CONSPIRACY OF THE CUSTODIAN

Unearthing the gone glory of the Media

Society grows or retards according to the information available to it and the actions forthwith which the pieces of information engineered. No other sector of the society makes the information available and effectively spread it other than the media. The media is the custodian of the society. Everything about a people is known through no other means than the media. The richness in culture, tradition not excluding the organisation of the country in politics and economics are portrayed to the outside world through the artistic exertions of journalism. The job of the journalist anywhere in the world can never be circumvented. In this, the journalists are committed to two guiding principles which are the umbilical cords of the job. Professionalism and Objectivity. In keeping to these ethics, they shoulder a large and heavy load; balancing facts and fictions, separating lies from truths and also keeping the nucleus of the society alive.

Many a time the journalists have swayed in their quest in the separation of facts and fictions as well as promoting more of lies than truths especially when the lies are paid for or wanted by the government of the host country. Propaganda. Loss of prestige. Fox News in the US is clearly notorious for propaganda in the US. Even the Canadian government rejected it as a local broadcasting station. It can only be watched via satellite in Canada. Aljazeera is clearly quite in the propaganda race too. I took special time to view the Arab Spring from different angles, always switching constantly consistently from CNN to Aljazeera. CNN was simply awesome in objectivity though the impression I had for long had about it was that of a Western media bulldog. Aljazeera clearly made it flagrantly known that the Qatari government did not like Maummar Gaddafi and Bashar al Assad. Marvelous propaganda. 'Un-professionalism' at its heights. When CNN was keen on the Bahrain protest and that of Saudi Arabia, complaining of Western connivance and silence, Aljazeera mentioned them in passing. Despite this, Aljazeera still has more educative, innovative and factual programmes than most international media.

Back home, the media in Africa is nothing but ordinary news arena, mostly imbalanced and uninteresting. Gory tales. Horrific news. The media is clearly more of an horror movie news industry. There is no gainsaying the fact that Africa has more of outrageous events than those that positively catch the mind but the media has forgotten that there is a generation to be nurtured after the heinous thieves ruling the continent might have been deposed or gone naturally to meet their king, Lucifer. I wonder if the tales of woes now are more than those of the past. Definitely by all standard NO. Africa now only needs more objectivity and problem-solving media criticism. Constructive criticism. Africa needs a media that will charge the system and not continue to make the thieves influential criminals. Africa needs a media that will tell the people what they need to do. Africa needs a media that will not be too quick to announce to the world that there is a riot after election as witnessed in Ghana.

During the US election, the Republicans objected to the process in Florida claiming they will contest the result. Many hiccups occurred in the process that produced Obama but all were kept at the base so that distractions will not occur. So also was that of George Bush. The media knows that it is capable of disrupting even the best electoral process in the world. Did we ever hear of the African-like election tales and stories? Rigging is so cheap in the US that only a $2 dollar microchip will perform the magic. Both the Republicans and Democrats know this. Who heard of Patraeus during the campaign and election? How about the US drone fired at by Iran? Media guides societies. Africa does not need a media that only makes bribery and corruption look institutionalised. Africa needs a media that juxtapose facts and developments in different African countries as well as in the world. Africa needs a media that will unearth the past and remake it for the modern age. Africa needs real investigative journalism.

When the continent was really hot with almost 2/3^rd of the wars and conflicts domiciled in it, the media of then still had time to broadcast educative programmes for children and youths. We also heard more from our parents. They contributed to the morals of many today. All these programmes we reminisce today as growing adults and we silently cry. The Tales by Moonlight (traditional African stories of great and dynamic morals), the Village Headmaster (western education in an indigenous act), Checkmate, Palace (showing real fatherly love). There were many too in indigenous languages. How about foreign ones? The most popular was the 'The Rich also Cry'. This movie gave many of us the strong-will that money is not all. We watched 'Passion' and realised the West (US) has charms and voodoo power too. So educative and informative. Programmes with near-adult contents like deep kissing were always broadcast at night where parents would have guided their children to bed. What we have today is extreme adult movies shown in broad daylight even on weekends when children will be at home mostly likely to view them. Where are the 'Power Rangers' and 'Voltron' that simulate a quasi-technology desire in us? All gone. Mexican soaps and even African-style porn mostly coming from Ghana have flooded the media.

We are a continent of great cultural heritage, envied by many in the world. Taking a leaf from China and India, we would see and realise that their cultural pattern influenced their developments. China's censorship of the media is mostly centred on political events. She did not make the mistake of allowing her awe-inspiring culture to be silenced. India is same. Porcelain today is China's traditional commodity and now re-packaged to be accepted in the modern world. Numerous documentaries about great China are shown on CCTV. India is doing same in NDTV. What do we have in Metro TV in Ghana? AIT and many others in Nigeria? Political news on corruption always; making these nefarious ones popular rather than contrast the past and their acts as well as broadcast programmes to show the upcoming ones that this was not the way it was and it can never continue. One day all must be revolutionalised for good. The media has gone along with the society in the extremely colossal search for wealth; thrown ethics, professionalism and objectivity into the thrash bin. No investigative journalism.

Youths need to know that African women were not slaves as portrayed by Western media. They need to know that traditional leadership in Africa was based on the interest of the people not the pockets. They need to know that slave trade and colonialism changed all these. They need to learn about the Amazon of Dahomey. They must know about Queen Amina of Zaria. They should be enlightened about Funmilayo Ransome Kuti. They must know about the Queen mother in the Kikuyu and Ashanti kingdoms. They must know how powerful they were before and immediately after Western-infested contacts. The West bribed African leaders and media not to broadcast 'The Root' again claiming it makes African children and youths hate them. What nonsense! So they never wanted hatred and they destroyed the future from slave trade to colonialism and now neocolonialism. Besides, 'The Root' never made us hate anyone, it built our resolve back then to build our Africa because we could not withstood the sufferings and felt we need to tell the world that Africa shall be free and advanced. I am so sure it will do same magic to the coming ones too.

They must learn that when African women were great traders and farmers, German men used chains and padlocks to lock the private parts of their women till around the 16^th century. They must know that no African woman ever disguised her name to be accepted by the society. The TS Elliot and others of today were women with the pseudonym of men because of the European male stigmatisation of women. African youths must know that all these historical and indigenous feats can be brought back and re-fashioned with modern trends. They need to know that no place is like home. The media needs to bring back the African nucleus for the coming generation if truly Africa must advance.

Gun Control: Inside the Real America

Gun Control: Inside the Real America

 Piers meets Jones

                                                    

       Photos Courtesy:                CNN                and                     Youtube

America prides itself as the land of freedom, the land where 'anything' is possible. Well, yes! Anything is possible including unregulated shootings. The election of Barack Obama reveals how intolerant Americans can be. From the Obamacare bill to the issue of cutting greenhouse gas emission not excluding the fiscalcliff, Americans mostly those who go with the cry of the 'republic' continue to portray him as a sort of 'imported leader' meant to destabilize the republic. Maybe they should be reminded that the sweats, toils and labour of the black men laid the stones of strength for the most powerful nation on earth.

The Gun control debate opens another chapter in the nature of intolerance in the US. Before Piers Morgan, some states in the US had threatened secession, signing a petition to be allowed to part ways with the US of A. The same US is the country that is fast in condemning and intervening in any country in which a sector is willing to secede calling it freedom and self-determination. She ably monitored the break-up of Sudan and is spreading message of doom on Nigeria. Why not allow hers? The United States has two knives gradually cutting her; the powerful Israeli lobby through AIPAC and the assault rifles proponents through NRA. Just like Obama, Piers Morgan became an easy target.

Alex Jones, an influential public figure with 'Alex Jones Shows' having millions of of audience has gone deep to show the real America. He is irascible, impatient, irrational and extremely intolerant. The best deducible point and fact from his irascibility is that every nation, country and society has principles and by all standard and acceptable norms, such principles must not be toiled with, spoken against or jettisoned especially by outsiders. Such is the Second Amendment to the pro-gun Americans and the American Constitution to Americans. Why then are Americans always quick, fast and sharp to speak against others and even the US outrightly intervening in others' affairs causing pains and agonies with and after her presence?

What is Morgan's crime? That the US should ban all assault rifles and semi-automatic weapons as well as increase her spending and actions on mental illnesses and cases. Are they too much to suggest? Alex Jones is trying to tell the world that the US needs nothing of such. He inherently opined that the US should be a country of mad men wielding assault rifles and semi-automatic weapons as if they are knives. He is saying that the Second Amendment legalizes the shootings and to prevent and protect against the shootings, weapons have to be made available in large numbers for more shootings to guard against the shootings. This can only come from a real gun maniac with real mental frailty.

To Piers Morgan, Jones made a 'heretic' statement by implicitly implicating George W. Bush in the 9/11 attacks but by sources and reports, George Bush received an intelligence report of an impending terrorist attack on the US yet he did nothing. The Bush and the Osama families have ties. They have shares in Carlyle Group, a manufacturing group centred on military industrial complex. The company sold heavy machinery and weapons thereby making large gains in the US-Afghanistan-Iraq war. No past President ever demanded CIA reports though they have the right to but H.W. Bush did request for it and flew to Saudi Arabia. All these after 9/11. In every disorder, there is always an order; such is Alex Jones here. (Watch Fahrenheit 9/11)

After the 9/11 attack, the America Airspace was closed and no flight was allowed out of the country but on the 12^th of September, 2001, a plane flew out of the United States carrying the Osama family members who came for a meeting at Carlyle Group. Can George Bush really be exculpated? Even the Kennedys did not directly answer the question. They systematically sidestep it. Is it wrong to point a conspiracy if one is found in the US and in an American President? If African leaders could be controlled to suffer their own people and continuously do so and Gorbachev could be bribed, deceived and praised into allowing the USSR, a powerful nation at that to disintegrate and he did that cheaply and easily just because the US and the West courted and romanced him, there is virtually nothing any leader in the world cannot do against the people and the country. 9/11 was a kind of smokescreen and a foundational structure to get Saddam.

Alex Jones did not forget to mention a polemical angle worth nothing. This is the zenith of his rantings. He said '1776 will commit itself again' if they try to take away their freedom. Gun is their freedom. Shame. This is significant because after so many centuries, despite eliminating independence anniversary unlike most colonised countries and being hegemonic for decades even having Britain genuflect for their country, some Americans still view Britain as a arch foe. They are also the ones to quickly tell Africa to leave the most inhuman occurrence in human history; slave trade behind. We ask; who are the Americans (in this case, deducing Jones, White Americans) if not British and European immigrants? Alex Jones needs tutelage.

The meaning of 1776 committing itself is what? That the 104,658? signatories supporting the deportation of Piers Morgan could demand America go to war with Britain? Or maybe, that a major row could ensue among ordinary Britons and Americans on the streets and public places? People like Jones in America must know and should know that without Britain and the Black man, there would not have been any foundation for the United States of America.