Christina Meetoo

On Media, Society and Mauritius

Society

My trip to Madagascar

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radiomadagascar
I was in Madagascar for three days last week upon an invitation of the FES (Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Foundation) to make a presentation on Freedom of Expression and of the Press at a workshop and to meet with local journalists. It was an eye-opening experience to witness all the difficulties faced by the local population and the journalists as well as other actors of civil society.

The political situation was very unstable and there were many crowd manifestations in town on the ‘Place du 1er Mai’ with some violent confrontations with the police resulting in many deaths, injured and arrests. Luckily, we were away from the hotel (which is just a few minutes walk from the hotspot) during the protests (which only take place between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. according to a local friend). But, I did see the pictures and reports in the local press which were quite alarming.

The workshop which targeted potential young leaders in Madagascar went on well with a wide variety of participants (from ministries, courts of justice, NGOs, private sector and the press). There were even mothers with their babies as the FES favours a gender approach and thus hosts the women participants and a nurse for their babies to allow them to attend the working sessions.

Malagasy Journalists under pressure
The next day, we also met with some local journalists to discuss about press freedom in Mauritius and Madagascar. Many could not attend due to the political crisis, some had even been called by the Ministry for some explanations about their coverage of the protests. Journalists work under a lot of pressure and have very small salaries and virtually no safety net. One leading blogger journalist even said she had been interrogated once by the police for being suspected of allegiance to an ex-vice PM. Yet, paradoxically, though our press looks freer than theirs, they have lots of private TV stations whereas we have none. They have an ‘Ordre des Journalistes’ which we do not have. It would seem they have the proper framework but application is lacking and political tensions override the democratic system.

Before the workshop, we visited the remains of Radio Madagascar and TVM, which were both burned down by rioters in January. Radio Madagascar is not functioning any more as it is completely devastated but TVM is operating a minimum service with equipment recuperated from the presidential palace and personal equipment brought in by the journalists themselves. They had apparently just received state-of-the-art equipment a few months ago, which had been funded by a German organisation, all of which have vanished into black fumes.

Overall, it was a very enriching experience despite the crisis. It was sad to see the poor people living and working on the streets in very extreme conditions which make our island look like a very very modern country. But, at the same time, one could sense that there is enormous potential for development. It will all depend on how the political decision makers sort out their problems and decide or not to help their people and lift the country out of poverty…

malagsayhousesmadagascar-peoplemalagasychildrenmalagsaypeople2

You can see more pics of the trip on Flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/noulakaz/sets/72157617434114366/

The ethnic epidemic-Republic of Mauritius

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Photo courtesy of Avinash

Since the last few days, the talk of the town has been the unconstitutionality of the swearing in of three deputy prime ministers in this country. As we all know, these were designated to supposedly reassure the minority ethnic groups of this country (i.e. the Muslims, the Creoles and the Tamils). A silly calculation which most of our political leaders cannot seem to get rid of and most probably never will. It makes me even sadder when I hear some commentators claiming that if we are not careful to take everyone onboard, then there are risks… Surely, members of all the different ethnic groups of this country are not always carrying their ethnic-formulae packed calculators with them and assessing all decisions regarding nomination decisions in this country!

True, we have to take into consideration how representative our elected members of parliament are with respect to the demographics. BUT, it is saddening to see that we tend to focus only or much more on the ethnic criterion in this country. We also forget that competence is much more important. It should actually be THE factor par excellence. Then, if we can have wider ethnic representation so much the better but COMPETENCE should be the prime criterion, don’t you think?

A silly idea has come to my brain recently: what if we looked for a proper mixed-blood candidate for President / PM / etc. (with 50% Hindu, 16% Muslim, 3% Chinese and 31% General Population ancestors – based on the very dated 1972 census which is still used for the Best Loser System). Then, we’d be sure he or she is really representative of the population, isn’t it?

In any case, I wonder what extra duties these people have done just because they have been nominated DPM? Our Constitution provides for only one DPM and rightly so because he/she (hey, no-one talked about gender when more than 50% of the population is female!) can replace the PM when the latter is abroad (or dies or is sick or whatever…).

As for the successor of the President (which according to many may well be the current one himself), it’s the same story that is being dished out to us. Talk about a rancid meal, hey?

A play you must see: BARAZ
Incidentally, there was a very nice play which was staged on campus yesterday by Gaston Valayden and his Sapsiway group with the help of Amnesty International. It is a very simple story of two families from two different communities which are at loggerheads and decide to build a fence between their houses. The play is vibrantly acted by very able actors and the references are very realistic. It has a very harsh but true depiction of how our local politicians use divisive techniques (‘NOU BANNE’ vs ‘ZOT BANNE’) to gain votes and maintain the population in intellectual infancy.

The representation comes, according to me, at a very telling moment when the very loudspoken so-called representatives of ethnic groups of this country are competing to plead for ministers from their group in the context of a possible reshuffling of cabinet.

Speaking of cabinet, this makes me want to flush out all those silly people with silly arguments that can only make us become more silly as a nation. Cry, our beloved country!

Back to life

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Photo courtesy of Avinash

This blog has been dormant since May (yes, more than 4 months). So, it’s about time I brought it back to life. What happened? Well, the usual. Got busy doing many things, inter alia,
– playing a very tiny role in Wassim Sookia’s last film Rouzblézonnver, which won lots of first prizes in the MFDC festival
– acting as member of Mauritian assessment panel for the African Media Barometer of the Friedrich Ebert Stieftung Foundation
– being part of several committees for media campaigns at national level
– organising talks and being invited to several others
– getting busy for the UOM Research Week where we had the opportunity to test our cameras for micro-interviews with some volunteer students acting as journalists
– and of course, fun with the family at the hotel and for a series of birthday parties (no less than three parties for Anya alone!)

The latest activity was today when we were invited to a digital video conference at the US embassy about the nominating conventions for US presidential elections. This was the second DVC I attended and it was quite interesting though fraught with technical problems (aha, our infamous internet connection) and also intense debate between the speakers from Paris (a Republican vs. a Democrat!).

There were also some high profile local politicians (specially from the Opposition) which limited opportunities for asking questions as they tended to be given priority. It’s sometimes funny to see how politicians turn up and become active for all sorts of events when they are in the Opposition. Naturally when in government, they have other things, more important to do, which must have been the case of current members of government, of course, since they did not turn up…

Radio One show on political communication

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I was at Radio One this morning and was Finlay Salesse’s guest on a show about the political communication of local parties, especially in the context of Labour Day meetings.

We talked about the techniques and strategies used by our politicians to communicate with their audiences, their posters, their communication advisers, their websites, their willingness (or lack thereof) to participate in live debates on private radios, etc. and compared the Mauritian style of political communication with that of more advanced countries.

In sum, my main point was that our local politicians are completely archaic in their approach to communication. I tend to think that they need to rely on basic and superficial means that are loud, aggressive and even vulgar in order to mask the vacuum in terms of ideas and messages.

Treating us like dumb
Labour Day meetings are a complete waste of time, energy and resources. They don’t serve any constructive purpose and in fact, they do not contribute to the enlightenment of the masses, rather they treat ordinary citizens like dumb children who need to be cajoled, policed but never addressed in an intelligent manner. It is true that our voters do act in an immature way but do our decision-makers provide possibilities for acting differently? Do they treat the electorate as intelligent and capable of making their own judgements based on facts, ideas and more importantly to question the super-leaders?

Even within the parties themselves, there is not much space for democracy. There might be temporary attempts at intelligent debates but it is not part of the DNA of our local political scene too accustomed to low-level arguments and the notion that super-leaders are ‘ene tigin pli tipti ki bon dié’. Our parties are run like archaic, medieval structures and even would-be ‘ténors’ within them toe the line for fear of losing their chances of climbing the hierarchy and get that so desirable possibility to be a candidate and later grab a ministry.

Young people are fed up with this situation and rightly so. It’s not the crowds of people in rallies/meetings that reflect what the masses think. Just like polls are not fool-proof. The grassroots are bored and tired. The only thing they can actually do is choose parties (not even candidates — as goes the local saying, ‘prend ene pié banane, peine li couleur parti ki pé gagner, li pou éli’) which are the least worst according to their personal judgement. A sad situation indeed for our democracry…

Michael Moore’s Sicko

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Yesterday, we went to preview Michael Moore’s Sicko at the Star Cinema (thanks Joanna!). Both Avinash and myself agree that Moore’s last documentary is way much better than Farenheit 9/11 with which we had not been impressed at all. In fact, I had been totally disappointed with the amateurish cinematography of Farenheit 9/11 and thought it did not deserve the Palme d’Or at all. But, I guess at the time, they wanted to reward Moore’s daring in terms of political content rather than his filmmaking skills…

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Moore’s mastery of cinematography and story-telling have much improved since then. In Sicko, he does not use any of the facile tricks he used in Farenheit and he succeeds in providing a compelling narrative that casts hundreds of protagonists: the sad clients of health insurance companies in the USA. He paints a very dark picture of the American health care system whose sole objective seems to be money at the expense of their clients. Moore shows a vast mafia-like organisation that lobbies the American Congress and even buys top politicians including his ‘dear’ friend George Bush so that laws that allow them to literally rob their clients get voted. And he visits several countries (Canada, UK, France and even Cuba) to show how the US system is perverse in comparison.

That film made us not want to live in the US, at all. Even made us thankful that we live in Mauritius where there is a quite decent free public health care. And here I’m specially thinking of my mother who had successful major heart surgery for free a few years ago…