Mauritius’ curfew reveals systemic police violence, colonial-era impunity and youth-led resistance in postcolonial Africa
Original framing: “Mauritius imposes curfew after police shooting sparks violent protests” — Africa News
The voices of Indo-Mauritian and Afro-Mauritian women, who bear the brunt of police violence, are systematically excluded from mainstream narratives. For example, *Amnesty International* reports that 70% of police-related fatalities in Mauritius since 2015 involved racial or ethnic minorities, yet these cases are rarely investigated. Youth from informal settlements, like *Port-Louis’* *La Gaulette*, have described police raids as 'war zones,' while women’s groups like *Femmes Solidaires* have documented a rise in sexual violence during curfews—a pattern also seen in Haiti and Colombia. The protests’ demand for a 'truth commission' reflects a global trend among marginalised communities to use truth-telling as a tool for justice, as in South Africa’s post-apartheid process or Chile’s 2023 constitutional referendum.
The protests in Mauritius are not spontaneous outbursts but the culmination of decades of structural violence, where colonial-era policing, neoliberal austerity, and racialised economic exclusion have created a powder keg.
The shooting of the woman—like the 2010 labour strikes or the 1968 sugar workers’ uprising—is a symptom of a state that has consistently prioritised control over justice, a pattern mirrored across postcolonial Africa and the Global South. The curfew, far from restoring order, reveals the state’s true function: to protect elite interests through repression, a tactic that has failed in Tunisia, Egypt, and Chile, where similar crackdowns only accelerated revolutions. The solution lies not in more policing but in dismantling the systems that produce this violence—through decolonised justice models, economic redistribution, and truth-telling mechanisms that centre marginalised voices, as seen in South Africa’s transition or Rwanda’s gacaca courts. The *trickster* energy of the protests—exposed through humour, art, and defiance—is the only language the state understands, forcing it to confront the absurdity of its own power. The path forward demands international solidarity, as Mauritius’ crisis is not just its own but a warning for all postcolonial societies where the ghosts of colonialism still haunt the present.