National Unity is built over the years with concrete actions not lofty speeches. It is a sine qua non condition for any development, progress and prosperity in a country. No foreign investment will flow into a tempest-tossed country, if different races are constantly at odds with each other. The influx of tourists will come to a standstill. The economy as a whole will suffer a severe setback. The destruction of racial harmony will spell out gloom and doom to us. So long as there is a no meritocracy in a multi-racial society, there will never be national unity. Racial harmony is so ephemeral that it must not always be taken for granted. There must be a sense of belonging so that every segment of the population identifies itself with our rainbow nation. We must fight relentlessly against all forms of social exclusion. Blind fanaticism will drive us to the shores of self-destruction and misery. No community must feel a sense of superiority over the other and we must develop the spirit of tolerance to open our cultural hearts to others. No community can survive through alienation nowadays. Ethnic politics must be banned from our dictionary.

Our country is so fragile that at any time it can explode into a Lebanon,a Kosovo or a Rwanda where fratricidal hatred has been forced into people?s hearts with the policy of ethnic cleansing. A handful of political agitators suffices to reduce a country to ashes. The unhealed scars of the 1965, 1968 and 1999 race riots still haunt our minds. They erupted in the wake of inflammatory speeches by some demagogues with a view to fanning communal hatred. These painful and gloomy moments of our history have claimed the lives of many innocent victims, numerous houses were set on fire and mass migration took place. Never, never must such scenes of horror, hatred and desolation happen any more on our soil.

Worse than a tsunami

Once a communal riot is set alight, it becomes so uncontrollable that the devastation caused is worse than a tsunami. Many of us would agree that national unity must be maintained through genuine efforts from all quarters. With the approach of the general elections, our country is penetrating into a zone of turbulence- let us pray that it will be spared a racial conflagration.

Amazingly, Mauritians feel a sense of patriotic pride only when they are outside the frontiers of Mauritius. From Connaught Place (New Delhi) to Oxford Street (London) once we hear some shoppers speaking in Creole, we legitimately feel the sense of being Mauritian. But unfortunately such is not the case inside Mauritius: different barriers are set like barricades to divide us. We think in terms of ?nou ban?. Pressure groups of all weird denominators spring up like mushrooms, though some of them may represent little more than their own shadow. The country is compartmentalised horizontally and vertically. The recent case of linguistic warfare was quite revelatory of the fragility of our social fabric. We are permanently sitting on a powder-keg. Every time when elections draw near, the rumbles of the dormant volcano can be heard. Certain political adventurers with a hidden agenda can whip up a race riot at the head of a horde of blind followers to destabilise our country and achieve power through a Machiavellian plan.

Basically, Mauritius has come a long way towards nation building since the end of colonialism. We have the opportunity to discover and experience a rich variety of cultures in a relatively small area. Industrialisation has helped us to bring the various communities under one dome. Free education has made interaction among communities possible. Mixed marriages are ineluctably stepping stones to nation-building. Sports have made our hearts vibrate with the flames of patriotism. The edifice of national unity must be strengthened in the years to come so that we can hand it over as a rich legacy to our coming generations. Otherwise many decades of hard work, resilience and progress will be washed away at the dawn of this new millennium.

Philip Li Ching Hum