We were expecting a communiqué from the Prime Minister’s Office condemning in the strongest possible terms the death of the Washington Post journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, and announcing the decision to follow the international community in its boycott of the economic summit in Riyadh. Instead, what landed in the newsrooms is a communiqué showing that our relationship with Saudi Arabia has never been better: we have just signed a Rs3.5 billion loan, in the usual opacity. Our stand in relation to the massacre of the journalist? Hmmm, huhhh, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is waiting for instructions from Cabinet, and Cabinet is waiting for the prime minister’s evangelical word on the issue and the prime minister is too busy cutting ribbons to worry about such insignificant things.

And where, by the way, is the jet traveller who hobnobs with Saudi nobility and who did not miss a single opportunity to bombard us with his relationship with his ‘brother’, Prince Mohammad bin Salman? You will remember how then-Minister Showkutally Soodhun embarked us on siding with Saudi Arabia, following Prince Mohammad’s tempestuous announcement of a boycott of Qatar. The same Soodhun had also announced Mauritius’s participation in a military exercise ordered by the prince and openly supported Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen – a war that has killed thousands of people including women and children and is causing the starvation of so many more. To take such appalling stands, there was no hesitation. To do the right thing today, radio silence!

While waiting for our leaders to find the courage they don’t have, we were treated to the best defence of the Saudi government we have heard so far. And it came from Bobby Hurreeram, the government’s chief whip: “Nobody knows exactly what happened. Even if there was something, it’s not necessarily the government that is implicated. One has to be cautious and not jump to conclusions.” Who can beat that? The poor journalist walks into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and never comes out. The Saudi government shamelessly declares that he had left the embassy and disappeared into thin air. So thin it must have been that even his own fiancée – who had been waiting outside for 14 hours – did not see him come out. Then came the most fantastic cock-and-bull story in the history of humanity: the poor journalist died in a fist fight! He must have taken on the 15 special agents who scheduled a one-day visit specially to meet him and, after 14 hours of oil-wrestling, he fell, belly button facing the sky and his body was immediately swallowed by green sea turtles! As the whole world realised that the explanation was not even plausible enough for indulgent world leaders like Donald Trump to hide behind and gruesome stories of an innocent journalist who had been killed and chopped up to the sound of music started coming out, we are being advised by our luminary to be cautious and avoid jumping to conclusions! And our prime minister, Pravind Jugnauth, while shamelessly observing deafening silence, proudly decides to sign loan agreements with the very same Saudis.

It’s easy to take loans, grants and other types of alms from foreign governments. When you have destroyed a large conglomerate, illegally terminated a contract with a big company, eroded the business confidence this country spent decades building; when you have destroyed the reputation of your own jurisdiction through rolling out the red carpet for crooks, thugs and corrupt individuals, what a boon foreign charity is to balance your budget deficit, give out gifts the country can’t afford and engage in other forms of electoral bribery! The problem is that there comes a payback time. In the case of Saudi Arabia, that time is today. And the price we are paying is our own freedom of speech and a missed opportunity to stand on the right side of history. It is the loss of our pride as a nation,

But then again, we lost that pride when we allowed someone who did not have the pride to stand for an election to become our prime minister! So let’s cry in silence for we no longer have a voice!

* Morality does not fill the belly

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