I am not interested in wasting my time on PPS Tania Diolle. When it comes to absence of decorum, dignity, grace or any type of intelligence, she rings all the bells – and then some. Nor am I interested in Dorine Chukowry or their colleagues – many of whom are sadly young and claiming to want to do politics differently – who have made their aim very clear: serving their leader at any cost, instead of serving the people who elected them. For staying in power, there is no level too low to stoop to.

So I was not at all shocked when I saw the cakes distributed in Diolle’s and Chukowry’s constituencies, displaying their names and constituency number side by side with the photo of Virgin Mary. What shocks and saddens me is the cynicism behind these acts and the exploitation of people’s misery and submissiveness to have them trade their dignity for a couple of hundred rupees. 

We all know the situation in many families today: The small businesses which had fed their families for years went belly-up and didn’t meet the opaque criteria of the Mauritius Investment Corporation, which – lest we forget – is being financed through our rupees. Their children are being targeted by criminals peddling death in schools with almost total impunity. Their families have been decimated by drugs that keep coming in in alarming amounts while the big sharks are walking free. Their parents have lost their jobs and can’t find new ones. The younger kids have been thrown onto the streets as they could not secure the five credits required to carry on with their education. Grand projects are being embarked on but there are no jobs in sight for them. Favouritism has been eating up good jobs and scrumptious contracts and excreting cheap cakes for feasts like the Assumption of Mary and Divali and dates received as alms for Eid. 

Yes I understand the degree of poverty and despair we have reached. I really do get it. But are we that desperate to accept their alms with the same cynicism they throw them at us in exchange for our dignity – the only thing they cannot take away from us without our consent? That consent, we give it to them, not only when we take their dates and cakes but also when we drool at the electoral bribes they throw at us and wipe their corrupt slate clean in return. 

Like many of you, I watched a viral video of a scene in a village in Ghana* a few weeks ago: a politician must have thought that taking a truck full of bags of rice to the villagers was a smart idea. The latter, far from being dupe, chased him away, howling insults at him and shouting, ‘We need jobs, not rice!’ Before the unwise politician managed to make a beeline for his truck, the villagers had thrown all the bags of rice back onto the back of the vehicle. So the truck left as full as when it came in. Those who have visited villages in some countries on the continent can take the measure of the implications of this act: many families will go to bed hungry but they will not be duped. 

There comes a time when playing the opportunistic politicians’ game shades into complicity in bringing back to power those who are destroying our lives and our country. It’s not a question of cakes or dates. It’s a question of allowing them to give undeserved jobs, shady contracts and bailout money to their cronies and keep us on handouts, forever waiting for their charity with our money that we are allowing them to grab! 

Take a cue from our friends in Ghana. We can’t be more desperate than them, I can assure you! It is that change in mind-set that we need, not alms. 

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maES4uMUTWM