Beyond the Victim Narrative: How Mauritius Can Reclaim Its Future

Opinion

“The question is not simply whether our grievances are justified; many are. It is whether we are converting them into knowledge, organisation, practical competence and lasting improvements in our lives”

By U. Dasin

The convergence of youth and Gen Z protests worldwide reflects a perception that states are failing to deliver fairness, equality and equitable distribution. It points to transformations reshaping society and the psychology of the contemporary citizen. Technology’s immediacy and the speed with which outrage circulates can foster an expectation that change should happen at the click of a button. However, societies do not transform at the speed of a social media post.

Mauritius has inherited colonial structures, compounded by administrations struggling to reform institutions that can become obsolete faster than they can be understood. The State remains responsible for improving living conditions and equity, but public debate must also examine the citizen’s state of mind. Are we doing enough to improve our circumstances, or have we become accustomed to reproducing a narrative of victimhood while expecting help, recognition and transformation to come from elsewhere?

The victim narrative can expose injustice, give voice to the silenced and create solidarity. The danger arises when it becomes a permanent framework for understanding ourselves. An identity structured around victimhood often fosters powerlessness and diminishes individual agency — the capacity to act upon one’s circumstances and improve life outcomes despite systemic limitations.

Structural inequality is real, and determination cannot overcome every obstacle. But recognising constraints must not replace identifying what we can do. Commentators often exploit grievance for attention, amplifying anger without practical direction. Denunciation becomes an end in itself while solutions are neglected. Anger is legitimate; without direction, it can create the impression of action while conditions remain unchanged. The challenge is to recover agency.

The Historical Inheritance of Disempowerment

To understand current Mauritian frustrations, it is helpful to examine an often overlooked historical dimension. In the period leading up to independence, political tensions and campaign rhetoric — including editorial commentaries published under the pen name NMU — raised concerns about the island’s future political balance.

The consequences of this climate extended beyond political debate. A number of Creole middle-class families chose to emigrate, particularly to Australia, a movement documented in works such as those by Monique Dinan. This shift naturally influenced the island’s social structure. As positions in the civil service and public institutions were vacated, qualified members of the Asian middle class were able to step into roles that had previously been less accessible to them — a transition comparable to how women entered the workforce in greater numbers during the Second World War.

For Indo-Mauritians, entry into these positions provided opportunities to build professional experience and participate more fully in institutional life, establishing clear avenues for upward mobility. Education and public service became practical routes to advancement. At the same time, the departure of established middle-class professionals may have altered community leadership structures within the Creole population, contributing to long-term challenges in social cohesion and representation that are still discussed today.

The Inheritance of Expectations

These divergent experiences shaped expectations about what society owes individuals and how recognition is secured. Some young people grow up within a cocoon of religious reassurance and social validation, reinforced by social-media approval. They may expect acceptance, including employment, to follow naturally from identities and recognition within their circles. Labour markets do not operate according to social media’s logic: online applause does not translate necessarily into qualifications, competence, independence or employability. Meanwhile, often without fanfare, many invisible students work through school, examinations and higher education, supported by families that transmit diligence, discipline, delayed gratification and the value of education.

Yet even these diligent young people face a growing mismatch between expectations and economic reality. Those who have followed the prescribed educational route and worked diligently may find that a changing labour market cannot recognise their credentials or absorb enough graduates within a small society. It is also a fact that the workspace, like everything else, is significantly affected by capitalist takeover of all aspects of our lives. The logic of profit is on exponential increase for companies, while the ordinary citizen, often the employees of those who declare astoundingly huge profit margins, is struggling with surviving on a day to day basis. And yet the portion of blame is rarely directed towards these private companies whether in our public debates despite the ginormous profit figures being publicly advertised as a sign of pride and achievement for the private sector.

The experiences of small farmers and entrepreneurs reflect a similar disconnect. Many small planters work up to fourteen hours a day while struggling to support their families, illustrating the tension between the ideal of self-reliance and the harsh economic constraints faced by small-scale producers. Public debate often reduces these complex issues to competing explanations. Those who achieve economic mobility are sometimes dismissed as beneficiaries of nepotism or favor, while those who do not are viewed solely as evidence of systemic exclusion. Both interpretations can be misleading when applied indiscriminately. While privilege and connections certainly play a role for some, others succeed through effort, competence, and opportunity. Likewise, while genuine discrimination exists, many individuals simply face broader economic constraints, inadequate preparation, or circumstances that require different approaches.

When it comes to the question of Education, it begs repeating the same questions we have all been asking for a long time now, and more assiduously since the recent social disturbances and what they unveiled about the long-term impact of school dropouts. Why has our education system failed to meet the needs of children who cannot thrive within conventional models? Experiments in vocational education and alternative learning have taken place, yet the system’s basic structure has not changed enough to engage every student’s curiosity, interests and potential.

Our reliance on established teaching methods, examinations and standardised expectations ignores how differently children learn. Difficulty may reflect a disengaging environment rather than a lack of intelligence or willingness. Visual resources improve comprehension, yet teachers — already inadequately rewarded — cannot be expected to fund their own teaching collections. Are classrooms equipped to use visual aids consistently? Are libraries stocked with age-appropriate material? Do teachers receive training in alternative methods, particularly language learning? Vocabulary can be taught through visual aids, props, translation, repetition and practical activities. These methods are neither especially complicated nor prohibitively expensive, yet they are not consistently used.

Project-based learning, differentiated instruction, demonstrations, collaboration and flexible assessment could help within mainstream education. This is not about lowering standards, but recognising different routes to learning: difficulty with one method should not become a lifelong verdict on ability. This needs national debate, since better resources and flexibility would benefit all students.

Teachers cannot transform classrooms without adequate resources, preparation and institutional support.

The Classroom as a Space Where Inequality Is Reproduced

Even before classroom discipline became a major issue, teachers worked in environments shaped by social prejudice and unequal expectations. Are all students encouraged to participate equally, or are some favored over others? Prejudice is rarely as straightforward or vocal as recent public debate might suggest. Instead, it operates in far more complex ways through subtle cultural conditioning. As a result, vulnerable students can be unconsciously targeted not just because of their ethnicity, but also because of their class, gender, and economic status. Have we truly overcome our inherited colonial biases, or have we simply added new layers of capitalist prejudice on top of them?

Looking at this thoroughly is important because education transmits more than information: it shapes children’s perception of their abilities, their relationship with authority and their place in society. Repeated humiliation or exclusion can lead to silence, disengagement or defiance; some may learn that disruption is the only way to gain attention. Without constructive intervention, both responses can become self-reinforcing. Teachers often begin their careers with limited practical experience of managing such situations and learn on the job. Is enough being done at the level of their training to help them deal with such cases, and what kind of support do they receive from school management in real terms, beyond official rhetoric?

The argument this article is trying to make is not that the State should be absolved of responsibility, or that disadvantaged people should simply work harder and stop complaining. That would be unjust and intellectually inadequate. The State must address inequality, improve public services, reform outdated institutions and create conditions in which citizens can develop their capacities. Economic structures must be scrutinised, educational opportunities expanded and barriers preventing effort from translating into achievement confronted directly. However, citizens also have responsibilities. Families, schools, community organisations and public commentators shape the expectations through which the next generation understands the world. We must not transmit grievance without also transmitting the means of overcoming it.

Young people need not only to identify the forces constraining them, but to develop the skills, knowledge, discipline, and capacity for cooperation required to challenge them. Everyday civic behaviour matters: respect for public spaces, neighbours and shared resources helps build the civic capacity needed to shape a common future. Individual effort alone cannot transform society, but neither can society change if every citizen waits for someone else to begin. Mauritius faces a twofold task: reforming structures that reproduce disadvantage and cultivating a culture of agency that enables citizens to participate meaningfully in that reform. We must acknowledge historical injustice without remaining imprisoned by it, demand accountability without surrendering personal responsibility, and recognise economic constraints without abandoning practical solutions.

The purpose of remembering the past is not to remain defined by its injuries, but to understand what we have inherited so we can decide collectively and intelligently what must change. The question is not simply whether our grievances are justified; many are. It is whether we are converting them into knowledge, organisation, practical competence and lasting improvements in our lives.

For a society that wants to move forward, recognising injustice is only the beginning. The harder task is developing the capacity to do something about it.

Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 23 October 2026