Thank you for the delicious dishes you serve us every evening, cooked to perfection by top chefs who have made the kitchen their permanent residence. You’re well on your way to compete with the best in the world – the Korean Central television.

You must also have learnt from the best like Joseph Goebbels: “Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth”. In fact, you have surpassed Goebbels in the sense that you not only repeat lies. You make others repeat them too, and the illusion of truth effect is astounding. We all now believe there is one political party and one man in this country who is super human, en tigit pli tipti – but only marginally – ki bon dieu’*. It runs in the family.

This week, emboldened by two events – the MedPoint verdict and the International Court of Justice advisory opinion on Chagos – you really soared to new heights in your mission. You treated us to fantastic footage of people dressed as if they were on death row, expressing or faking euphoria. We heard the firecrackers and we could almost hear the champagne popping and flowing. Thank you, because that completely drowned out the sound of tears of  those who have just lost their jobs and the ones who have no idea for how long they will be able to hold on to theirs. As long as people who matter are happy, why should you care about non-entities?

We were also happy to hear that all the opposition parties are very bad and that only the prince of the day is worthy of being prime minister, though unelected for such a post. Some of the testimonies of Joe Public were so emotional that they nearly brought tears to our eyes. Some have even coined songs to the glory of the one who has become the only centre of interest of the MBC. We hope you can use some of that raw talent in a song competition at some point.

We are heartened to see that, in your quest to make us happy, you always manage to steer clear of imaginary things cooked up by the press and antipatriotic journalists, who are prophets of doom and gloom. Air Mauritius did not register a Rs1 billion loss and the State Bank of Mauritius did not see its shares drop drastically due to a mysterious entity walking away with Rs850 million and vanishing into thin air.  These are cock-and-bull stories invented by the press. Our institutions are doing very well thank you, and so is the economy. Unemployment is going down, public debt is manageable and our trade deficit is fine. In fact, I wonder why factories are closing down and cannot imagine what distress people are talking about. Everyone is happy and satisfied. Repeat after me.

But you did not stop at merely entertaining us with the best news. It looks like you felt no shame in barging into Father Laval’s vault, a place of worship, to extract opinions from devotees that now that the prime minister has won his case at the Privy Council – never mind the details in the small print – he is a born-again saint. I wonder why you didn’t go a little further and asked Father Laval himself to repeat the same mantra. The opinion of the dead is very important to the living, particularly if they have acquired the status of sainthood like the person you would like them to express an opinion about.

In fact, you should also – as some of our compatriots have suggested – visit some cemeteries and get the dead to express some very useful views. This is important, particularly now that all the living have unanimously agreed that we have the best prime minister this country has ever had, and that everyone is very happy to interrupt whatever activities they are engaged in to reiterate that fact.

Thanks again for the great entertainment. This week has been absolutely fabulous. I would like to convey my sincere congratulations for that and for everything that will be coming our way soon. We are confident that beating that competitor in North Korea will be a walk in the park!

*A little bit smaller than God.

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