Dear Readers

Yesterday’s publication was one of my best articles so far, the one that was most read and shared and the one people bothered to comment on so thank you from the bottom of my heart. Many people in my network in France and in the UK congratulated me for the brave act of citizenship but others criticized me for not being fully engaged in the fight i.e becoming a politician. My detractors underlined the fact that I was terrified of being corrupt and they said this was exactly why nothing changes because  politicians should be able to be decent, honest,conscientious, trustworthy, accountable and should be able to favour the interest of the people who elected him or her before his or her own interests, I accept that. However, I know myself well enough to know that I am not yet equipped to be  a politician and I am sure that day will come but not now. I know from experience that every time that I made a decision in the heat of the moment, I either regretted it or suffered some terrible consequences. I am a fervent believer that we live and learn and I also believe that nothing happens by accident.For instance, during my time at Sitel I felt after 6 months of being a French and English agent that I deserved to be promoted as Team Manager because I was my manager’s second in charge when she was absent or busy in meetings or trainings and let’s be clear I was way competent and qualified than her and  I had the team’s support. I thought my time had come when my direct line manager was finally re-distributed in a different role but guess what? I did not get the promotion and I was devastated at first then very angry as I believed it was not fair for someone else to benefit from my hard work and to run the team that I had built. Along came Petri Palento, the replacement manager whom I am so grateful for. Grateful for teaching me patience, to observe and plan before making any decision, to control my anger and my temper with trouble makers, attention seekers and jealous staff members and to always always be kind regardless of my circumstances. 8 months later after ensuring that I was ready for the job, Petri resigned and I got the job. It was fun and challenging to lead a multicultural team of 15  staff members, it got even more challenging when my team grew to 22 staff and my portfolio of products grew as well.

I know what my detractors and supporters are thinking « this is great but do you think that Barack Obama would have been elected if he didn’t enter politics? » True but he was a lawyer, an activist and an exceptional leader and orator before joining politics. From my point of view, there are different ways of doing politics other than campaigning and getting elected, we citizens can influence politics if we really want to. Take the « Tea Party »in the United States, Amnesty International, Green Peace for examples, they don’t get elected but god they make sure they get heard. In the era of social media, I believe we can do a lot of good by using this amazing tool responsibly in order to reclaim our power and freedom to be humans and humanist, how?  By promoting kindness, mindfulness, empathy, understanding, compassion, love, peace in order to eliminate different kinds of hatred such as hatred against black people, against women, against homosexuals, against Jewish, against Muslims,against transsexuals, against poor and rich people and so on in other words against anything or anyone we are not familiar with. History has justified these types of hatred economically, politically, religiously, socially and geo-politically but why or Lord why so much hatred? This is apparently due to the fear of the « Unknown » but I think it is because we don’t love ourselves enough, we don’t accept our deceptions, our failures, our weaknesses, our misery and as a defense mechanism we blame others, which is a lot easier than taking responsibility of your own problems.

Yes there are many difficult and complex issues in Mayotte but no one will solve them for us.We can write books or blogs but actions speak louder than words. I read this morning on Facebook that Mayotte is the  troubled and unloved child of the French Republic and I partially agree with this statement but the Mahorais need to « man up »and take charge of their own destiny rather than awaiting the French Government to hand them the solutions on a golden plate. Let’s start by loving ourselves, accepting our heritage as a former colony and as being part of the Comoros archipelago, accepting and respecting our differences and imperfections. Let’s stop winging about the situation, making it difficult for educated and/or qualified people to live and work in Mayotte, isolating or labeling people criticising the system as enemies, hiring a member of family instead of someone competent, feeling inferior because we are black and Muslim, believing that people who criticise part of our customs such as Polygamy or the ludicrously expensive  weddings are not proud of being Mahorais.

These topics will be embedded into the Festival in August and we hope we will have many supporters to make this event successful. Not only do we need financial support but we also need volunteers, artists ( singers, dancers, players of any musical instruments, fashion designers), interventions of different kinds of entrepreneurs and professionals ( cooks, gardeners, journalists,pharmacists, doctors, surgeons, nurses, healthcare assistants, social workers, builders, air hostesses, translators, teachers, CEOs etc…)

Remember that any human being can make our future bright.