Fantastic End-of-Year LALIT evaluation session
22.12.2023
Although with heavy hearts because of the Israeli genocide going on against Palestinians, members from LALIT’s regionals and branches met Sunday for the traditional end-of-year assembly to share looking back at the year’s political work, including on the importance of freeing Palestine.
Rada Kistnasamy gave the lead in his introductory talk, which was followed by open discussion. After that Kisna Kistnasamy gave a second talk, this one on the methods, the means, we have as a party, relied upon: our Revi, web-site, social media, and our party documentation centre.
Here is a summary of Rada’s introductory talk.
He said 2023 had been a year of political uncertainty, in general, and in particular regarding national-level politics. The judgement in the Privy Council appeal in the case against Prime Minister Jugnauth and his two constituency colleagues for electoral bribery and treating could have, had it been given against him, precipitated general elections. So, everyone lived with this threat of a snap election in the air. At the same time, the case about the enormous stash of cash found in a police raid at the home of the leader of the biggest opposition party, Ramgoolam, is until now pending. It, too, could change the political scene substantially. And then, for half a year we lived in the uncertainty as to whether Municipals would, in fact, be postponed – they were. The Prime Minister was too scared of losing them. In a way, we were still living in the very tail-end of the Covid era – an era of deep disruption and uncertainty.
But, faced with this, LALIT maintained its political action and kept its thinking in focus. This was in large part as a result of the impulsion given to the party by the 2022 “6-day Congress” on LALIT’s place in the political landscape of the country. In fact, just as the Congress, was preceded by group work for months, so also, after the Congress, we have done the immense work of publishing two programs: The first one on LALIT’s Philosophy and then this past week, the second one, on LALIT’s Strategy. This was part of the momentum created by the successful 6-day Congress.
He said he would structure his talk around the central themes of the party, and what we had done during the year on them.
* What did LALIT do to in terms of maintaining the little democracy we already have? What did we do to oppose the increasing centralization of power in the hands of the executive, in particular in the hands of the Prime Minister? What did we do as a party to mobilize against the Jugnauth new Citizenship Amendment that is part of the amended Immigration Act?
* What did we do on housing? In particular, what action did we take on replacement of housing with asbestos panels?
* How did we contribute to promoting the Kreol language?
* On Chagos and Diego Garcia, what did LALIT do?
* On Palestine, and Gaza, what actions has LALIT accomplished?
* On the women’s struggle, what did LALIT do?
* On the international level, in general, what did LALIT do?
* As an organization, how did LALIT function? What structures? What kinds of collaboration with others? What kind of international links were nurtured or made?
Anti-Repression and Democracy
LALIT has been involved in supporting the challenge in the Supreme Court against the Jugnauth new Citizenship Act amendment (part of the new Immigration Act) that member Lindsey Collen is fighting. The new discretionary powers placed in the hands of the Prime Minister to remove citizenship from someone like Lindsey who has her citizenship through marriage to Ram Seegobin, and to banish her, are a direct threat to thousands of Mauritian families. On nine occasions in 2023, members gathered in the Supreme Court for the case – from 15 – 35 people, members and supporters of the case, were present each time. Twice we were present in 2022. And after each case, we would gather to listen to Lindsey’s Press Statement. This would, in turn, keep the issue in focus for the public – through radio and the press, as well as in our publications – who then know about our action in Court. Rada said we are expecting a judgment, perhaps very early 2024, as to whether Lindsey has the locus standi to put in such a case.
On the issue of democratic rights, we had a few sessions in 2023 – both in person and via Zoom – on our ways of participating in elections, from 1982, when we first stood for Municipals, till now. One of our members, Cindy, has done thorough research for us on this, pointing out the stakes or "lenjeu” of each election. For LALIT, Rada said, whether we field candidates or not, we participate one way or another, but unlike other parties, elections are not the sum total of our action. For us, elections in the bourgeois state apparatus have their importance, but they are not the totality of politics. We specialize in finding non-electoral ways of doing politics. This is not easy when the NGO-ization of the struggle has drawn so many young people into the bureacratic-type actions that, in the final analysis, are controlled by the funders – sugar estates, government, the US Embassies, and religious organizations, foreign NGOs that are funded, in turn, by their Governments with all manner of conditionalities.
Rada also referred to an important meeting a delegation of LALIT members, Alain, Kisna, Lindsey and Rajni, had with the Electoral Commisisoner and his team. Rajni had written an article criticizing political parties, like Labour, for their mindless attacks on the last elections especially for their repeated blame put on workers from abroad, in particular, from Bangladesh for suppposedly tricking elections. The issue of xenophobia was then taken up on Radio, and Rajni did LALIT proud on a much commented Radio Program. The Labour Party was thrown on to the defensive, and the xenophobic attacks have receded.
On the Municipal Elections being postponed yet again by Pravind Jugnauth, LALIT took a stand via a communiqué and an article. We propose a Constitutional guarantee for regional elections.
On Housing
LALIT continued the pressure on the housing issue, in particular on the issue of asbestos housing needing replacement. We had won victory, in that the Government in the Budget of 2022 allocated the sum necessary to begin the pulling down and rebuilding, and a Unit was effectively set up. But the 2023 Budget made no mention of this. It seems that the work is progressing, but at snail’s pace.
Kreol language
On the issue of the Kreol language, many of our members presented papers and participated in the Colloquium, KOLOK OKTOB, organized by LPT. It was a “state of the language question” colloquium held over three days, and brought together top academics as well as grassroots, activists in LALIT, the unions, the women’s movement, and associations. And then, after the Colloquium, LALIT was approached by LPT to publish Audio Files on our website. We were pleased to agree. LALIT also puts on record that the Paris VIII University and academics at the University of Mauritius rely on our website for research into Kreol. LALIT was invited to the University of Mauritius to participate in a workshop on automatic translation from Kreol into English and other languages.
Diego and Chagos
From the very beginning of the year, 5 January to be exact, LALIT was up and running on this issue. Two members, Kisna and Lindsey wrote to Human Rights Watch to criticize their position when they ignore the decolonization of Chagos – and treat Chagossians as a separate entity, thus falling right into the trap set for them by the British State. Human Rights Watch replied as if they did not understand what decolonization is. They are still appealing to the British Government as though the ICJ awarded it sovereignty, when it specifically told the UK to get up and get out.
Also in January, LALIT and Chagos Refugees Group met for a handing over of photographs of our struggle together. The daughter of Vel Kadarassen, whose later father was the photographer, was also invited.
In March, LALIT held an open Round Table on Diego Garcia, 55 years after Independence, putting emphasis on getting the US military base closed down. As well as a LALIT chair, Alain, and speaker, Kisna, there were outside speakers including former President of the Republic Cassam Uteem, former Attorney General Jean-Claude Bibi, and academics Jimmy Harmon, Olivier Precieux and Alain Laridon. Rajni spoke in the name of the MLF. The Conference resulted in a Resolution which became a Common Declaration. Later there were new signatories, for example, from three different Rodrigues trade unions.
This built up towards the Forum we planned at the Municipality of Port Louis in April, which was postponed because of a torrential rain warning, until May. It was a great success. Alain presided and speakers were from a wide spread of political currents, including Cassam Uteem, Jean-Claude Bibi, Lindsey Collen, Vijay Makan, Olivier Bancoult. Alain Laridon. (Milan Meetarbhan was due to have spoken when the Forum was in April, but was not in the country in May.)
Palestine
Rada said how much, as a party, we had relied on the first hand experience of our two members, Alain and Kisna, who have spent time, alongside Palestinians, facing up to the Israeli Defense Force in the West Bank, and even from Kisna’s participation in the Gaza Freedom March when she and over a thousand others did not succeed in getting into Gaza at all. We learnt from this.
This year, the moment the genocide in Gaza began, LALIT and SOMALP, which we took the initiative of setting up, held a vigil at Grand River North West. Alain was also a speaker, for LALIT and SOMALP at the Friends of Al-Aqsa public forum at the Municipality of Port Louis, while Lindsey spoke in LALIT’s name at the Together for Palestine forum in the big event in Bell Village. SOMALP also spear-headed a common declaration, calling for a suspension of all diplomatic ties until a ceasefire, signed up to by most of the big unions in the country as well as two consumer organizations and the women’s movement. LALIT called on the Prime Minister to present a motion in Parliament for a ceasefire, which he did not do, but he nevertheless stood up in Parliament and presented a Prime Minister’s Statement making clear the Government’s position in favour of Palestine. In addition, he commented on the work done by the team that presents a commentary in the form of a “blog” published every two or three days. [We have now reached blog number 21 on the 72nd day of the bombardments.] The fact that this is in two languages is very important: it means the blog is read by people abroad, and also by Mauritians who read only Kreol fluently and with precision, an increasing number since Kreol is now taught as a language in schools. We have stayed in contact with the BDS [Boycott, Disinvestment, Sanctions] movement, in particular with founder, Omar Bargouti, who Alain knows personally. The bourgeois traditional Press, by which we mean the Le Mauricien, Week-End, L’Express, 5-Plus, and even Le Defi, though in general very hesitant about taking a stand in favour of Palestine, have, to their credit, nevertheless covered many of these LALIT initiatives.
Earlier in the year, we participated in a worldwide move to “Boycott Puma” – a movement that has had victory. Puma announced that it will no longer sponsor football teams in the Occupied Territories. We found how the power of a boycott, as in the days of the SOMAAP boycott of Apartheid South Africa, is in the collective abilite to lazer-focus on one or two products.
The Women’s Struggle
It was the Muvman Liberasyon Fam that began the series of articles – that are each a story that starts with a work session and then after being written up become more work sessions – with the self-explanatory title: “Acceleration of the transmission of class consciousness”. Then LALIT took up the idea. We have written up stories on workers in health, restaurants, construction and the art sector. A selection were then published for 1 May for members.
International links
Rada had to brief from here one, because his time for the talk was fast coming to an end. He said how our international links are part of our work – whether it is Labour Day or Palestine, Diego Garcia or public health – we link our own political struggles with the world-wide working class. For Labour Day celebration we received messages of solidarity from organizations LALIT has political links with from all continents: Africa, Europe, the Americas, Asia and Australia.[ For details click on: https://www.lalitmauritius.org/modules/documents/files/LalitMauritius-f61d6947467ccd3aa5af24db320235dd.pdf]
Structures
He said at a central level the Central Committee met 22 times, that is to say once a fortnight, and a few times a year this becomes a general assembly instead. This means that the Political Bureau also met 22 times, because it prepares the agenda for the Central Committee. Other central structures are the Editorial Board for the Revi LALIT, and our “Program meetings” – which are partly in person partly on Zoom.
As well as two regular Revi LALIT, we also brought out two special ones in the form of Programs, based on the 6-Day Congress the year before. One is on LALIT’s philosophy, the other on LALIT’s strategy. Both are available, as part of the Revi LALIT series. Later each regional/branch would give its report.
There was a plenary discussion on Rada’s talk before going on to the talk by Kisna on party “means” used in the struggle – how members participate in the regular magazine, our website, social media and Documentation Centre.
