How I Witnessed Priya Hein: Riambel Part 2

Property!

P95 “Je lui demande pourquoi nous ne connaissons pas l’histoire des gens qui travaillaient autrefois ici. C’est une très bonne question, Noémie. Malheureusement, leur vie n’avait pas d’importance. Les esclaves étaient considérés comme de simples biens meubles. “C’est quoi, un bien meuble?….”

P:96 Misye Ravi replied: “C’est une propriété, une possession, comme le bétail, dit-il enfin. Ils étaient traités comme des animaux, et non comme des êtres humains.”

These words from Missie Ravi felt suffocating.

Slaves were forced out of their communities. They were shipped across the world in conditions of great cruelty. They set foot on Mauritian soil stripped of their identities. 

They used to have a name. They were husbands, wives, fathers, mothers and children: Blacksmiths, musicians, soldiers, merchants and more. 

How can we place ourselves in their shoes? 

They walked barefoot on a land they couldn’t call home. Held in a cage surrounded by the ocean - on an island we call paradise. 

It was hell. 

They were tortured on the plantations we now call home. 

P96: “Notre histoire, comme nos corps, a été maltraitée au fil des ans. Ce n’est pas un hasard si beaucoup de documents de l’époque du colonialisme ont été détruits ou soi-disant perdus. Certains restent entre des mains privées, parce que les rendre publics révélerait au grand jour les atrocités perpétrées par les familles blanches et leurs descendants.”

Reading this phrase gave me palpitations. My breath slowed down. Am I ready to give my raw thoughts? 

“Les familles blanches et leurs descendants” 

I was born in Mauritius. It’s my dear Island. I grew up surrounded by people of different religions, ethnicities and beliefs. I went to kindergarten, primary school, college and university. I kid you not - I never crossed paths with a Franco-Mauritian. 

We were living on the same Island but inhabiting parallel realms. I was from Mercury; they were from Neptune. 

I grew up, got a job, and they were still nowhere to be seen - until I landed a job in a Franco-Mauritian company. It was not the right place for me. The whole place felt cold. I lasted for 3 months.

I always felt small in the eyes of Franco-Mauritians. Was it internalised bias or generational trauma? Strange, as my close ones never taught me to shrink myself.

I’m navigating rough seas, but I’ll dive in anyway. 

Their special accent was unsettling. How come they had an accent, and I didn’t? Are we not from the same Island? I learnt French too. But theirs had a unique flavour and tonality. 

Franco-Mauritians rarely mix with us. Never in the same kindergarten, primary school, college and university. Is it to preserve their race? This is a question that I asked myself, or things we share between us. Is it bad to think this way? I’m 32 years old, and I don’t care anymore.  

An intern from France named Marie once told me, “Why don’t Franco-Mauritians mix with others?” That transparent crack between them and us was visible to outsiders. 

And if we were in the same job, they usually had higher positions and better pay.

We might not have crossed paths because “moi, je viens d’une cité.” 

I never thought I would say these words out loud, but as a witness to this world, it’s my duty to do so. 

But what are the seeds of this friction?

Seeds 

Do I hide behind authors to share my honest thoughts? 

They give me the courage to paint my words in different shades.

I hide my reflections behind their quotes, hoping not to be flagellated by anyone.  

But I want to stir minds and conversations.

Plant ideas and watch them grow.  

They spring from seeds that I nurture daily. 

Mauritian authors give me the courage that was buried. 

I’m sharpening my voice. If they did it, I can too.

A few days ago, I was murmuring, and now it feels like a high-pitched “I DID IT!”

They’ve planted a seed in me, and it’s sprouting. 

In Riambel, Grandma is a sower of parables.

P172 “ J’ai entendu grand-mère parler de tous ces hommes blancs sur le domaine, engendrant des enfants métis à la chaîne, semant leurs graines avec empressement. Des travailleurs dociles. Dans la plantation. Une terre fertile. Une usine. ”

White men owned their plantations, sowing their seeds for the harvest. 

They were the lords of their land. 

They possessed every movable object on two feet. 

Women’s bellies became greenhouses for babies. 

A mix of white and black, children of the plantation. 

Why were the landlords a sower of seeds then, and now they’ve deserted the plantations?

Now that their atrocities have been exposed, their descendants are distancing themselves from the shackles of the past. 

If I were them, how would I feel? 

Is it guilt, shame? How would I know? 

I have a Franco-Mauritian friend who is 69% French; that's the result he got from doing an ancestry DNA test. But, I don't consider him "Franco-Mauritian." He doesn't have the special accent and is very approachable. His family is middle-class. I sat with him this week and shared my reflections. He told me that even within the Franco-Mauritian group, there are segregations. Its seed is education. He also told me that he wasn't at ease with the Franco-Mauritians. Time stopped.

It turns out that I’m walking on arid lands, and this journey can be a long one. 

Riambel, this work of fiction is rooted in an ocean of reality. 

It unknowingly revealed this buried side of me. 

Thoughts that were caged.

Read: How I Witnessed Priya Hein: Riambel Part 1