Saturday, October 11, 2008

Second Blow in a Row for Cocacolonisation

After the infamous 9/11, America's expansionism is being cut to size by two consecutive events. First came Wall Street's debacle, then the nobelisation of writer Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio.

Lately, the love-hate relationship the world usually entertains with America has been turning more bitter than sweet. As a matter of fact, courtesy of the neoconisation of its foreign policies, America tends to epitomise greed. That's a shame given the legacy of its entrepreneurial spirit to the world and the hospitality of its people.

The irony with Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio's award is that the recipient hails from a country whose expansionist zeal is no less ardent, even if its influence on the global scene continues to fade, barring in Little France of course. Nevertheless, it is arguably the striking je ne sais quoi of pre-miraculous Mauritius that has contributed to shape his characteristically unFrench cosmopolitan outlook. It is indeed a wish-fulfilment to expect the Rive Gauche chatterboxes and their equally navel-gazing wannabes to bandwagon and lift the empathetic nomad from his offbeat status.

In appreciation of the potentially positive impact of the internet on asymmetric information and mass deception, Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio speculated that "if the internet had existed in the Third Reich, Hitler might have been an easy target for ridicule, and so might not have come to power".

How refreshing it would be if he could be invited to blog candidly on the cosseted features of our society. Even if the gutsy humanism that his irreverent mind would most likely express would also make him an easy target of the most conservative Mauritians of all hues and probably a self-hating ...