By Deepa BHOOKHUN

I hate to have to tell you this but I am going to talk about race again. Sorry!

I have turned this matter of Truth and Reconciliation Commission over and over in my head and tried to look at it in every imaginable way possible and I still haven?t managed to decide whether I think we need it or not.

I know this sounds presumptuous - it?s like a mentally deranged person genuinely thinking his behaviour is normal and saying he doesn?t need help. Like I said - I don?t know.

I mean it?s not like our history is like that of South Africa, is it? Apartheid, the way it existed in South Africa did not happen here. What did happen was milder (I think)and, more importantly, did not happen to us. The slavemasters are long dead and buried as are the slaves and indentured labourers.

Surely descendants of slaves can?t still be victims of what happened that long ago? Surely descendants of French colonists cannot be held responsible for what their forefathers did? Surely the great grandchildren of Indian immigrants can?t still be suffering from their ancestors? humiliation?

Can they?

Definitely not. But what we cannot deny is the fact that what happened so many years ago has shaped our psyche and our behaviour in such a way that one has to blindfold oneself in order not to see it.

So maybe the Truth and Reconciliation commission will help after all. Maybe it will help some of us reconcile with the fact that we have issues that need to be dealt with.

Maybe it will help some of us understand why we always think that we are better than others.

Maybe it will help us ask ourselves why we always think that what comes from abroad and what has anything to do with any concept of "Europe" is always better than anything even remotely "Mauritian" - understand coloured. And worth more.

Maybe it will help us understand why we consider our mother tongue, Creole, so inadequate that we think we need to speak French - or something resembling it - in public.

Maybe it will open our eyes as to why we tend to treat our inferiors at work with such disdain and hauteur. (They say, don?t they, that the oppressed tend to become oppressors - look at what?s happening in Israel.)

Maybe it will help us understand why we are so touchy whenever others speak of "the past". And maybe it will help us understand why we feel this irrepressible urge to tell people "I am not a racist" whenever the matter is being raised. Maybe the Truth and Reconciliation Commission will help, after all. But it can only help if we allow it to help us. It won?t do a thing for us if we act all offended and start resenting poor Professor Shell just because he has a job to do.

Maybe that?s exactly what we need - an outsider?s unbiased point of view.

Some hyacinths for our souls.

Maybe. Just maybe.