In Mauritian politics, youth is a code word for middle-aged. When we talk about the youth, we mean people in their 40s and 50s. Heck, even 60-year-olds are young according to this alternative definition of age. How else could we explain that the person who aspires to be the voice of the youth, through a brand new party, is actually approaching his 50s? Or that the newly-elected (find one fault!) prime minister’s main quality, according to his die-hard supporters, is his youth – although he, too, is only a few years away from blowing out the candles on his 60th birthday cake?

There is some method in the madness. If we’re still too young to retire when we hit our late 80s, naturally, it makes a 50-year-old a spring chicken. It makes them kittens, little pups who need mentoring. As for the people who would be considered young in the traditional sense of the word, 20 and 30-somethings, what are they? Infants? Not at all. The simple truth is that Mauritian millennials, unless they are the children of political leaders, are invisible. They’re absent from the political scene. It’s a tough nut to crack for politicians who take pride in the number of times they use the word youth in their speeches.

It’s precisely because we are surrounded by politicians who are old, wild and free that it was uplifting to hear that in the midst of all the political turmoil, students at the university will organise a sit-in this week. The world of academia has always been a place for important social commentary. In many countries, student protests have historically often triggered nationwide debates and political action. From the Parisians who in 1229 challenged the church’s influence over academia, to their American peers who burnt down a university building to protest against the war in Cambodia, students worldwide have a reputation of being opinionated, hands-on and fearless. A controversial father-to-son prime ministerial handover certainly warrants, if not protests, then at least a debate in the academic setting. But it turns out that the sit-in planned for this week is unrelated to politics. It’s a simple protest against… fees for resitting exams. Once again, the real youth is absent from the political scene, while the middle-aged pseudo-youth borrows its name. And this is happening in a country where one of the main political parties, regardless of what we may think of it now, first started off as a student movement. 

We need to ask ourselves why active politics is exclusively an old man’s game here. Are millennials indifferent to who governs them? Is it a question of them turning their backs on a status quo they find flawed and disgusting? Is party politics just not a forum that works for them? If we can’t find the answers, the old foxes will continue to pretend that 40 is the new 20 – to hide the fact that they couldn’t convince the real youth to join active politics this time, either. 

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