From: Samson Negassi (samson_negassi@yahoo.co.uk)
Date: Fri Jan 16 2009 - 06:43:30 EST
Why the bad News?
One of the things I do when I wind down in the
evenings and weekends is follow the news, particularly about Eritrea and
Africa. Update myself about the situations in the horn of Africa and the world
in general. A friend once said to me, as soon as he wakes up in the morning the
first thing he does is put his Radio-on just to make sure he is not the only
one alive and also to find out if there were any developments that might have
happened in the world while he was asleep; in case aliens invaded the world. I
personally think that is too much of a paranoia, but I don’t blame my friend
for being paranoid.
As most of us know, media has become one way of
controlling the public. Control through manipulation, by instilling paranoia
and fear. Using the power of propaganda and counting on the gullibility of the
masses, fear and hate are injected into the minds of the population towards a
scapegoat to divert attention from the facts and having total control over the
destinies of ordinary people. The world population is bogged down in dealing
with all the hustle and bustle of daily living and as a result become
passive.
If we look at the situation in the Middle East for
instance, weapons of mass-destruction were echoing on radios, televisions and newspapers.
Saddam Hussein, the one time very good ally of the American administration
during the tragic Iraq and Iran war, suddenly became the prime enemy.
Situations changed and the tragedy of 9-11 occurred and a scapegoat had to be
found and then followed the hate propaganda. “Weapons of mass destruction that
can put the world in danger were being invented in Iraq”. This was one way of
injecting fear and paranoia. Now we know there were no weapons of mass
destruction, the media diverts the world population from the realty. Questions
have not been answered, to the contrary more lame reasons are fed through the
media to cause more fear.
There was an English lady I use to work with and
one day we were talking about the situations in Middle East. My lady colleague
was passionately talking about how cruel and dangerous Saddam was and how the
Iraqi people are suffering. I took my time and heard what she had to say and
asked her why she thought Saddam was a cruel man and she evasively replied by
asking me, “didn’t you see the news last night? I mean our boys are there to
free the Iraqi people from that monster,” I asked why she believed everything
she saw in the news? She said, “Well there is a correspondent there and you
could see Iraqis talk about all the suffering they went through under Saddam.”
I asked if she knew where Iraq was and she said, “somewhere near Saudi Arabia
or somewhere in Asia”. This lady hated Saddam without knowing much about what
he did. I quietly asked, if she knew that more Iraqis are dying after the
country was invaded by US and UK? There was a pause and grim stare. I looked
away and carried on with what I was doing. She still kept on looking at me and
asked, “So where did you get that from?” and I replied by asking which TV
channel she watched the news about Iraq? By then she was angry that she was
looking at me unhappily. “I don’t know, I think BBC”
The Iraq issues are the least of my colleague’s
priority. She does not care about what happens in Iraq. For this reason she has
no interest in verifying the facts from different sources. She has become
totally passive. I sometimes hear her talking very excitingly about television
soap film ‘Bookside’ when Anthony kills Imelda Clough. She even encouraged me
to watch. Watching Brookside or any other TV soap film is not bad at all, but
it can completely detach one from the reality.
Unfortunately The Media has become above the law.
It is able to disadvantage or discredit anyone with no evidence. It can and
does alter the course of history and directly affects our futures. All the
atrocities and crimes in the horn of Africa are barely mentioned. When suddenly
Norwegian ship is hijacked, or when a journalist throws his shoes at the out
going American president George W Bush, then suddenly it becomes a headline.
It’s all about interest.
When we come to the Eritrean affairs, it's a very
unique situation. Presently in Africa, we have a terrorist regime in Ethiopia.
This minority regime used more than 120,000 Ethiopian soldiers as cannon fodder
and invaded Eritrea, but was defeated legally and militarily by Eritrea and the
Eritrean freedom was preserved and Eritrea maintained her peaceful intentions
by signing the Algiers agreement in front of guarantors. The minority Ethiopian
servant regime had to sign, as there was no other option left, but is still
being spoon fed by western countries specially the US administration and
occupies Eritrean territories like Badme and also invaded another sovereign
country Somalia.
The media barely mentions these crimes, because
the owners have to serve their interests as well. Westerners own most of the
media outlets and their business is generated mainly from the western countries
and they won’t broadcast the tremendous developments of Eritrea or others who
are fighting for the truth.
Serving the
TRUTH
Child slave labour has been going on here in
Britain for years and the British Newspaper industry has got away with it for
years. Children who are paid a pittance are up at 4am in the morning, whilst
the media executives who earn a lot of money are still in bed sleeping off a
bottle of whisky.
The Media industry pretends to offer balanced
reportage and information in order for the viewers, listeners or readers to
make up their own mind, but in-fact they are directing the viewers’, listeners’
or readers’ attention to what the media want them to know. What the public
needs to know and those alternatives that are chosen to project the truth are
censored and the media restricts independent thought; manipulating the minds of
people who soon become zombies. With no self-restraint, any legal and moral
code, the media controls people through the manipulation of stereotypes and
prejudice, which endangers all minorities. Bad news has become the norm, the
daily news. Systems are being orchestrated to cause violence, black on black
shooting, stabbing, drug abuse etc. By
inciting victimisation, which it can then reported as ‘news’, it turns
different cultures and beliefs to each other in order to increase its influence
and its wealth.
By forming the illusion of debates media out lets
like BBC seem to be offering choice but the ability for the viewer or reader to
respond on equal terms at the pace of his or her own intellect is denied and
they are pacified into not challenging. TV and the Media at large, actually
construct the character and morality of their viewers to serve their own
purposes and in a most insidious, continual way they control and manipulate
society itself, creating desires, images and emotions within an individual on a
mass scale.
Internet
My 16 years old niece has her own website and she
enjoys showing off her drawing and design skills there. She has mastered the
use of internet and also uses it for her educational purposes, but she is only
allowed one hour on it and a program
which monitors her surfing activities is installed on her PC by her parents.
A website is a collection of pages images, videos
or other digital assets that are accessible via the Internet.
Nowadays acquiring information has become so easy that, a lot have become
dependent on the Internet. Some would literally spend days and even nights in
front of their PC. It is as cheap as £20 a year to own a website, depending on
how much digital information you upload and how many pages you have. A website
usually is used to spread News and information. The racist far right group, the
British National Party (BNP) posts hate and racist messages on their website,
but their evil, medieval and unenlightened ideology is completely ignored and
blocked by the modern and forward thinking majority that they lose hope from
day to day.
There are some Eritrean websites equivalent to the
racist group BNP. Some Eritrean individuals with similar or even worst ideology
than the racist group own them. The ‘Braking News’ written on these websites
are mostly fabricated and the aim is to cause division and chaos. I sometimes
visit these sites to amuse myself. And they are really beyond a joke. They
would write any trash to cause confusion and division. Their wishful fantasy
goes beyond limit. Any bad news is good news for them and they become monsters
of their own making. They would go extra mile to cause havoc, paranoia and fear
amongst Eritreans. They are getting paid to serve those who are looking to
dominate. They take themselves so seriously that they believe their own lies.
They would try to discredit the facts and would write anything to destabilise
and divide.
Panic and fear benefits those who have agenda of
domination. Media was responsible for the hellish ethnic cleansing in Rwanda.
One million Rwandans died and the media instigated the disaster, but the
majority of the world populations were oblivious to this. Help never got there
on time, but later it was broadcasted as’News’. “Africans killing each other”.
The real reason was never told.
The process nation building of building does ask a
vision and perseverance. Eritrea learns and Eritrea delivers. Eritrean unity
brought and preserved freedom and good News is what Eritrea is used to. The
corrupted media will never destabilise this sacred nation. Let’s stay vigilant
and expose the servants with medieval and unenlightened backward ideologies and
block them from our united society.
Glory to The Eritrean Martyrs
Success to Warsay Ykalo
Awet N’Hafash.
Samson Negassisamson_negassi@yahoo.co.uk