Multiculturalism, Individualism and Human Rights: Case Study of Mauritius

Mauritius is one of the polytechnic countries that has the most peaceful and stable democratic. Basically the concept of the multicultural country is based on the balance between the difference and the equality and, most importantly, something that every citizens shares (compromises) together, in this sense, ‘Inter-ethnic Compromise’. I now would like to explain this kind of function in Mauritius, which I believe it is one of the most efficient.

An important element in the Mauritian political system is the so-called arrangement, which guarantees the presentation of all ethnic groups through allotting a limited number of parliamentary seats to runner-up at general Election. The best loser are selected so as to ensure the representation of all ethnic groups in the Legislative Assembly. In this way, I think the right to be different is more emphasized than the right to be equal, since as a democratic country, every ethnic needs to have voice in the parliament.

Other elements are religions, schooling system and official languages. I would like to emphasize on the schooling system, which here the right to be equal prevails over the right to different. Thus core circular are uniform island-wide, as are exams. However, classes in ‘ancestral languages’ are offered as optional subjects. It could be said, therefore, that Mauritius schooling system stresses on equal opportunity yet allows for the expression of symbolic defenses.

By this way we can see that, as I mentioned at the outset, the concept of ‘Inter-ethnic compromise’ or the balance between equal right and the right to be different depends upon the need of the society. However, there are still many paradoxes in the island, which I think they are somewhat inevitable for the multicultural society.

This will have to do as a general introduction to public policies relating to ethnic differences and national cohesion in Mauritius. First of all, I would like to show two possible scenarios of Mauritius proposed by Henri Souchon,an Mauritian Catholic priest.

Souchoon proposed 2 scenarios pf his country. One is fruit salad, where the components are clearly distinct, ethnic boundaries are inytact and reflexively ‘rooted identities’ are secure and stable. Another one is fruit compote, where the different fruits are squashed and mixed together with sub substantial use of force.

We can basically say that Mauritius is nowadays fruit salad, which has a syrup (public compromise and voice from every ethnic in parliament), rather than fruit compote. However, there are many conflicts between equality and difference since the tension between sharing and difference is endemic to the island. Basically conflict and paradox arise when the line between the equality and difference is hard to mark. The examples are the Catholic school case, Muslim Personal Law case and the failure attempt of some policies to make a neutral religious culture (see the paper for details). Finally the conclusion from these 3 cases are (1) According to the situation, sometimes the principle of difference is superior to the equality, but sometimes it goes vice versa. (2) It can be dangerous to accord special rights to groups, for groups inevitably consists of persons with often highly discrepant values and interest. (3) The most important principle. It should be noted that Universalist principles have been adopted by the Mauritian population with respect to political culture. In so far as discrepant religious or otherwise cultural practices do not interfere with the universalism guaranteeing individuals equal rights, there is no good reason to chastise them.

Similarity and Difference and individualism as a key factor

The author suggests that both equal right and the right to be different msay in particular situation lead to discrimination and the violation of commonly agreed upon individual human rights. Since the right to be equal may oppress the minorities to assimilate to public culture, whereas the right to be different here may lead to power discrepancies.

Moreover, some research suggests that political leaders and others are frequently prone to exploiting notions about cultural uniqueness strategically to strengthen their position. ‘Tradition’ and similar catchwords are positively evaluated in political discourse of our time, and are often used rhetorically to justify privileges and political positions.

Another viewpoint, which I would like to discuss later is about the concept of fruit compote and fruit salad, in Mauritius there are many people who reject root and purity and rather prefer to be cultural hybrids.

So after all, as we have seen there are many conflicts and paradoxes in multiculturalism, so the question arises that why Mauritius is such a peaceful and democratic country? The key factor here is ‘Individualism’.

Most basically, it should be noted that cultural conflict and, Fascism, ethnocentrism and such come when people among two ethnic groups lack of individualism. In other words, the people lacks of understanding and respect of difference between each other. But in the case of Mauritius, Individualism is embedded in the citizens ‘mind in many ways. Individual human rights is a mainstay of Mauritian political culture. Moreover, Mauritian culture can actually be described as quite uniform in the sense that there is a wide field of shared premises for communication encompassing ,most of the population: there is a shared political culture and a standardized and standardizing educational system, there is linguistic uniformity, and recruitment to the labour market is increasingly based in individual skills. This kind of thing, to me, is like sort of syrup in the fruit salad.

So by this way, the author suggest that the ‘good multiculturalism’ must arrive at a blend of sharing and difference. It requires common denominator in key sectors, including politic, education and the labour market, and it must institutionalize a dialogic principle enabling a variety f voices to be heard on an equal footing.

However, finally, the author still argue s that the promotion and spreading of individual rights is morally objectionable in the case of societies which are multicultural in the sense that they contain people who have not integrated into a capitalist mode of production, have not been exposed to individualism and modern education and so on.

Some of my own argument and opinion according to the paper

I think the paper is greatly well written. Even though the word and sentence are hard to understand, but I admire the author that he gradually tries to develop the reader’s understanding of multiculturalism step by step, from the definition of culture, paradox to the case study. I also admire that he neatly and very well link between the case study and the concept of the topic. However, I have some questions about his suggestion.

Chiefly I think the author suggest that the equal right in multiculturalist policy should be granted to the individual, not the right for the minorities or any group of people to protect themselves in any aspect. Thus the individual human rights should be embedded in every individual of the society and individualism should be key factor in the society. The equal right should be embedded in some particular part of the society, especially in the politic, but not in terms of culture (or assimilation for some scholar). So finally the country, like Mauritius, become like a fruit salad rather than the fruit compote.

So in such kind of the countries, which some scholar has argue that multicultural society is the new type of the modern and current society. However, I am wondering that suck kind of thing might lead to ‘the end of national belonging’, ‘the end of national cultural identity’, ‘ the end of nationalism’ and such catchwords.

To make myself clear, I would like to point about Mauritian military, which I do not have information at all. How can the military encourage the soldiers to fight for their country without national identity and feeling of national belonging? To me, I think the Creol must feel that they are Creol, the Muslim must feel that they are from India. So how can the military make their soldiers strong and in harmony without shared culture ( part of concept of nationalism in some aspect) and national belonging? So will the multiculturalism lead to the end of national belonging? I am unsolved this question.

Another support hypothesis is if we think that Mauritius is the excellent model for multicultural society. I would say that if every country followed the Mauritius model, even though there would be less conflict and discrimination between people and ethnic group, but there would be no different between country and country in terms of national cultural identity if we define culture as ‘unique, distinct and tightly bounded’. Every country would be almost the same, consist of various ethnic groups and culture, shared political culture/right with equal right of the all individual in the country. Usually in common sense of ordinary people, we tend to distinguish one country from another country by its cultural identity such as clothe, language etc. But be as I presuppose, there would be no different between each country. So would this lead to the loss of national identity? So how would this affect us, in good way or bad way? I would like to leave this question, partly unsolved.

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