<B>By Nicholas Rainer</B>

History, as you know, has the uncanny habit of repeating itself. Yet, despite having the benefit of hindsight, humankind always seems to succumb to the same weaknesses. Over and over again. In his seminal book, Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed, Jared Diamond outlines some of the factors that led to the Classic Maya collapse around 800 AD. The parallels with contemporary Mauritian society are unsettling.

“We have to wonder why the kings and nobles failed to recognise and solve the seemingly obvious problems undermining their societies. Their attention was evidently focused on their short-term concerns of enriching themselves, waging wars, erecting monuments, competing with each other and extracting food enough from the peasants to support all those activities. Like most leaders throughout human history, the Maya kings and nobles did not heed long-term problems, insofar as they perceived them.”

Eerie, isn’t it? Indeed, today’s leaders seem just as prone as their ancient Central American forebears to the vices of greed, cupidity, vanity and envy. The parallel becomes even less flattering when one considers that, contrary to the “kings and nobles”, the modern powers are elected representatives of the people and vested with the duties of protecting, upholding and promoting their interests. Thus, hypocrisy is perhaps the only new factor that has been added to the list. But will Mauritius fall prey to a similar “collapse of both population and culture”?

Probably not. At least, not any time soon. The decline that led to the Mayan collapse was one that occurred gradually over the span of several centuries. Yet the advent of the digital age, coupled with the hegemony of US-biased international institutions, namely the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, mean that a country can be brought to its knees with alarming swiftness. Not exactly the best time to be quibbling about which statues should and shouldn’t be gracing the “gardens” of Port-Louis.

In defence of the political elite though, society itself is often the greatest obstacle to change. Vested interests and the ceaseless pursuit of comfort can be as difficult to dislodge as a bloated tick from the ear of a mangy old mongrel. Rare are those who wish to relinquish the heady cocktail of unbridled consumerism and absentee ideologies.

Thus, even when a government has sufficient lucidity to identify the prevalent socio-economic ills, the task of addressing and, eventually, redressing them is infinitely more complex. We all, for example, know that our prisons are in shambles, our public sector is bloated and that corruption is rife.

Yet government’s attempts at remedying these situations have been feeble at best. And this is where the irony comes in. No matter how much a government shies away from painful decisions to pander to the masses, it is always voted out in favour of whoever the opposition of the day is. Surely, that should be incentive enough to get the ugly monkey of political inaction off our backs, “heed the long-term problems” and save us from a definite collapse.