All last week, the doomsayers have been reading the obituaries of various sectors of the Mauritian economy. Apparently, local industries will be wiped out and unemployment will double or even triple, depending on analysts. Those rare political geniuses quickly spotted the electoral twist in Pravind Jugnauth?s speech, as if the forthcoming elections should never have crossed the Finance minister?s mind.

But, when this initial frenzy about declining prices abates, a sober reflection should reveal the cracks in the government?s policy. As a young republic, we are still struggling with our sense of identity. What is Mauritian culture exactly? Does it manifest itself only in the plethora of religious festivals and cultural centres? The government seems to think so. Its failure to invest in the cultural future of the country could be the defining aspect of the budget.

Last year, a joint UNESCO (United Nations Educational Social and Cultural Organisation) - African Union forum placed culture at the heart of development. It declared: ?It is recommended that the role and place of culture ? recognised as being the fourth pillar of development at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (Johannesburg September 2002) ? should be taken into account in every policy for sustainable development in culture and beyond.? The last budget accomplishes exactly the contrary. Instead, it plans to waste perfectly good money on the headquarters of Tamil, Telugu and Marathi cultural centres.

Now, we can?t escape the fact that Mauritius is made up of different cultural strands. They all have different traditions, languages and customs in their own rights. But Mauritian culture was never a celebration of these individual groups. It is a more complex amalgam where each one brings its contribution to our all-important secularism. Down the years, politicians chose to stress the difference. Their base and petty ?us and them? rhetoric has significantly weakened our sense of identity. It has reduced the people to clinging to a concept of Mauritius found in tourist brochures. On the other hand, culture was defined according to ancestral religion. And herein lies the danger.

Changes in the social fabric

A nation, which is not assertive culturally, cannot rise to the challenge of a modern cut-throat capitalist world. The path of the duty- free paradise will change the social fabric of the country radically, where citizens are transformed into consumers. The government will rely on the latter for economic growth. In 2001, after the terrorist attacks in America, the world went into recession because of low consumer confidence. The same happened here in Ireland but now the trend has changed as people have started to spend again. Last week, the Department of Finance announced a surplus 221 million euros in tax revenue for the first quarter of 2005, 63% of which came from VAT. Basically, the population?s shopping spree led the economic growth.

But Ireland, like most capitalist economies, also spends on culture. There are various tax breaks for artists and, last year, the Department of Arts, Tourism and Sports was granted 455,7 million euros in the budget. The Arts Council received a 16% increase in its allowance. Ireland can also draw on a rich tradition of artists, especially writers. Such schemes are in place in all European countries. The subsidies that the French state lavishes on artists in Reunion are often the envy of their Mauritian counterparts.

This is not to say that Mauritius needs to make similar contributions to the arts. Far from it. Our economic constraints, such as debt servicing, will always make culture the least of budgetary considerations. But financial restrictions cannot excuse the complete and utter disregard for the arts by successive governments. They have in no small measure contributed to the destitution and paralysis of artistic creation in the country. Without any commitment from the state, artists find themselves in a precarious position. There are very few of them who can call themselves professionals. Art, in all its forms, which is the flag bearer of a country, is mostly a hobby in Mauritius.

Confusing religion and culture

The problem is that politicians often confuse culture and religion. For them, it seems, the two are the same. A public holiday here, a monument there and the political establishment thinks that it has celebrated cultural expression. This budget is a perfect example of this bankrupt thinking. Religion is only a small component of a culture and in a secular country, it must remain in its assigned place. Instead of diverting resources towards appeasing the different pressure groups, money should be invested in the celebration of culture as a whole. Whether it is spent on music, painting, theatre, cinema and so on, the country will benefit infinitely more than from the sectarian cultural centres.

In the future, the twin effects of large scale consumerism and the continued confusion of religion with culture could land us in a situation where triviality thrives. Globally, the trend favours the banal. According to a UNESCO study, Barbara Cartland and Danielle Steel feature among the top five most translated authors in the world. Without government support, Mauritian culture will decline and embrace the low-level intellectual involvement characteristic of the novels of Cartland and Steel.

Religious festivals will always form part of a multicultural society like ours. But they are not the only cultural expressions available to celebrate our rich heritage. In Mauritius, there is no better symbol of our diversity than the Creole language. Tax-payers? money would find a better home in a dedicated research centre than in useless cultural centres. These segregationist edifices can only contribute to the continued erosion of the Mauritian identity. However, the politicians do not seem to have the willpower to change things around. Governments come and go but their ignorance, when it comes to the arts, remains the same. In the meantime, culture continues to suffer from under-funding or rather the wrong kind of funding.

Diren valayden Outlook Correspondent in Dublin