material culture, language, literature, performing arts, culinary culture, philosophy, technological culture, visual and decorative arts, help in this slow transformation. We do stage all these but as separate instalments, rarely intermixing, dispersed and often hijacked by traditional ideological discourses.
Imagine the transformation which could happen if generations of young citizens were to be exposed to all of this in a non-ideological space, all existing in a space of equality, so that we do more than preserve cultural heritage, we establish a space for promoting intercultural dialogue and social cohesion, in a world where we seem to be hurtling towards fragmentation. Imagine the potential for the transformation of the individual, the sub-groups, the larger communities, the nation as a whole. Beyond the education angle there would be scope for economic development, if well managed, offering new horizons for tourism development. I have spoken to a few privileged people recently who brush off the idea that societies are transformed from the inside by offering new horizons for personal and collective projections. Despite the cynicism, despite the fact that these ideas all seem to be abstract, the underlying reality of how culture influences and helps improve societies is all very real. The materialists who believe only in what is visible, are condemned to reproduce stagnant social and cultural structures if they do not believe in the inner power of the mind to transform the outside world through learning new paradigms of cultural identity. I have laid out the plan as I understand it. I leave the last word to my mother: ‘A bon entendeur, salut.’
Nandini Bhautoo