2023-07-10 14:49:29
Do you know the Milles Collines radio station?
Maybe yes, maybe no! I will still venture to tell you part of the story. Once upon a time, not very long ago, a radio, it was only a radio, had made itself the voice of the frustrations, grudges and other political ambitions in a country by raising the populations against others on “ethnic”, cultural and sometimes even religious grounds. Chaos had finally set in, killings, looting and rape punctuated the life of the populations for 100 days, causing around a million deaths. You have now understood, it is Rwanda where Radio des Mille Collines was one of the strategic operators of the 1994 genocide. A “genocide that could have been avoided”, as the “Report of the international group of eminent persons to investigate the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and its consequences” bitterly regrets, produced on behalf of the African Union.
But the fact is that it happened and the Thousand Hills played a major role in it. In the hunt for “cockroaches” the Tutsis and moderate Hutus, the genocidaires held the radio station broadcasting from the Thousand Hills in one hand and the machete in the other. The radio directed them to their victims. It is necessary to meditate in Nyamata, Murambi, Bisereso or to visit the memorial of Gisozi to realize the sufferings undergone by the Rwandan people and the misdeeds of a tendentious communication.
Comparison not being right, far from me the idea that France 24 is in the apology of a genocide. It is clear, however, that it is at the service of chaos not only in Senegal, but throughout the Sahel and more particularly in the French-speaking world.
In Senegal, a television channel (Walf TV) which delighted in this exercise lost its signal several times and the social networks which were in this dynamic suffered the same fate. These are local players to whom local solutions have been provided.
But compared to France 24, which is owned by the French state within the “France Médias Monde” group, with its striking power, we are in another dimension. In short, it is the voice of France and the editorial line is that of France. Consequently, what France 24 does reflects France’s strategic choices and it is clear, with bitterness as far as I am concerned, that it is seriously mistaken.
I’m not going to go back over the postures and attitudes of certain former French ambassadors to Senegal, who believed they were still in a colony, but it is clear that the voice of France in Senegal, in Africa in general, is tendentious, not to say fallacious.
It is a truism to say that Senegal has gone through areas of turbulence in recent years and that political confrontations have taken on a dimension hitherto unknown with unprecedented violence, destruction and stigmatization. Extremely violent expressions such as the “mortal combat”, “France releases” or the linguistic aversion “Man is his parent” borrowed from the language of the street have been carried by the political sub-elites who are not carriers of any ideal programmatic.
The considerable damage to public facilities, fires in universities, looting of supermarkets, Auchan in particular, fires that destroy the asphalt of tarred roads, etc., if they sometimes reflect frustration, are much less spontaneous what they want us to believe. The political agendas are increasingly clear and there is no doubt that the State of Senegal, the Senegalese in general, have taken full measure of the issues and will take the necessary corrective measures.
It is in this context that the positioning of France 24, a mix between paternalism, otherness and imperial messianism, challenges. The French suburbs have been on the rise for years due to an institutionalized policy of exclusion, which African media has made a big deal out of it? France was expelled from Burkina Faso, Mali and may soon be in other African countries. He must therefore know how to read the time of the world and learn from it.
Coming back to Senegal, the press release from the Minister of Communication, Telecommunications and the Digital Economy reframed the French media and set the red line. Enough is enough and we have to whistle the end of recess. “Stupidity in Saturday night clothes” on the France 24 sets where experts in everything, with learned thoughts that infantilize Africa, sometimes with the contributions of a few Africans, very often natural children of adjustment policies , must cease. What the Minister knows and what France Media World knows, the transmitters of RFI are housed in the transmitter centers of TDS SA, the public broadcasting company of Senegal. France 24 and RFI are entities under the supervision of France Média Monde.
Pr Hamad Bocoum
Director General of the Museum of Black Civilizations
Dakar / Senegal
Full Research Director
Exceptional class
Member of the National Academy of Sciences
1689001210
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