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Rodrigues: the Albatross Has Landed
By Alain Leveque
On Oct 5, following a apply from the newly elected Movement Rodriguais (MR) to Cabinet, Rodrigues’ Plaine Corail Airport was renamed Sir Gaetan Duval Airport.
Plaine Corail Airport was originally named afterward the locality (coral plain) on which it sits. In reserving with the island’s green-themed tourism, the name was both fitting and careful. Moreover, it was a neutral name receivable to all. It went well.
As an aerodrome is the front gate apt a nation, it makes sense to highlight that country’s cultural heritage, and on infrequent causes, its greatest local achievers. Here, the accent is on rare and local. So, unless human of the ilk of Mandela, Chavez, Ho Chi Minh alternatively Ghandi happen to be one of the locals, it’s advisable to err ashore the side of remind. Names of geographical situations and the apolitical are generally safe bets. As 1 person’s hero may be another’s dictator, political memorials are not the best alternatives. Most don’t last.
In our case, Rodrigues Airport would have sufficed. Or, for 95% of the island’s population are of African origin, one African appoint would have been proper. Say, Omani Airport. Omani is Swahili as peace. Or better still, left it,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], as it was. As the mentioning sagely suggests: “If it ain’t broke don’t repair it.”
For all the razzle dazzle of MR’s 1st annual in office, with all its taxpayer-funded overseas junkets, it’s hard to muse of whichever actual completions. If fact be told, Rodrigues is haemorrhaging: The penniless are living hand to jaws; youngster unemployment is spiralling out of control; the exodus to add job-queues in Mauritius continues unabated; cost of living is by an all-time lofty; health services are in crisis; neonate mortality rate is rising and half-nourished children are dropping out of educate at an alarming rate. How many extra anguish tin siege this small community? More to the point, given this dire state of affairs, what variety of warped logic puts renaming this small airport on the radar of pressing priorities?
What were the tangible benefits of renaming? Will it feed anyone, get us more doctors,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], make students smarter, and create jobs? No! Of way not, it was never approximately that; it was forever about political payback,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], about the smug self-satisfaction of rubbing the opposition’s nostril in it. It was about honouring one political celebration over another.
Here, a Rodriguan campaign, supposedly picked to serve Rodrigues, has made of it a private billboard. To grease its own political affiliations, MR has ripped the scab off an age bruise and,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], in one fell pounce, inextricably interlocked the prospects of unsuspecting Rodriguans, to political outcomes in Mauritius.
It is debated that since Sir Gaetan and his Mauritian Social Democrat Party (PMSD) had a hand in enfranchising Rodrigues, and creating its ministry, a debt is owed to them. Really! Rodrigues’ enfranchisement, whether we can phone it that, had much much more to do with broadening PMSD’s political inspire, than it did with empowering Rodriguans. It was a manner to an end. That is, digit crunching at the outlay of gullible Rodriguans. In 1976, those mathematics made PMSD the pre-eminent kingmaker. Major parties came courting,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], accordingly,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], a deal was brokered to create and hand a department to PMSD. It was dubbed ministry ‘for Rodrigues.’ Though PMSD nominated its Rodriguan applicant as minister, it was in name merely. For Rodriguans, the portfolio was as useful as astrology. And, it soon became Sir Gaetan’s quasi-passport to strut approximately Europe, with an awestruck ‘minister’ in tow. Let’s not crucify history here. If there is a debt, it is owed to Rodrigues – with interest.
And another object, when Sir Gaetan and PMSD came to Rodrigues to coast up their clutch on the balance of power – they came with thugs (tapeurs). They brought demagoguery and blue coloured brandy to hoodwink the electorate, and they gave scaremongering a entire current averaging. What's more, they were there to safe the prerogatives of their sponsors: T-Rex oligarchs fossilized in level privilege. That is the long and short of it.

When the arrange fell apart in Mauritius, Sir Gaetan quickly converted to Labour and set out to deport Rodriguan alliance picketers who hadn’t already seen the light. Fortunately, when the blinkers began to come off,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], Rodriguans saw that the dictator had no raiment, and no gravitas. Thus, PMSD was routed in subsequent plebiscites and sent packing, never to return, until now. Like a wrong joke barbed with outrage – revisited.
To capriciously emblazon the name of a divisive political diagram,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], attached to a feudalistic exotic heading, on our front door, denotes a level of wedge politics, the likes of which we have never watched before. It’s the superimposition of a cultural personality over distinct – with a borrowed brand. And, to increase insult to harm, it implies very explicitly, that from all the generations of Rodriguans who have lived and died, and from all those living today – not a single Rodriguan – in all of our history, could be base, worthwhile enough, to fit the bill.
This whitewashed aberration, reeking of arrogance, is as relevant to Rodrigues as PMSD is to socialism. It is the erasing of our history to make Rodrigues into something others want it to be. What’s next? 60-foot sculptures of Dulull and Guimbeau’s brains engraved into the side of Montaigne Croupier!
All asset considered, none in their right mind can renounce Sir Gaetan’s flamboyant charisma, big-heartedness, sharp intellect, and his noteworthy political skills. He was a veritable virtuoso of fork-tongued politics. I guess it took a wolf to escape with wolves. Indeed, his rabble-rousing rallies at Port Mathurin’s football ground were part of my youth and, to this blue-flag-waving barefooted boy, they were as exciting as they were inspiring – then. But seeing behind, I saw no one there worthy of iconic status.
At the end of the day, this polemical tribute, with all its political connotations will be revered and reviled. Moreover, it ambition spark discussions of a conflict-ridden epoch which would have been better left to fizzle out, in the interest of unity. It’s a modern day edition of hanging an albatross around the cervix. Will it last? We’ll see.