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Opinion: Indiens, Créoles et Blancs : ce qu’on ne dit pas
Posté le 22 novembre 2009 à 04:02:07 EST par editor2 |
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Il y a deux façons de peindre l’Histoire, soit en noir et blanc, soit
tout en nuances comme certains des tableaux des grands maîtres.
Ainsi, l’Histoire des relations entre les groupes ethniques à Maurice est, chaque jour, profondément déformée par les politiciens, la raison principale étant que ces derniers ne connaissent pratiquement rien de l’Histoire nationale parce qu’ils ne l’ont jamais lue – et ne le feront jamais, même pour préparer un discours s’y référant au Parlement ou en public.
Il y a certes des relations interethniques conflictuelles qui jalonnent l’Histoire de toute société pluriethnique. Par ailleurs, Maurice n’est, en aucune manière, une société originale en matière de diversité ethnique et religieuse. Mais il y a aussi, dans l’histoire de ces sociétés, que ce soit à Maurice ou à la Réunion ou ailleurs, beaucoup de ces nuances qui font que les relations n’étaient pas toujours forcément tendues entre les communautés.
J’ai donné beaucoup de détails dans mon premier livre d’histoire, ‘Vacoas-Phoenix. La genèse d’une ville’, sur un phénomène très particulier, à savoir qu’il n’y avait pas de villages à Maurice avant l’émancipation des esclaves et les grandes vagues de nouveaux immigrés indiens à partir des années 1830. Le village, tout comme dans toutes les sociétés, est un produit de l’émancipation des serfs et des esclaves qui les créèrent dès le moment qu’ils quittèrent les camps de travail des grandes propriétés foncières où leurs seigneurs et maîtres les confinaient. Tel fut le cas sur tous les continents habités ayant connu l’esclavage sous une forme ou une autre.
Dans cet ouvrage de recherches publié en 1984, j’ai démontré comment le phénomène villageois a émergé à Maurice. Les premiers vrais villages furent créés par les esclaves affranchis, qui y furent rejoints par les Indiens qui s’échappaient en grand nombre des camps de travail sur les propriétés sucrières où ils avaient remplacé les anciens esclaves. Ces Indiens y trouvaient refuge et étaient bien accueillis par les affranchis.
Dans un autre livre plus récent, j’ai expliqué comment, très souvent, les relations entre immigrés indiens et affranchis furent, plus souvent que l’on en a cru, très cordiaux. J’ai écrit, dans la deuxième édition révisée de mon livre ‘A Comprehensive History of Mauritius’ préfacé par mon excellent ami et écrivain de génie Abhimanyu Unnuth :
“At the end of the apprenticeship period, the majority of the plantation labourers, formerly slaves, left, while only about 4000 of them accepted to sign one-year contracts with the plantation owners to continue to work in the sugar industry.
“About 28,000 slaves had been working on the sugar estates on a total slave population of 67,000. The others worked in sectors other than sugar. 14,000 to 15,000 left the sugar estates after having quietly toiled side by side with the incoming salaried Indian workers brought over from India during the apprenticeship period. The relationship between the apprentices and the Indian workers were good to excellent and there is ample evidence of that. Inter-marriages were even contemplated, in some cases, according to a contemporary witness who was an official of the Bengal Civil Service, J.P. Woodcock, who wrote, in a report dated 19 November 1836 addressed to the Governor General of India (we have respected the original writing, with many capital letters):
‘Some of the Indian Labourers have formed illicit Connexions which will probably prevent their return; and Two young Hindoos on one Estate have already adopted the Costume of the Mozambique Negroes, and so many of their Customs as to lead to a belief that they will marry young Negresses on the same Estate, who are already beginning to enjoy the Advantage of Indian Admirers in the more ornamental Attire that they have assumed. The Indians are generally on excellent Terms with the Negroes, with whom they are constantly brought into contact into their daily Labour and in reply to some Queries circulated by the Governor during my stay at the Mauritius, and addressed to the Planters employing Indian Labourers, the Reports, I understand, were considered extremely satisfactorily as regarded the general good Feeling that existed between both parties.’
“Woodcock also observed that the apprentices and the Indians were separated by their employers:
‘On their Arrival at an Estate the Coolies usually find a large Log Hut prepared for their Reception, placed at some Distance from the Camp of the Negro Apprentices, in order to prevent any unnecessary Intercourse or Coalition between the Two Parties.’
“Actually, neither the presence of Indians in the island nor their cross-breeding with all the other ethnic groups, whether among slaves or free persons, were new happenings under the Mauritian sun.”
Dans l’introduction à ce livre, j’ai aussi écrit au à propos des immigrants indiens venus depuis le début de la colonisation française :
“From 1729 to 1731, 2000 Malagasies, 1000 Africans and 300 Indians were added to the already multi-ethnic slave population in order to turn a new uninhabited country into a permanent human settlement. So, the island became a multi-ethnic society from the start, its population coming in from France, Africa, India, Madagascar, and various regions of the Gulf and of South-East Asia.
“Indian immigration before the abolition of slavery was, in the 18th Century, a significant factor in nation-building, and that, to a greater extent than it has been assessed by several historians of the past. The Creole language also existed already in the 18th Century. A visitor in 1801, the French surgeon Grégoire Avine, noted that, in various homes, rice was preferred to bread by a large number of Mauritians and that curry, chutneys and "rougailles" (a stew needing a lot of tomatoes in its preparation) were already the subject of a real craze, indicating considerable influence on the way of life of the population by the non-Europeans coming especially from India and Madagascar. Those are today authentic national dishes of the Republic of Mauritius.”
En ce qu’il s’agit des Blancs, les politiciens d’aujourd’hui font systématiquement croire à la population que cette communauté mauricienne était et reste monolithique. En réalité, c’est une énorme fausseté perpétuée et employée délibérément par beaucoup de politiciens (ou bien ils sont ignares, ce qui n’est guère une excuse) dans le cadre de l’ethnic politics pratiquée par la classe politique mauricienne. Mais il y eut beaucoup de cas de Blancs qui essayèrent de libérer les esclaves, puis les coolies. Dans mes livres, j’aborde, par exemple, le cas de ces centaines de Blancs qui furent expulsés du pays, surtout durant la Révolution française (avant cela, certains furent même exécutés), pour avoir prôné et/ou activement soutenu l’émancipation des esclaves. C’est là, l’histoire de Blancs Dodos/Blancs Faucons que nous avons connue mais qui a été enfouie depuis deux ou trois décennies pour les besoins de l’ethnic politics à la mauricienne…
J’ai un ami blanc, un administrateur, qui a émigré en Australie dans les années 70 parce que, me disait-il, lui et sa famille étaient victimes des préjugés de ceux qu’il appelait « les grands Blancs ».
Lorsque les « coolies » ou travailleurs engagés indiens arrivèrent en masse vers la fin des années 1830 et durant les décennies suivantes, il y eut beaucoup de Blancs qui défendirent leurs intérêts et pas seulement les Adolphe de Plévitz et autres Thomi Hugon (un homme parenté aux Sauzier et parlant des langues indiennes avec aisance, sur qui Satteeanund Peerthum, un collègue historien, a beaucoup écrit dans les années 70 et 80). Un livre de l’historien mauricien Raymond d’Unienville est la principale source de la partie suivante de mon livre ‘A Comprehensive History of Mauritius’ :
“It would be quite unfair towards the Mauritian employers to state that none of them cared about the welfare of their workers. Historical research has shown in recent years that a number of them even tried to introduce a form of socialism, nowadays called "utopian socialism", for the common benefit of employers and workers (former slaves and the incoming Indian coolies).
“In a book on the subject entitled ‘Tentative Socialiste à l’Ile Maurice. 1846-1851’, historian Raymond d’Unienville has recalled that it was a quite serious attempt to abolish the system of wages and salaries and to replace it by one called “the associative system”, wherein employers and workers would be partners, sharing in the occupancy of the land as well as profits.
“Proponents of the new system even wanted to extend it to factories and workshops and abolish completely the prevailing labour system.
“Mauritian history is full of paradoxes and this was one of them. A number of former slave owners wanted, a decade after the abolition of slavery, to share land and profits with their former slaves and the immigrant Indian labour force.
“The leader of the movement in Mauritius was Evenor Dupont (1805-1869), son of Victor Dupont and Louise Rivalz de Saint-Antoine. Planters like Ernest d’Unienville and Napoleon Savy and the newspaper Le Mauricien through Eugene Leclezio and Evenor Demarais strongly supported the new doctrine. The system of “association” was also defended by intellectuals like Louis Bouton, Dr Salesse, Julius Herchenroder, Eugene Dupuy, Leon Doyen (more radically socialist that the others), Adolphe Autard de Bragard, Anthony Rey, Charles Peyrebere, Henry Lolliot, Dr Poupinel de Valencé, Dr Cloarec and many others.
“Some of them toured the country to literally indoctrinate friends and relatives, organising special banquets to explain their ideas and to proclaim that socialism was bound to replace capitalism.
“Their particular brand of socialism came from France where the leader of the movement was Charles Fourier (1772-1837), who was later succeeded by Victore Considérant (1808-1893). Actually, the doctrine was labelled “Fourierisme” and was based on the prolific theoretical work of Fourier. The latter believed that socialism would end conflicts between labour and capital, bring peace within as well as between nations, and produce a state of unprecedented happiness among mankind all over the world.
“One thing that helped those opposed to the movement in those days when the influence of the Catholic Church and old traditions had considerable weight on everyday life was that Fourier at one time proposed the abolition of marriage, which he considered as an institution that enslaved women. He wrote that men and women would associate freely following the advent of socialism. Fourier and his followers in France and Mauritius were systematically attacked on the ground that they wanted to break up the family by introducing free sex. In Mauritius, the most ferocious opponent of the system was Reverend Xavier Masuy, who wielded considerable influence over the White community.
“Behind the opposition to Fourier’s ideas, of course, was also the refusal by the most affluent people to share their lands, factories and profits with their workers, through a shareholding system as proposed by the Mauritian “Fourieristes” Evenor Dupont and his friends were pleading for the setting up of what Fourier called “phalanstères”, which would be settlements of families of employers and workers turned “associates” and sharing large tracts of land on which they would build residential complexes, shops and factories.
“This can be compared to the Israeli Kibbutz, though, contrary to the Kibbutz, unequal abilities would produce unequal status and profit-sharing.
“Still, the “phalanstère” would, according to its advocates in Mauritius, resolve social conflicts and bring happiness to employers, former slaves and Indian workers.
“Actually, Ernest d’Unienville tried the system on his property at Saint-Martin in the south of the island and a number of landowners used the system of “métayage”, providing plots of land to former slaves and Indian immigrants in the context of a profit-sharing scheme. Many of them observed that the system of “métayage” was quite efficient and was particularly attractive to the Indian immigrants.
“The “métayage” system has survived to this day, but the Saint-Martin experiment was a failure, with Ernest d’Unienville being refused crucial support from the British colonial masters of the island. The latter wanted, according to d’Unienville, to enforce contractual guarantees at his expense and were unwilling to substitute to them a Fourier-inspired profit-sharing association between him and the former slaves and Indian immigrants who worked on his estate.
“Partisans of Fourier in Mauritius had quite a substantial following among owners of several estates, mostly small and medium. Moreover, the system was accepted mostly for non-sugar activities, especially the production of fruits and vegetables and a number of services. Even some small businesses like tailorshops started to be operated according to Fourier’s teachings.
“Shareholding was considered a form of socialism. In spite of some advanced ideas for the times like the emancipation of women, the right of everybody to have a job, the reform of the prevailing educational system which enforced cruel and inhuman practices on children and the need to abolish war, “Fourierisme” just vanished by 1851.
“Now considered as a form of “utopian socialism”, the doctrine of Fourier was rejected by more radical socialists in Europe -- which also explains its failure. Its introduction in Mauritius, nonetheless, shows that within the White and Coloured communities in Mauritius, there were a substantial number of people who strove to overcome the injustices suffered by the former slaves as well as the Indian workers. They even became lyrical in their defence of the ideas of Fourier and their leaders like Evenor Dupont and Ernest d’Unienville claimed that socialism logically proceeded from the Christian faith.
“Actually, they proposed in Le Mauricien that the whole island be divided between its 240,000 inhabitants into 120 associations, each consisting of 2000 persons of both sexes, of all ages and from all walks of life.
“More cynically, however, one can also argue that in the 1840s, the scarcity of labour and the financial crisis that affected the smaller sugar estates made Fourier’s doctrine an attractive substitute to a socio-economic system that many owners believed would come tumbling down and cause chaos. There were about 260 sugar estates at that time and many were closing down. Followers of Fourier proposed that the number be reduced drastically and efficiency improved -- this was what happened eventually and the nineteenth century socialists were right in that respect.
“By the 1850s, the public debate over socialism subsided. Socialism made a come-back only in the following century, with Dr Maurice Curé heading the movement.”
Il n’y a aucune autre manière de réaliser l’unité nationale à Maurice, sans que l’on enseigne la vraie Histoire nationale. Mais je suis convaincu qu’aucun de nos dirigeants politiques, y compris Ramgoolam et Bérenger, voudra mettre un frein à l’ethnic politics parce qu’ils pensent qu’ils y gagnent beaucoup électoralement – même si c’est au prix d’un abêtissement de la population. Le communalisme paie et paie bien sur l’échiquier politique – du moins aux yeux de l’actuel establishment politique qui ne réalise pas cependant, que le temps viendra de le remplacer par des Mauriciens plus soucieux de réaliser une unité nationale qui ne cesse de nous échapper…
Sydney Selvon
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