Bruneau Laurette wants to head a protest this weekend. The Kollectif Konversasyon Solider wants to hold its second protest in September to signal its continued anger against the various missteps of the government since the Covid-19 pandemic. Both claim to be apolitical initiatives arising out of civil society, channelling the anger of the citizenry. If they are to succeed and get the government to pull back, they will have to avoid many of the weaknesses that such movements have demonstrated in the past.

Yes, what we are seeing today is not as unprecedented as its being made out to be. In 2011, a similar movement erupted calling itself ‘Wanted:15,000 youngsters to save our future’ that primarily spread out of Facebook and managed to bring up to 5,000 out on the streets of Port Louis led by Jameel Peerally and Alain Bertrand. It was the high-point of civil society coming into its own and like the protests today claimed to be apolitical, representing the alienation of the people from mainstream political parties. The trouble is that such actions arising out of civil society are great at saying what they are against (corruption, nepotism, scandals etc. etc.) but have no idea what they are for. One school of thought sees this as an asset: keeping it vague allows a protest to attract as much support as possible. After all, civil society is made up of diverse interests, so why shouldn’t any movement they are looking to establish be? Well, the problem is that if you have no set demands, there really is nowhere it can lead aside from a spontaneous outburst of anger which is quickly forgotten. This is precisely what happened in 2011. Headlines for a few weeks and then obscurity which leads people to believe that a similar thing in 2020 is a novelty. They don’t manage to get anything because they don’t demand anything specific for the government to give. That is why business lobbies (yes, yes they buy politicians like dholl puris and so rent their services, but unions have street power and can sway votes) succeed. Contrast the success with which Business Mauritius has managed in neutering all the tax proposals of the finance minister with the inability of the unions and civil society to do the same with the government’s labour law reforms. It’s why other groupuscules representing civil society also either get nowhere, have to jump from one bandwagon to another, or simply get co-opted by a major party.

The other problem with this ‘broad-church’ approach is that there is little place for ideology. Strange that people should believe that. The only example of successful street mobilisation was in the 1970s when there was a political party (the MMM) and an ideology (ranging from Marx to Fanon) driving it. One might say this is not the 1970s. This is true. Ideology has become even more important now in an age when politics has become intertwined with mass communication tools such as social media. It’s why Trump succeeded where Occupy Wall Street failed. It’s why Modi won and Anna Hazare’s movement failed. It’s why the right is on the march in Europe not civil society. One side has a story and a worldview to sell while the other does not. It’s why the old dominant ideology of globalisation that eschewed formal ideology for technocratic-managerial politics is on its last legs.

Unless these civil society movements can come up with an alternative worldview and a concrete list of demands – one that goes beyond a vague, generalised anger – they cannot really force the government’s hand on anything and they risk suffering the same fate as the movement in 2011, a sudden blinding flash and then…back to the darkness.