Thursday, August 28, 2008

Sign Of The Times

Before the Mauritian "miracle", the "gentil" Mauritian used to stroll with a comb in his pocket and usually some coins too. Now among the many "gentils" Mauritians there are also some Branded Mauritians jaywalking with cutters in their pockets and, if blessed, maybe some coins, but with a dramatically reduced purchasing power, courtesy of a World Bank/IMF-sanctioned virus euphemistically dubbed "competitive" rupee. On a positive note, crime detection has improved considerably, probably with the help of, namely, the "portrait robot" device. We have yet to see a smart and holistic vision on the preventive side. A tag line like "nous voulons montrer que nous prenons soin de nos visiteurs" is far from reassuring. Worse, translated into Morisyen it reads: nu anvi montre nu bann rezidan kuma nu fer fut ar zot!

4 comments:

Sanjay Jagatsingh said...

Good point. That reminds me of a former Minister of Tourism who wanted stiffer penalties for similiar offences if perpetrated against tourists.

Anonymous said...

Govt must extend this campaign across the island to ensure that Mauritius turns into a lesser dodgy place...first and foremost for its local population!!!
Otherwise this will definitely lead to ...Xenophobia!

SR said...

Exactly SO. The vicious part is that if some Mauritians eventually express xenophobic sentiments they will be gagged with insults such as "anti-patriot", "intellectuellement limité" and "racist" by our "intellectuels"!

Anonymous said...

I reckon that the govt is doing a great job w.r.t the removal of posters and the nicely painted Bus stops...

Having said the above, certain areas around the island still look like our good olde traditionnal... dumping grounds(oops, towns I meant).

It is unfortunate that very often actions/campaigns are very patchy and incoherent. In any case Dodoland has a major issue w.r.t planning and consistency amongst a myriad of other things...