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Monday, September 19, 2005

Le reportage d'Envoye Special sur les enfants-sauteurs

Vous avez vu "Envoye Special" de la semaine derniere? Il vient de repasser sur TV5 Orient lundi soir. Au debut, je voulais parler du reportage sur les "enfants-sauteurs". C'est absolument horrible! Des enfants au Tchad qui sont enchaines en guise d'education, pour ceux consideres "recalcitrants"! J'etais revoltee avant meme d'avoir vu le reportage, juste avec les extraits. Ils sautent parce qu'ils ont des chaines au pieds qui les empechent de marcher. Leurs mains aussi. Le reportage a finalement montre des images d'enfants envoyes dans des ecoles dites coraniques. En fonction de l'ecole, le pourcentage d'enfants enchaines varie (de 0 a plus des 2/3 des enfants). Puis au fur et a mesure que je voyais le reportage, je me suis peu a peu detachee du sujet (que je croyais etre) originel, pour me rendre compte que le reportage etait une parfaire recette de cuisine pour traumatiser le telespectateur occidental.

Je m'explique: plutot que de vraiment se concentrer sur la problematique des enfants enchaines (qui etait censee etre le coeur du sujet), le reportage mentionne que ce sont la des ecoles "coraniques" ou les enfants passent le journee entre recitation/ psalmodiation du Coran et mendicite, sont maltraites physiquement, qui se developpent proportionnellement aux mosquees qui gagnent du terrain, mosquees elles-memes financees par l'Arabie Saoudite, et qui convertissent contre leur gre des enfants nes chretiens... L'apocalypse quoi! Ah oui, plus un zest d'incompetence evidente du gouvernement tchadien, demontree par une interview de la Ministre tchadienne des Affaires Sociales qui affirme ne pas etre au courant que des enfants dans de telles ecoles, sont enchaines, et aussi un peu de "retard civilisationnel" en termes de mentalites, avec le chauffeur du reporter qui dit ouvertement que ce n'est pas une mauvaise chose que d'enchainer un enfant s'il a la tete dure...

Ce qui me gene, ici, c'est la maniere dont le reportage a ete monte, en reprenant purement et simplement tous les ingredients actuels pour choquer et faire peur les Occidentaux. Je ne dis pas que l'analyse de la situation sur le sujet est necessairement fausse. Mais elle est guidee des le depart par le reportage et son objectif, et empeche le telespectateur d'analyser la situation. Car, il ne faut pas l'oublier, a l'origine, le sujet est serieux: maltraitance des enfants! Ce n'est pas un sujet qu'on aborde avec de l'emotionnel, mais avec du sang-froid et de la rigueur.

Par contre, on append brievement au cours du reportage que le succes de ces ecoles est egalement lie au fait qu'elles sont gratuites (ce qui n'est pas le cas de l'ecole publique au Tchad, si je me souviens bien)! Et que c'est un moyen pour les familles pauvres d'eduquer leurs enfants. On peut alors comprendre qu'un des facteurs de developpement de ces ecoles est leur gratuite, et non pas l'expansion d'un mode de pensee extremiste, dans lequel il n'y pas de place pour les droits de l'Homme, de l'Enfant ou de la Femme. Mais cela est tres brievement dit dans le reportage, trop brievement.

Et pour couronner le tout, le reporter qui interviewe un "marabout" (ou directeur de ces ecoles dites "coraniques" ou encore "centre de dressage") d'une des ecoles les plus dures, en lui demandant s'il a l'intention d'accueillir egalement des filles (parce que jusqu'a aujourd'hui, il n'y a que des garcons dans ces ecoles). Le marabout: oui, mais pas tout de suite, car il n'y a pas assez de place. Et le reporter d'enchainer: "Alors si je suis musulman, et si ma femme n'est pas tres fidele, euh??...", et le marabout qui repond aussitot: "Oui oui, on peut la prendre, 3 mois, 6 mois, formation rapide..." Et voila les droits de la Femmes bafoues! Le probleme c'est que c'est cousu de fil blanc: le reporter a vraiment cree les conditions afin d'obtenir une telle reponse, propre a lever un tolle en Europe sur les droits de la femme. Et cela serait justifie, en soi. Ce qui l'est beaucoup moins, c'est la manipulation du reporter afin d'utiliser tous les ingredients, a bonne dose, pour engendrer une image panique sur le Tchad, l'extremisme musulman et son internationalisation.

Au final, plutot que d'etre revoltee par le sujet des enfants enchaines soi-disant pour leur education, j'etais enervee contre le parti-pris du reportage. Et cela me pousse a me questionner sur l'ampleur immense du pouvoir des medias, la deontologie, les droits et devoirs du journalisme, des citoyens... C'est effrayant! En tant que citoyenne du monde, je me sens bien petite et demunie face a un tel pouvoir...

Pour info, j'ai egalement trouve cet article:
Africatime

Friday, September 09, 2005

Latest Pew Research Poll on Bush’s handling of Katrina

Two-In-Three Critical Of Bush's Relief Efforts. Huge Racial Divide Over Katrina and Its Consequences

The American public is highly critical of President Bush’s handling of Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. Two-in-three Americans (67%) believe he could have done more to speed up relief efforts, while just 28% think he did all he could to get them going quickly. At the same time, Bush’s overall job approval rating has slipped to 40% and his disapproval rating has climbed to 52%, among the highest for his presidency. Uncharacteristically, the president’s ratings have slipped most among his core constituents – Republicans and conservatives.

The disaster has triggered a major shift in public priorities. For the first time since the 9/11 terror attacks, a majority of American say it is more important for the president to focus on domestic policy than the war on terrorism. And the poll finds that Katrina has had a profound psychological impact on the public. Americans are depressed, angry and very worried about the economic consequences of the disaster. Fully 58% of respondents say they have felt depressed because of what’s happened in areas affected by the storm. In recent years, this percentage is only surpassed by the 71% that reported feeling depressed in a survey taken just days after the Sept. 11 attacks.

The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted Sept. 6-7 among 1,000 Americans, including an oversample of African Americans, finds a huge racial divide in perceptions of the disaster and lessons to be learned from Katrina’s aftermath. For example, 71% of blacks say the disaster shows that racial inequality remains a major problem in the country; a majority of whites (56%) feel this was not a particularly important lesson of the disaster. And while 66% of blacks think that the government’s response to the crisis would have been faster if most of the storm’s victims had been white, an even larger percentage of whites (77%) disagree.

View complete report

Monday, September 05, 2005

A Different Tune For An 'Act of God'

When we wake up from the nightmare that the first decade of the third millennium has turned out to be, I suspect that many of us would be happy that we survived at all. In the first five years of this new century alone, we have witnessed both human cruelty and nature's fury in a grand scale. Pictures of gruesome brutality have become a 'fact of life' for this generation of mankind - a never-ending reality show of death and inhumanity proliferated with greater ease through new media, communication, and information technology. Man's darkest nature has been more readily exposed in these last few years through violent conflict, shameless criminality and pronounced incompetence. Terrorism, war, and natural disasters are what will undoubtedly mark our collective memories of this treacherous decade.

As the sun sets on these difficult times, those who claim great leadership in the face of man-made brutality may very well end up exposed by nature as nothing but a falsehood - a lightening rod that promises to deliver light to our dark alleys but ends up setting fire to our neighborhood trees. Men become entrapped in the incompetent and arrogant clutches of false leadership because they desperately fear and selfishly hope. Yet, it is always that invincible cruelty of nature that returns to fully expose the true disposition of the ability, sincerity, and character we claim to possess.

In the aftermath of this latest human tragedy in the Gulf Coast of the United States, many, including some close allies of the current administration, have loudly criticized the federal response to Katrina, especially in New Orleans where the storm left behind a sea of devastation, death and desperation. As the recovery efforts continue, I have no doubt that such criticism will intensify and congressional inquiries into leadership failures pre- and post-disaster will follow.

This is now a whole different situation politically than post-9/11, when a full and honest critique of leadership was unattainable. Criticism at the time was immediately labeled by the rabid pundits of the new political elite as "sympathy and apology for terrorism" - The slogan was: "Blaming the preparedness and response of the government to 9/11 is tantamount to siding with the terrorists". This blackmailing tactic worked beautifully in that it silenced even the most daring of critics and turned the US media - with a very few exceptions - into a lap dog of the reigning political elite for the better half of this decade - repeating scripted 'Talking Points' at nauseam so as to manufacture public consent for incompetent, self-interested, and arrogant policies - This in a democracy where the sacred duty of journalism is supposed to be monitoring the centers of power on behalf of the citizens of this republic.

Now, things are different. Natural disasters have a way of making pro-government arguments made in the aftermath of criminal acts like 9/11 difficult to repeat. What will they say this time? "Blaming the preparedness and response of the government to Katrina is tantamount to siding with GOD"!!?? Things are different now, because Americans died (possibly in numbers superior to those of 9/11) and there is no foreign force to blame for that - no terrorists and no "axis of evil" governments - Just "God", and no one likes to blame God especially within the political base of the current administration. It is after all an irony of life that those who assert monopoly over divine inspiration and mission find themselves often contradicted by the same force whose truth they claim to hold.

The political landscape is surely going to see a readjustment in the next few months and years although the extent of such change remains unclear. But it is certain that things are different now and that the political supremacy some current elements have enjoyed during recent years, especially since 9/11 is bound to crack. Some leading senators and political figures are already recognizing this and they are gradually shifting positions - moving chess pieces - whether it is on Iraq or domestic policy.

Katrina exposed more than the unpreparedness of the bureaucratic child of 9/11, the Department of Homeland Security, and the lack of leadership at the executive level of government. It also exposed the failure of this nation to eradicate poverty within its own borders and to fully integrate its African American community some 42 years since Dr Martin Luther King professed his dream on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. In fact, all members of Congress have to do is take a 10-minute cab trip from the Capitol to South East DC to find this out for themselves. The images of Katrina's aftermath will affect the short-term political discourse in this country at least until forgetfulness returns to condemn anew the less privileged and the most vulnerable to the cruelty of neglect.

An economist once said that risk in politics is the combination of hazard and outrage - the latter being the main driver. When outrage is high, then risk is perceived to require immediate and bold action. The outrage of Katrina's aftermath is surely going to command some changes, although one can only speculate as to the extent of those changes. Will there be an end to Pork in the legislative process? Will congressional funds be finally allocated to sustainable programs that bring about real change to this country's most vulnerable communities? Will impulsive foreign policy moves be accounted for and restrained? Will bureaucratic waste and incompetence be curtailed? Will there be accountability for poor leadership?...Probably all wishful thinking, but if anything, we are entitled to dream just a little longer.