<B>By Alain JEANNOT</B>

Vanessa P, Vanessa L, Maria Jolita, Pinky and other Mauritian baby girls and ladies who died from ruthless violence are strolling together in paradise when they are suddenly seized by the strongly unpleasant feeling of yet another tragedy on the island. In less than no time, they rush to the giant interactive map of the world near the gate of paradise. Enlarging Mauritius, through a click, they find the suburb of Camp-Levieux blinking red. “Once more!” exclaims Vanessa P, a former inhabitant of that locality, whose mutilated corpse was found lying in a sugar cane field in the vicinity some time ago.

An additional click on the flashing point shows the heartbreaking scene of a girl aged four painfully gasping for her miserable life. Victim of recurrent rape and sodomy, she is fighting a lost war with the serious adverse consequences of the ordeal she had been going through. In a flash her miserable soul escapes from her wretched body to meet her fellow victims in paradise. On account of her childhood purity, she is admitted without any prior interview by the gate keeper.

The sega girls, as the Mauritian ladies are referred to in paradise, warmly welcome the child with hugs and kisses. They know what she has been going through and they wish such misdeeds never happen again . ‘Where the hell was God when this happened…” they all exclaim, but before they proceed further in their reproach, a flash tears the blue sky and a loud voice floods the place.

“Why are you still holding me responsible for man’s evil deeds?” thunders the creator.“But, lord ,are you not omnipresent and almighty? How is it that you do not intervene in such cases? Don’t you say you love children and the weak?” replies one of the girls hiding behind a tree.

“I love humanity so much that I want it to be completely free; though in paradise, you still have not understood my ways. I have given you freedom of choice but, unfortunately, in spite of my teachings you often make the wrong choices, which reap tears and misery .Your greatest enemy is your ego. You only think about yourself and fail to take your responsibilities towards others. You think you can escape from being selfish and self-centred but it comes back to you someday like a boomerang’, continues the Creator.

“Yes Lord, we fail to consider our indifference and wrong-doings”, says Vanessa P, who, pointing at the interactive screen displaying the live scene of teenage drop-outs begging in the car park of a supermarket at Camp-Levieux, regrets the indifference of both parents and society towards this situation.’ Are these children not easy preys for drug dealers, paedophiles and other harmful persons?’ she adds while questioning the efficiency of nearby schools in providing elementary education to low performers.

“Indifference also exists in high society”, says Vanessa L who furthermore comments on the propensity of people to relate happiness to material things while being inconsiderate of others’ feelings and expectations.

“You see my dear children, the choice of indifference is the root of many evils, it does not help people who are ignorant’, says the creator. ‘Ignorance can be forgiven but indifference is a sin’, he adds. While they are talking, Poonum, another female victim of violence, leaves her butchered body to meet them. She has just been stabbed several times by her jealous lover at Tombeau Bay. ‘Men still don’t understand that women are not different from them but rather complement them. This domineering attitude which in extreme cases expresses itself in life threatening choices saddens me a lot’, says the Creator adding that some dishonest persons misinterpret his teachings to argue that he himself made men superior to women. ‘Had I considered men superior to women, would I have ordered you to honour both your father and mother equally?’ he says ,while consoling Poonum who seems to have some difficulties in realizing she has left her body so abruptly.

The sega girls who have experienced the pangs of violence, domination and perversion surround Poonum and shower her with their love while crying for their beloved country, hoping their fellow citizens will put a brake on its slow but steady decline into violence.

While they are wishing all the best to their island paradise, Trefles starts blinking on the interactive screen. A closer look shows a mob giving a rough handling to a fellow citizen and the emergency response services. So uncontrollable is it that the special support unit has to be called on site, a verbal assault on a school girl is at the origin of the chaotic incident…

For how long are we going to remain indifferent to violence in our country? Are we waiting for the land to slide for good to blame the Gods to whom some of us only pay lip service? We cannot keep ignoring the fact that, unless we take violence and gender issues very seriously we may turn our Island paradise into hell on earth. Think about it before it’s too late.