Where have we gone wrong? At which stage did we lose all self-respect and dignity? I am obsessed with this question. It is constantly on my mind because, even when I am busy going along with my everyday life, there’s always something that happens to remind me that we’re still steadly on our way to the dogs.

When I hear that a minister goes out in public and says: “They (the government) have warned me against going too far. But I could not care less. I am not afraid of being fired. It means nothing to me”, I am shocked. And I think to myself that this kind of statement, when you’re holding the office of a minister in a government where one of the more fundamental principles of a cabinet is that of collective responsibility, is absolutely and utterly unforgivable. The government has made its stand known. A little more than a week ago, the prime minister announced in a press conference that it had never been the intention of his government to pay out compensation to the group of people whose cause minister Michel is championing.

In my mind – rightly or wrongly – if Sylvio Michel feels vexed by this statement and if he holds to his principles as much as he says he does, then he should go. There should be no debate. But he doesn’t go. He holds public gatherings and he does everything a minister should not do; he shows his absolute non-commitment to his government and his prime minister and he stands by and listens to another member of Parliament, Jean-Claude Armance, call that honorable institution the Parliament “the national assembly of shame.”

As if that wasn’t bad enough, to add insult to injury and to further insult our intelligence, there is no reaction from the government. None. Mr the Right Honorable prime minister Paul Raymond Bérenger does not react. We know he has a thing about journalists over-reacting and I’m sure I’m not over-reacting when asking this question: when will he fire minister Michel? Oh I know! He won’t. Can’t afford to, you see, elections are fast approaching. What is this? To borrow the PM’s usual word on Tuesdays, “Shame! Shame!”

What the prime minister has done though is to apologize to the older members of society for the amateurish way his government and minister for social security have handled the whole issue of the revision of the pension scheme. Bérenger has apologised but the harm is already done so there is no point in bringing the matter up again. What this whole mess has underlined is how we, citizens of this god-forsaken country, have abdicated from our responsibilities because we should make no mistake about it: this government’s attitude to the elderly is only reflecting our own attitude to them. Most of us are so busy running after money, success and fame that we have lost the core of values that made this country such a success, that made it such a good place to live in. Mauritius’ success story was not only due to its economic development, it had over and above all to do with the values, the principles that the older generation had nurtured, that that lost generation had brought with them, with the vibrations that were felt and shared between people with a common history of survival.

Our society today is another story completely. Ask our elders, who still cry about the olden days, ask them what has changed. In the meantime, cry… my beloved country.