(Ticket 698) – Colporters sans frontières

In its latest classification, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) sinks… a classification established according to the interests of the moment, or the enemies of the moment, or the hindrances of the moment. The NGO, like others, so many others, persists in following a logic of the end of 20^th century that defends a unilateral and closed vision of rights and freedoms.

And this year, this ranking comes at a time when the fault lines are moving significantly, mainly in Africa and Europe, and the media of each other are distilling their truth and drawing the world as they want it, as they would like to see him. For example, the nature of the coverage in France, the United States, Spain, the United Kingdom of the war in Ukraine… And there, the approach is very simple, Tom and Jerry type, with the nasty, brutal and rude on the one hand, kind, forced to brutality and angelic on the other. The Greek hero here, the creepy tyrant there.

RSF thus divides the world, on the basis of a ” asymmetry between open societies on the one hand and despotic regimes controlling their media and platforms while waging propaganda wars on the other “, says the boss of the NGO. However, if the Russians very clearly make propaganda, they do not have a monopoly on it and it is only necessary to follow the Ukrainian information on the European chains to be convinced of it. But of that, RSF does not say a word.

A hospital is bombed in Mariupol, a school is destroyed in Donetsk, and now the specter of war crime is raised, weighed down with all the qualifiers of killer, war criminal, dictator for Vladimir Putin… but forgetting these marriages, residential buildings or medical centers regularly targeted by coalition forces in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and then, in Africa, mainly in Mali. The “bomber” States keep these facts silent, and that’s natural… what is less so, however, is the silence of the media in these countries and the even greater silence of RSF in the face of this great media restraint. Tonton Sam destroyed Iraq for big bucks, annihilated Afghanistan out of revenge, killed civilians by cohorts, but that fell by the wayside after some timid protests.

Another example of the orientation of the media in European countries and in Greater America… While in 2005, a journalist from the New York Times was imprisoned for having refused to divulge her sources in a case relating to the war in Iraq, this week a “special” Pulitzer Prize was announced in favor of Ukrainian journalists for “the coverage of the war in their country”… Moreover, as soon as the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, one of the first decisions taken by the EU was the suspension of the broadcasting of RT and Sputnik, of the Russian media… RSF is looking elsewhere… well, towards Mali for example! When the Bamako government banned RFI and France24, the NGO stepped up to ” firmly denounce this decision which is a new blow to independence and freedom of information in Mali »…

Question: Why does the EU allow itself the media bans that RSF and the EU ban in Mali?

But RSF is within its rights, it acts as it sees fit, and no one should assume the right to judge because such is politics and such are national blocs and cultures. What is embarrassing, on the other hand, are our Moroccans, and others, who make a religion of information from elsewhere, these people who apprehend their country according to the gaze cast on it by foreigners with well-understood interests. Amnesty International then and today, HRW yesterday and today too, RSF again and again.

By what right, then, and in the name of what principles do NGOs allow themselves to pass judgment on countries and their media policy, on journalists and their positioning, on the media and their approach? And why do so many people prefer to believe them? A complex of the colonized which is, necessarily, a counterpart to a reflex of the colonizer? An idea to ponder, perhaps…

The good news is that RSF has made amends, but without making amends. Indeed, the NGO has evolved its methodology by introducing 5 new concepts to measure press freedom in countries, she says: political context, legal framework, economic context, socio-cultural context and security.

But with, or despite, these new criteria, Morocco is ranked 135^thnot far from Somalia, for example, 140^th… In case of gloom or a bad mood, you can consult this ranking here, it would make you smile.

Aziz Boucetta