03 ISSUE II
JANUARY 2025
JANUARY 2025
Marooning in the Present
Recent political developments in Mauritius suggest that the histories of marronage can expand our vision of politics, particularly regarding environmental struggles and resistance.
By Christina Wong
Growing up in Mauritius, I often heard snippets about the island’s maroon legacy–of enslaved people, mostly of African descent, who led a series of armed revolts and guerrilla acts against their white oppressors.
They were known as Maroons. Marronage historically refers to self-liberation by enslaved people who escaped colonial plantations, often seeking refuge in challenging terrains and leading insurgencies against settlements by white colonists. From the beginning of European colonization in the 16th century to the abolition of slavery in the 1830s, Maroon resistance consistently threatened colonizers from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. Today, in many post-colonial nations, marronage remains a significant historical memory and cultural heritage, inspiring contemporary struggles for justice and anti-colonial resistance.
In Mauritius, where slavery was only abolished in 1835, uncontrollable maroon resistance was an important factor that drove the Dutch to leave the island. Under French rule, Governor Mahé de Labourdonnais prioritized suppressing marronage, heavily investing in maréchaussée (militias pursuing maroons). The threat of marronage was well-known, partly due to revolts in colonies in the Atlantic, prompting revisions to the Indian Ocean Black Code in 1723 to intensify surveillance and punishment. Despite these inhumane tactics, marronage endured until abolition and beyond, with indentured laborers also escaping plantations.
This enduring spirit of resistance, which transcends borders, inspired me to explore its relevance as a transformative framework today. I was particularly drawn to how maroon communities in the Caribbean and South America created ecological alternative systems at the margins of capitalist expansion. While studying at the Graduate Program in International Affairs at The New School, I became interested in whether Mauritius’s Maroon legacy could inform a new politics—including environmental politics—and, in the process, challenge the ethnonationalist (i.e. “communalist”) tendencies in its post-independence era.
Mauritius, an island nation uninhabited before European colonization, was shaped by successive colonial rule by the Dutch, French, and British. Mauritius became independent in 1968. Since then, Mauritius has been shaped by communalism—a political structure inherited from colonialism, in which ethnic (or essentially religious and racial) affiliations become the principal means to express political choice. The British-drafted constitution maintained after independence codified colonial-era demographic classifications, simplifying the diverse population as Indo-Mauritians (52 percent), Muslims (sixteen percent), and Sino-Mauritians (three percent). The “General Population” (29 percent) is considered a “residual category.” Though the General Population includes Franco-Mauritians or whites (one percent), it mainly applies to Creoles (those identifying with African or mixed ancestry). The political result of communalism is that the white Franco-Mauritian elite sustains their economic hegemony while the Indo-Mauritian majority monopolizes state power.
Historical memory–its construction, negotiation, and reproduction–has played a key role in deepening communal divides through competing narratives of ancestral histories. In these contests, Creole communities’ histories and narratives are often marginalized and delegitimized. Invoking the history of marronage since the late 1990s provided Creoles with a counter-narrative to assert legitimacy, collective identity, and agency. Despite this necessary re-reading of history, scholars argue that heritage-making in Mauritius remains confined within communalist boundaries, rejecting hybridity and heterogeneity for purist identities.
An important political vehicle for maroon-inspired politics in Mauritius is Rezistans ek Alternativ (ReA), an eco-socialist party founded in 2005. ReA has used commemorative activities for the abolition of slavery to reframe discussions on slavery and maroon history to align with their anti-capitalist environmental discourse. For years, ReA has advocated for the constitutional recognition of marronage as the foundational act of liberation in Mauritius, honoring maroon leaders like Anna of Bengale and Ratsitatane as national heroes and freedom fighters. In 1695, Anna of Bengale and her maroon band burned Dutch Fort Frederick Hendrick, but were executed. In 1822, Ratsitatane, exiled from Madagascar, led a failed coup before being captured and executed, inspiring Mauritian songs and plays still today.
ReA highlights that slavery was a socio-economic system founded on the exploitation of both people and nature. ReA critiques the state’s support for local elites and corporate capture of resources, which in turn perpetuate systemic inequalities through policies on workers' rights, resource allocation, profit-driven development, and environmental governance. For ReA, dismantling capitalist ideologies entrenched in modern policies requires rethinking governance systems and creating alternative economies grounded in equitable resource distribution, food sovereignty, and sustainable production methods that align with the island’s diverse but fragile ecosystems.
Mauritius’ economic transition from a sugarcane monoculture economy to tourism and real estate has disproportionately benefited historic sugar oligarchs, who own most of the former plantation land. Smart cities and luxury hotel projects marketed as “sustainable” have increased gentrification and land prices, leading to the alienation and displacement of local communities. Unregulated development has deepened inequalities, destroying ecologically vital areas and exacerbating the climate crisis. Vulnerable communities bear the brunt of natural disasters like that of Cyclone Belal in January 2024. At the time, ReA leader Ashok Subron’s comment that policies prioritizing corporate interests dictate whose lives matter during natural disasters, struck a cord with voters. In November 2024, Mauritius held national elections. ReA joined the opposition Alliance du Changement coalition. It won three parliamentary seats.
Crucially, ReA has a history of anti-communalist politics. In Mauritius, electoral candidates were required to declare their ethnicity, but ReA has consistently challenged or attempted to bypass the rule. In 2005, for example, ReA candidates were disqualified for refusing to declare their ethnicity. After their candidates were rejected, ReA filed a case with the Supreme Court and took the matter to the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC), which ruled in their favor. A constitutional amendment was implemented in 2014 to remove the requirement but was reversed by the next government to come into power. Part of ReA’s agreement to join the Alliance du Changement coalition was to make the 2014 amendment permanent, eliminating the ethnic declaration criterion for political candidates.
The opposition coalition won the election, and Subron was appointed Minister of Social Integration, Social Security, and National Solidarity. ReA MP Kugan Parapen became Subron’s Junior Minister. In the new government, ReA is pushing for constitutional recognition of Anna of Bengale, revisiting a 2011 Truth and Justice Commission into slavery and indentured labor’s impacts on Mauritian society, reparations for environmental disaster victims, and continued government partnership on ecological and worker issues. In December, Subron made an official visit to Fort Frederick Hendrick, the site of Anna of Bengale’s 1695 insurgency.
However, a key test of ReA’s commitment to anti-colonial and anti-capitalist politics will be the struggle for Le Morne Mountain, a UNESCO World Heritage Site recognized for its significance in maroon resistance. Communities surrounding Le Morne are recognized as either descendants of enslaved people or maroons, as well as cultural guardians of the “slave-related” culture that evolved over generations. UNESCO recognizes the locals’ ecological knowledge, from semi-autonomous lifestyles to culinary, medicinal, artistic, and agrarian practices, all integral to the site's intangible heritage.
Despite plans for eco-tourism growth, most development projects have been short-term, funded by corporations or NGOs and luxury hotels and eco-tourism exploit the region’s cultural and ecological value, mirroring colonial patterns of extraction.
In writing about maroon ecology in the Caribbean, researcher Malcolm Ferdinand has argued that reassessing our relationship with nature is a precondition for social justice. This is even more critical as the climate crisis is often misrepresented as neutral, concealing its deep-rooted links with colonialism. My research in Mauritius suggests that the rich histories of marronage may hold the potential to further expand our vision of what is political in grappling with the unrestrained violence of extractivism, waste colonialism, carbon colonialism, neoliberalism, and all the other destructive “isms.”
Christina Wong holds an MA in International Affairs from The New School and is currently an instructor at Birzeit University and the Arab American University of Palestine.