To be a Mauritian is not to be mistaken for a Mauritanian! Yet, not long ago, a letter despatched from a foreign country was received at the State House, Le Réduit, in the name of the then President of the Republic and where Mauritius was labelled as the Islamic Republic of Mauritania. A precious piece for the Presidency’s Archives! In spite of the numerous awareness and promotion campaigns, in a bid to attract more investors and tourists, Mauritius still remains a largely and despairingly unknown country, in many parts of the world.
If you fail to recognise the country you can equally and more easily fail to recognise the Mauritian in a crowd. There is nothing distinctive about his physique or his features. He is not of any specific, identifiable type. He is of different types. He is not of one ethnic group. He is of several different ethnic groups. He is often mistaken for a European, an Indian, a Pakistani, a Bangladeshi, a Chinese, a Mozambican, a Malagasi, a coloured South African, an Omani, a Brazilian... After all, our ancestors came from all over the world, at different periods, to settle in the desert island that used to be known as Mauritius under Dutch occupation, Isle de France under French colonisation and again Mauritius since the British took over the island in 1810. Yet, nothing can be more frustrating than being mistaken for the national of another country or having to give a whole lesson of geography and history to identify our country, its location and its people: it’s like being reduced almost to a stateless individual! 42 years since we are independent, including the 18 years since we acceded to the status of a Republic, and we are still in the process of nation building. We are still a nation in the making. It is therefore not surprising that our national identity is generally weak and that factors like religious, caste and cultural affiliations still play a prominent role in our private and public life and influence our behaviour patterns. We tend, at various degrees, to develop parochial attitudes that do not make for strong and abiding social cohesion.
Yet, we share a number of common characteristics and these, I believe, can best describe what and who is a Mauritian.
We have a language of our own, a common language used and understood by everybody: the Mauritian language.
It has for a long time been considered and treated as a dialect, even despised in certain milieu, utilised orally and for communication purposes only. In recent years, however, it has graduated into a full- fl edged language when more and more authors started expressing themselves in it. Today, every Mauritian is proud of his language that binds him to his fellow citizens and constitutes his fi rst and main identity.
The sega – a rhythmic music and song often accompanied by lascivious dance – reminiscent of our African origin, is generally accepted as a typical Mauritian folklore. Mauritians are said to have the sega in their blood! The Mauritian is a multi- cultural individual, a cultural half- caste or métis. Labouring under various cultural infl uences since his childhood, he is neither totally European, nor Asian, nor African but a mix of all of them. Wearing with equal ease shirts or kurtas, skirts or saris, taking pleasure in watching Indian movies, Chinese documentaries and American clips, the average Mauritian who is trilingual, expresses himself equally well in English and French communicating with his other compatriots in the Mauritian language and not unusually in an Indian language – Bhojpuri, Hindi, Urdu... Characterised by the warmth of his welcome and the generosity of his hospitality, especially towards foreigners, the Mauritian receives his guests with meals from a diversity of cuisines.
However, what stands out as our typical local dish is the rougaille, prepared with tomatoes, onions and other spicy ingredients, which is neither the European sauce rouge nor the Indian tomato sauce.
The Briani, an Indian dish, made of rice, potatoes, meat and several other ingredients cooked together, has become almost our national dish, fi t for all occasions and relished by all.
A typical Mauritian is a tolerant individual, respectful of his neighbours’ religious beliefs and way of life. His high level of tolerance quotient allows him to make a lot of allowances, at times even to the detriment of his own personal convenience.
He always tries to show understanding and to accommodate others. This is probably the result of his upbringing and education since early childhood but also the democratic nature of the society that makes of the Mauritian a democrat or a basically democracy- lover. He believes in freedom of religion, expression and association. He learns to be a magnanimous winner and a good loser.
What has been described herein is the typical Mauritian not the ideal one. Obviously, there are, as the case is everywhere else, a number of Mauritians whose behaviour reflects the undercurrent of suspicions and hypocrisy that, to some extent, still exists between the various cultural groups. Some have even cultivated the racial stereotypes and prefer to operate within their small closed society but by and large the Mauritian is “ un être de dialogue et d’ouverture’.
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