QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave."
-- Patrick Henry

The Week In Review 

America -- Electoral Campaign Round Up

-- PARAMANAND SOOBARAH 

It looks as though it’s all over for Senator Hilary Clinton. She lost heavily in North Carolina – she was expected to, anyway, given the overwhelming proportion of black voters in that State – and only won narrowly in Indiana. But she has won just enough votes to permit her to continue the contest if she so wishes. As of writing, on Thursday 8 May afternoon, that is her stubborn wish. The Obama camp feel that the contest is over and that their candidate will be the nominee. But Hilary can quote from previous Democratic contests where the fight went on for much longer. To begin with, in 1992 her husband Bill Clinton did not win the nomination until June 2. Senator Ted Kennedy, who is now calling stridently for Hilary to stand down in favour of Obama, himself stood against incumbent President Jimmy Carter until August 9 in 1980, and that might well have had something to do with the President’s defeat by Ronald Reagan later in the year. She hopes to win some more delegates in the remaining smaller primaries, and is counting on the superdelegates at the Party Convention in Denver, Colorado in August. But lots of things can happen between now and then, and she may decide or be forced to withdraw. She is fighting against great odds – her campaign is totally broke, and she is obliged to help out of her own pocket. In America, campaigns are funded by public donations. Currently, most donations are being channelled towards Barack Obama. For us in Mauritius, it comes as a big lesson that a black candidate – that’s what he calls himself even though his mother was pure white – who was relatively unknown fifteen months ago can secure three to four times the funding that a well known white name like Clinton, which can be said to belong to the establishment, can raise. In addition to being broke, Hilary finds that many well-known Clinton supporters are now changing sides, like rats leaving a sinking ship. 

America: Truth and Reconciliation thrust into the background 

During the last week one heard little of Revd. Jeremiah Wright, Barrack Obama’s former pastor, whose statements on race for a time looked like they would be upsetting the apple-cart for Obama. The Senator has officially now distanced himself from the pastor and the incident is now securely behind him. White journalists and commentators have unanimously condemned the pastor because he represents the profound resentment that blacks in America nurture against whites for the treatment they had from them in the past. Black commentators also join in the condemnation because the pastor’s outbursts could endanger Obama’s progress towards the White House. But the pastor still has a constituency, and he remains unshaken in his determination to strive towards recognition of the ill-treatment and from there by steps to reconciliation. Given the corrupt element in all human beings, short term gratification is always more welcome than hard-to-get-at, long-lasting solutions. Even if Barack Obama wins the presidency, the issues of Truth and Justice in the treatment of blacks by whites will not go away. In fact, Revd. Jeremiah Wright has warned him that he, Obama, will have to deal with him, Jeremiah Wright, on the affairs of the community. This matter will divide the American nation into two clear camps. I feel certain that, as illustrated in well-known French fable of the Cat and the Dog, that Jeremiah Wright would prefer a frank enemy (McCain) to a not-entirely-true friend (Obama) at the White House. J’aime mieux un franc ennemi qu’un bon ami qui m’égratigne. 

The Middle East – Israel and Palestine 

The American Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice is in the Middle East trying persuade the Israelis and the Palestinians to come to a peace agreement. This week is also the sixtieth anniversary of the establishment of the State of Israel by the United Nations, and President George W. Bush will be visiting Israel on the occasion. The Americans will engage in no end of arm-twisting to get the two sides to agree, for President Bush has no other legacy to leave behind. In an almost similar situation, PLA Chairman Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak failed to agree in Sharm El Sheik under the chairmanship of President Bill Clinton to a proposal that would have given 97% of the West Bank to the new State of Palestine. Chairman Arafat did not feel it would be in the long-term interests of the Palestinians to cede even three per cent of their territory. The amount of new Palestinian territory that has been taken over by Jewish settlers has increased considerably since then. How much territory will Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas be called upon to surrender this time? 

The Middle East - Iraq 

In Iraq the Al Maliki government supported by Coalition Forces seems to be winning the fight against Muqtada Al Sadr; the people in Sadr City, the stronghold of Muqtada, are happy to see their area being cleansed of criminal elements. The fight against Al Qaeda also seems to be going well. However these forces of evil are still causing numerous deaths in the civilian population with their cowardly bomb attacks.

The Middle East – Lebanon

Sadly, the longstanding polarisation of the country into pro- and antigovernment factions now looks like turning into a full-fledged civil war. Fighting has broken out in the streets of Beirut. The country has been there before. The last civil war lasted several years and Beirut was practically destroyed. This time it is likely to be much more serious, for the government’s opponents includes Hezbollah which recently stood up to the might of Israel without blinking. As of writing the Lebanese Army is not itself involved; the fighting is between Hezbollah and a progovernment Muslim militia. This is an extremely serious development. But there cannot be more than one military organisation in the same country. Either the Government forces or Hezbollah must give way willingly or be made to do so by force. Now is the time for those who want to live in peace with democracy to come to the help of Lebanon. 

Europe - Russia 

This week a major event has taken place in Russia. President Putin has been succeeded by his supporter Dmitri Medvedev. Putin is himself coming back as Prime Minister, and Russia will have more of the same for at least another four years. Not a bad thing, seeing that President Putin has restored dignity to the Russian nation after it had been turned over to the mafia by drunkard and western stooge Boris Yeltsin. We must all prepare ourselves for a new cold war between the US and Russia. The US is taking telltale steps by substantially increasing its military budget and closing in on Russia with NATO’s eastward expansion and a missile shield in Central Europe. Nobody buys the American pretext that its efforts are directed against Iran which knows fully well that it can be “obliterated” at any time. Putinism is a necessity for Russia in the present circumstances. A strong Russia, a strong China and a strong India will act as a counter-weight to an all-powerful USA. According to the London Telegraph newspaper, Mr Mikhail Gorbachev, speaking on the occasion of the inauguration of Mr Medvedev’s inauguration as President, said: “The Americans said that they wouldn’t move beyond the boundaries of Germany after the Cold War but now half of Central and Eastern Europe are members, so what happened to their promises? It shows they cannot be trusted.” 

Nargis hits Myanmar 

In South Asia, the main event has been Cyclone Nargis which has brought untold death and destruction to coastal parts of Myanmar (Burma); more than 100,000 people are reported to have perished, and more than a million are without food and shelter. The military junta running the county since ages is more interested in securing its power base than in assisting the sorely-stricken population now in dire need of water, food and shelter. While the immediate need is to rush aid to the needy, one also dreams of powerful United Nations that could take on military juntas anywhere in the world, and step in to restore power to civilian authorities wherever people who think they are entitled to power simply because, with a gun in the hand, they are stronger. One is depressed at the regularity with which the army has toppled elected governments in countries with long-established democratic antecedents like Pakistan and Bangladesh. Such a United Nations could also take on those governments which cheat at elections or win by rigging or coercion or cling on to power even after having patently lost, as happens with depressing regularity in Africa, our own continent. But then such a United Nations will always be under the thumb of the major powers, and will therefore bend over backwards to serve them, not the dictates of morality. It is easy enough to understand Americans individually but who can make sense out of American foreign policy? If you are not prepared to put up with the status of banana republic, you immediately become their enemy. Either you are with us, or against us, said George W. Bush. We hope that things will change one day when the power of the West has moved to the East, but we won’t hold our breath about it. Who can predict what China will do? Is what is taking place in Tibet and Singkiang a foretaste? 

The Oil and Food Crisis 

Oil has been trading at $124 a barrel and all the talk is now about the $200 oil barrel. It must be expected that the prices of rice, wheat, corn, sugar and cooking oil will follow suit, for the world has at last woken up to the long-established scientific fact that all forms of energy are equivalent. When King George III called for breadfruit to be taken from the Pacific to the Caribbean to serve as “fuel” for slaves, he thought he was just being contemptuous towards the slaves. In those days science still had some way to go, so that his majesty expressed a scientific truth without being aware of it. This truth now being general knowledge, some governments have just discovered that they have within their territories all the wealth that oil can give, and have started dreaming of converting their capital cities into Dubais and Abu Dhabis. In a remarkable case of south-south cooperation, Ghana has contracted an agreement with Brazil for the production of ethanol in its territory, and has earmarked large tracts of land for cane plantation. African countries that have always been complaining that their agricultural products could not compete with subsidized American and European agricuItural products now have their chance of a lifetime, planting oil for cars. And there seems to be an opportunity here for Mauritians as well. It is quite conceivable for Mauritius to do in Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi and Madagascar what Brazil is doing in Ghana – as long as we don’t go out to those countries and buy stolen property as some of our compatriots, fleeing Indian hegemony here, did in Rhodesia in the sixties. (The land they bought had been stolen from their indigenous owners by Cecil Rhodes et al.) This seems to be a promising avenue, provided those concerned repatriate their profits.

At the same time we also have the problem of providing fuel for our transportation requirements. The time to act is now. We should enter the ethanol industry in a big way. It is absolutely stupid to export sugar and import oil or coal.

Our energy for other purposes should come from the wind. Because of its situation in the tropics, we have less wind here that countries in Europe do. This means that we will require more generating units than they do. These units ought to be installed mainly offshore along the east coast, between Rivičre des Créoles and GRSE. Actually, because of the fickleness of the wind, our wind machines should be used not to generate electricity directly but to pump water to the reservoirs on the mountain top; that water can be used to generate electricity in a controlled manner. 

Tackling the food scarcity problem in Mauritius 

Dietary habits are difficult to change. We eat rice and wheat-based products like bread and pharata. Our consumption of potatoes is only in the form of a marginal side-dish. It has been said that we should increase our potato consumption because potatoes are relatively easy to produce locally. We certainly should do that. In Ireland, potatoes are the staple diet; this has not always been the case, for the potato originated in South America and was brought to Europe by the Spanish conquistadores – along with their loot of Inca gold. The Irish transition was not made in a day or a few months; it must have taken several decades for the process to be completed. Nor can expect all Mauritians to give up their favourite dishes overnight. There will be a long transitional period, and the day when no rice or wheat will be required will probably never arrive. It is therefore necessary to achieve some form of autonomy in rice and wheat production.

Recently, the Honourable the Leader of the Opposition asked the Honourable the Minister of Agro-Industry and Fisheries through a PQ in Parliament about, inter alia, “the potential for regional co-operation for production of rice, wheat, maize, potatoes and pulses...”. Implicit in this question was the Honourable Leader of Opposition’s firm assumption that the growing of some of the items, particularly rice and wheat, in Mauritius was out of the question. In his reply, the Honourable Minister of Agro-Industry and Fisheries obligingly confirmed that “rice, wheat, oil & fats, meat and milk... represent 66 per cent of all food imports.  We are all aware that these items cannot be produced in Mauritius for economic and financial reasons. We have achieved self-sufficiency in fresh vegetables, chicken and eggs.” (Italics mine.)  Like the patriotic crowd listening to Mark Anthony after Caesar’s assassination, decent people will not dream of doubting the words pronounced by the honourable Brutus, made to other Honourable Gentlemen gathered in the august Assembly under the distinguished Honourable Speaker. But then what about the pests that every class in every school seems to be cursed with and that never agree with what the teacher says.? They do not have to agree.

Before getting to the ravings of one such pest, I would like to draw the attention of readers to one attitude and way of thinking that seems to be more firmly anchored in the minds of our citizens and of our rulers than the Corps-de-Garde mountain, which sits there firmly in the middle of the Island for all to see. And that is, that this country is run solely for the benefit of those who own the land and towards whose well-being all those who acquire power one way or another devote their zeal. Those idealist politicians who do not wish to work towards this truth get thrown by the wayside – by the very people they wish to serve and protect – but the most frequent scenario is that elected representatives fight amongst themselves to show which ones of them will act best to serve the higher goal, “regardless of what the election manifesto says”.

The classical illustration of this state of mind arose way back in the eighteenth century in the Caribbean, where white farmers had to rely on slave labour to till their land, sow their seeds and reap their harvests. I have already hinted at this story above. These farmers were very unhappy that they had to provide actual food to their slaves. Slaves are not things that one should spend any money on if one can help it. In those days much of the world was still unexplored, but they came to hear that on some islands of the Pacific Ocean there was a tree that yielded bread as fruit. So they petitioned their King in England, King George III, who agreed to send an expedition to Tahiti in the Pacific to bring back breadfruit plants so as to obtain fuel for slaves. The lesson for us in this story is that the colonies -- we seem to be still one such in the minds of many -- are run for the benefit of the landowners and that the needs of everyone else must be subordinated to their needs.

While quite docile as a young child, I did become a bit of a pest in the higher forms at school, and I remain one to this day. I can never bring myself to agree when people say that this or that cannot be done. I totally disagree with the Hon Minister of Agro-Industries and those who think like him. To begin with our much vaunted self-sufficiency in chicken and eggs is only apparent, for the feed comes from abroad. The local element is just the tending of the birds and their butchery. More importantly, the Hon. Minister seems to be aware that there is no technical difficulty in the way of rice production in the country; he only mentions economic and financial reasons. The first use to which the land of this country must be put is to produce food for its population – for all its people, be they white, brown, yellow or black, of Asian, African or European descent, rich or poor or middle-class or whatever. After freedom, fresh air and clean drinking water, our most important need is for food. There was a time when this country had to produce sugar for consumers in France or Britain, and when the plantocracy resisted attempts by the ruling British to grow more food locally because in their mind that would finally mean less money in their pockets. Those days are gone.

In Africa, Senegal has contracted with and Indian company to implement a project to grow rice. If they can do that in Senegal, why can’t we do the same here? I am sure that the staff at AREU are quite capable of producing all the food items we require. Our agricultural research bodies must be reorganised, centralised and removed from direct day-to-day control of politicians. It is no longer reasonable to run a separate Sugar Industry Research Institute; to begin with the Institute cannot be dedicated to just the sugar but to the whole cane; it should be the Sugar Cane Research Institute, and the Sugar Cane element should just be a department in our overall agro-industry research effort. AREU should be hived off from the Ministry and transformed into a parastatal body and made to include the current MSIRI – the special status accorded to Sugar and to their producers must be a thing of the past. All food items, whether consumed locally or exported, must be treated on the same footing. Our agricultural production methods must updated urgently, with stress on hydroponic systems. A planter who refuses to turn to more intensive methods of production would be misusing his land, a national resource. Procedures must be developed to incite every planter to turn to modern systems.

Even milk can be produced with the help of hydroponic systems – the Hon. Minister will surely have heard of hydroponic fodder which, supplemented with roughage, is quite adequate as feed for cows. With modern methods of cultivation including hydroponics anything can be grown, and dedicated research will yield the most economical, i.e. resource-efficient, ways of getting there. I am totally confident that a re-organised AREU can rise to the challenge. Anybody who holds otherwise is trying to mislead the population. 

We call on the Prime Minister to set up a task force, or to reassign an existing one, to the task of identifying economical methods of producing our wheat, rice, milk and meat requirements and marking out on a map the lands that will be required for the purpose. The rest should be able to look after itself. 

PARAMANAND SOOBARAH