Monocultures are never a good idea. Time has shown that they contain seeds of long-term anguish. Particularly when special preferences are used as life-support systems to stretch them well beyond their sell-by dates. Unlike our sugar story, where there is finally an inkling of awakening, monocultures of the mind*, such as patriarchy and racism, continue to cast a long shadow over our future. Their anachronistic endurance is responsible for our socio-economic and cultural malignancy, which ensures that from a very early age, most of us internalize a distorted understanding of society ? one, which is divided into a "natural" hierarchy of groups. These monocultures of the mind thrive on ideologies of the dominant, leading to a plethora of dehumanizing exclusionary practices at various levels of our society.

It may be argued that racism has no relevance in a reflection on the situation of women in contemporary Mauritius. However, the discourses of racism and patriarchy are closely intertwined. As Robert Miles highlights: "Beliefs about the specific attributes of a group derived from ? some physical characteristic play a significant role in allocating individuals to particular economic positions and in excluding them from receiving certain economic rewards and political rights." Today, even if all Mauritians have equal political rights, a large majority of men and women are still excluded from certain economic rewards on the basis of prejudice founded on gender, skin colour, caste or communal creed. To unite efforts towards eliminating power relations, which proliferate on the back of the domination of various groups in our country, it is crucial for men and women to move beyond the pejoratives loaded onto the word "feminism" both by the backlash against feminism and by those who have used feminism in an abusive manner. Feminism is fundamentally a humanist project, which objects to the articulation and implementation of a dominant ideology that oppresses and subordinates humans ? not unlike the philosophy, which animated for example, the fight against Apartheid.

■ All the baggage we can?t leave behind

While science has irretrievably transformed our lives, our societies are still at the mercy of powerful lingering historical constructs, which shape the way we relate to the world around us. For example, it is intriguing that, in this era of scientific knowledge, most of us still carry the notion that a genetic notion of "race" does exist. Yet after the Second World War, advances in genetic science have unequivocally discredited the idea that there was any verifiable scientific basis in the belief of a biological or genetic superiority of race, caste, creed, gender or culture. Miles provides much insight into how a "mistaken science" used IQ and phrenology (the belief that the configuration of the skull determines mental faculties and character traits) to legitimate the institutionalisation of racism and to "justify empire-building". The first challenge to the concept of fixed and permanent biological species came from evolutionary theory. Years later this daring intellectual innovation culminated in a genetic science breakthrough, which disproved the claim that certain categories of human beings were morally and culturally inferior by virtue of their (natural) physical characteristics.

What does this have to do with feminism?s struggle against patriarchy? Many feminist historians contend that this scientific discovery had a significant spill-over effect on the feminist movement of the time because it chipped away at the age-old patriarchal edifice of knowledge, which had represented the "Other" as a biologically and genetically weak species. Scientific progress thus provided wind under the wings of those who suspected that women?s oppression and subordination had more to do with the preservation of power than with biological determinism. Furthermore, it lent credence to those who had started to interrogate the legitimacy of Greek-rooted democracy as exemplified by the US Declaration of Independence in 1776, which proclaimed all men to be "created equal" but excluded women and blacks from this edict. Racism and patriarchy thus share a similar historicity of representations of the "Other" as inferior auxiliaries to the "norm".

However, we would be misguided to conclude that patriarchy?s history has been strictly linear or that women?s rights were only possible under Western civilization. Gerda Lerner?s prized research demonstrates that Sumerian women (2500 BC) had more rights than women in 19th century Britain and the US. They had property rights that British wives did not have; they could even testify in court ? something that American women could not do without the permission of their husbands. Lerner shows that, at some millennial crossroad, these rights were actually eroded, regressing to our contemporary legacy of patriarchal baggage.

■ Stuck in a moment we can?t get out of

In Mauritius, patriarchy has successfully spread its tentacles deep into our societal fabric and has infiltrated our institutions. Women stand out as the particularly marginalised group of the Mauritian "success" story. In 2001, a DCDM research paper uncovered alarming trends in the feminization of poverty. In terms of political representation of women, we are shamefully ranked as one of the lowest scoring countries in the world on this aspect. Ethno-communal criteria still prevail for the selection of women candidates while the gender imbalance in Parliament stands at a shocking 6%! In the public sector, even if the number of women in managerial jobs is steadily on the rise, very few can actually claim to influence national policy. As for the private sector, while there are some pockets of progressive change, there is still an overall glaring glass ceiling, barring competent men from rising to the top echelons. This speaks volumes about an enduring monoculture of the mind, which stealthily prevents the glass from breaking; never mind about competence-based recruitment and performance-based promotion practices for women.

There is no doubt that over the past decades some good intentions have led to concrete efforts made towards enhancing social justice for women. A number of progressive legislative texts have been voted; including the Protection from Domestic Violence Act and the outlawing of sex or gender-based discrimination. Unfortu-nately, the mere adoption of legislation is a necessary but not sufficient condition to reverse the supremacy of entrenched patriarchal "memes". [Memes are ideas and beliefs, which replicate in a manner analogous to genes; except that "memes" use language, culture and media as their carrier whereas genes use bodily molecules.]

"Memes" are insidiously powerful because they underscore dominant ideologies, which provide the breeding ground for dehumanizing thoughts and actions. For example, today?s global geopolitical mess is exacerbated by the relentless portrayal of Islamic civilization by most Western media as inhumane and barbaric as opposed to the civilization defended by George Bush as being inherently humane and civilized. This brainwashing is so potent that even the agnostic is deemed to be a "terrorist" and "against humanity". Similarly the patriarchal "memes" that have been cultivated over generations ? by the teachings of family, religion and State ? practically shut out any possibility for questioning, upsetting and reforming. It took years before anyone could challenge the ideas, symbols and metaphors by which the dominance of women had been institutionalized.

All of this has particular resonance in our country where a humanist consciousness is still situated on the fringe. Today, at the close of 2004, very few Mauritians are able to escape the forceful societal pressure to mythologize the "Other", and most of us continue to form indelible (wrong) representations of the "Other" - whether this relates to people of different ethno-communal groups or women as a separate group. Patriarchal "memes" are reproduced in Mauritius by two powerful carriers: religion and pop culture.

Here religion is intense, conservative and dogmatic. Lerner?s reflections on the role of religion as an ideological tool of patriarchy are therefore particularly pertinent. She uncovers how religious texts subliminally indoctrinate men and women to think that the latter?s gender roles are restricted to procreation, the service of children and family and "most devastatingly, God does not speak to women. Women can only speak to God through the mediation of a man".

The other significant replicator of dominant patriarchal ideology is pop culture. Bollywood, for example, bombards us with images of the woman as a victim, shedding perennial rivers of tears on account of a father, husband or son. Nowadays, both the "modernization" of Bollywood, along with the Britney Spears effect, caricaturizes women?s image as passive objects whose skimpily clad bodies generate revenue for the media and others. This portrayal of women is both base and reductive. It is therefore deplorable that organizations notorious for their zealous reactions on matters of less importance remain voiceless in the face of such images broadcast by various media day in, day out.

Until we consciously wrestle with this powerful confluence of forces and the cobwebs that have settled on our minds; until we resist the daily pull towards simplistic, reductive hegemonic ideologies, we will continue to pay a hefty price for subscribing to arcane, scientifically untenable and morally un-defendable systems of thoughts. For these will always recreate power relations, which brim over with dehumanising cases such as the racism experienced by entrepreneur Jean Suzanne; and the countless victims of patriarchy illustrated by the appalling number of women psychologically mistreated, battered and/or killed by their male partners.

Daniel Dennett suggests that: "In the next century it will be our memes? that will wreak havoc ... The practically unlimited educability of any human being gives us hope of success, but designing and implementing the cultural inoculation necessary to fend off disaster ? will be an urgent task of great complexity, requiring not just better social science but also sensitivity, imagination, and courage."

A more humanist Mauritian society will emerge when we have the courage to rethink the role of meme "carriers" - such as language, culture and media - in reproducing toxic monocultures of the mind.

■ Walking on

If we want to ward off the risk of a future that is a lot less glorious than the past, both men and women of this country need to break free from the moorings of long-entrenched monocultures. It will then be possible for us to "make a creative leap into a new ordering" as we engage critically with ideas on a forward-looking canvas. A first step will be to systematically reject racist discourses such as those of a "président d?honneur" who recently exposed his reprehensible thoughts on "intelligence inférieure / intelligence supérieure". But we will also need to adopt a few strong, urgent signalling actions to edge resolutely away from a monochromatic past and present into a future characterised by diversity.

One such measure is the application of a quota mechanism ? with a sunset clause ? to allow for a rights ? and justice-based access for women to decision-making positions in the political sphere. It must be underlined that a call for quotas is not about granting special favours to women. Instead, it is about ending the long-standing skewed favouritism accorded to men. Similarly, a call for an increased diversity of men and women at the top echelons of the private sector is not a misty-eyed plea for token appointments. Rather, it is about correcting asymmetries that sustain the glass ceiling by overlooking competence in favour of criteria from a stale era.

Another desirable action is the initiation of an appropriate overhaul of our educational system, which conditions us to seek clannish safety and approval while becoming passive, unquestioning recipients of dominant ideologies. In Said?s words, the purpose of a humanistic education is "to make more things available to critical scrutiny?importantly, human misreadings and misinterpretations of the collective past and present. There was never a misinterpretation that could not be revised, improved, or overturned? There was never a shameful secret injustice ?or a manifestly imperial plan for domination that could not be exposed, explained and criticized". At a time when the NPCC Competitive Foresight report calls for a greater opening of our minds, it is critical for our educational system to instil in our youth a healthy dose of "scepticism towards every known system of thought; critical of all assumptions, ordering values and definitions". This is obviously a risky project but the payoff will surely be innovative minds ? that cornerstone of competitiveness. Moreover, our future adults will then be inoculated with the ideals of justice and equality against pejorative tribal representations of the "Other".

■ One step closer

It is clear that a true democratization of our society will have to start by chipping away at the deeply encrusted institutional practices, which reproduce systemic inequalities of power on the basis of race, gender, caste or communal creed. This is indeed a daunting task. But our society will only be revitalised by change when we are imbued with the desire to look for alternatives. As Vandana Shiva argues, "alternatives exist, but they are excluded. Their inclusion requires a context of diversity. Shifting to diversity as a mode of thought, a context of action, allows multiple choices to emerge".

For the sake of our long-term prosperity, one can only hope that diversity as a mode of thought will become part of our national psyche sooner rather than later.

■ References & Selected Readings

■ Dennett, Daniel (2003). Freedom Evolves. London, Penguin Books

■ Lerner, Gerda (1986). The Creation of Patriarchy. Oxford, Oxford University Press

■ Miles, Robert (1989). Racism. London, Routledge

■ Said, Edward (2004). Humanism and Democratic Criticism. New York, Columbia University Press [Published after his passing away in 2003]

■ Shiva, Vandana (1993). Monocultures of the Mind: Perspectives on Biodiversity and Biotechnology. London, Zed Books & Third World Network

par Nita DEERPALSING Sloan Fellow London Business School

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