A week has passed since we arrived in Mauritius. We are lucky to be here since we were the last ones to fly out through the raging storm afflicting Dubai when a year’s rainfall fell in less than 24 hours. Flights have resumed now but they remain far from normal and our new worry is how to get back.
Heavy rain has now fallen on Mauritius and our friend Rama today warned us to postpone our planned visit to Port Louis, the island’s capital, because of severe flooding. The tik-tok video he sent us of the Caudan waterfront was indeed frightening with spontaneous waterfalls appearing all over the area and cars and buses submerged. No dead registered so far fortunately.
Which leads me to consider the negative side of life in this otherwise idyllic island. Hurricanes do not hit this part of the world with the destruction wreaked in areas like the West Indies but they do occur. This year, for example, cyclone Belal brought death and widespread flooding to the area of the Mascarene islands of which Mauritius forms a part.
However, (fingers crossed) tsunamis have not yet affected this lovely but vulnerable island.
Going from natural to man-made calamities (although increasingly so-called natural ones are increasingly man-caused) Mauritius has had a remarkably placid recent political history.
The era before independence in 1968 did, however, produce riots and protest movements with subsequent deaths. These arose from issues regarding labour relations and racial tensions. The UK’s army was even called in to quell the disturbances.
Since those days Mauritius has had an enviable political record, especially when it is part of Africa. Let’s consider the countries who have governed it in succession from the Portuguese to the Dutch to the French and to to the English.
Let’s also consider the populace’s terms of employment from African slaves to indentured Indian workers after slavery was abolished in the UK empire by the likes of Wilberforce in 1835 to the influx of Chinese workers and now the growing number of westerners choosing thr island to work or just to retire in.
However, in an increasingly uncertain world there could arise a situation where locals arise against over-tourism in the manner of the current canary islanders. Tourism as a negative force? Sadly it’s near to that in many parts of the world including Italy.
Where issues of species extinction – sadly the Dodo is not the only animal to have been wiped out on this island witness the species of rails and pigeons – slavery, indentured labour, forced migration, imperialist dogma, racism, local mafia and international corruption have touched Mauritius it’s great that the island has retained its humanity and consistency still welcoming visitors on the way it has done us. Long may it continue in this truly democratic and multicultural fashion so well emblemized in its national flag.
