The Poor Game of Television in the Ivorian Crisis

Pictures on Africa are still conveying some pity.  France 24 showed militaries patrolling in Northern Côte-d’Ivoire on 20 April 2011. Children were seen running to them and playing with Kalachinikov.  A month before Laurent Gbagbo was toppled, Ivorian Radio and television, RTI, showed the minister of Youth. Charles Blé Goudé was calling up children to enrol in the army in order to fight Ouattara forces. Nobody perceives the danger, in spite of abuse and post-traumatic psychological disorders in Liberia and Sierra Leone. When it is time to provide all children with exercise books, text books and pens for quality education in Côte-d’Ivoire, television channels acclaim conflicts in their rush for audience and register children in war schools.

The column Hitting the Target is right to stress this, for it a cultural issue. The media are a creative industry.  In this regard, the media originate from, according to a definition from the Uk, “creativity, competence and talent as well a potential of wealth and job creation”. In established democracies, the media -are the fourth tenet of power. Actually, the media constitute a counter-power. They are empowered to monitor the executive, legislative and judiciary.

But once again, Africa is the poor exception of a laudable rule. The media rather serve the interest of the powers that be. The great question mark is France 24. It shows the morbid. A Ouattara defence soldier laughs at the sorry state of an enemy who has been killed. The winner is happy that his compatriot has been killed. He raises a bottle of wine high in the sky. He will drink it in honour of the deceased people in the night. A French soldier starts speaking. He explains the strategy they adopted to defeat Gbagbo’s soldiers. Now, in Irak like during the Gulf war, only army generals would talk to journalists. It is a message of disregard that a soldier from the rank and file talks over and over about the downfall of a head of state who is from a country that sticks to state protocol like France does.

Then Gbagbo invades the screen. He is almost half naked. He is borrowed a small shirt. Soldiers surprisingly start taking pictures with the fallen hero as if the former President had turned into a curious animal of a war circus. The pictures of France 24 promote a divide. On the one hand, television insults Laurent Gbagbo who is now portraying abject poverty not far from his wife. She has unnecessarily turned dumb. On the other hand, Alassane Dramane Ouattara is shown on a bright day, well dressed, and he addresses Ivorians with extra care.

Television dehumanisation of Gbagbo reminds the world of one Milosevic or Saddam Hussein. Is a dictator an animal? Abandoning power after having lost elections is unquestionable. Causing the looser to quit is unquestionable as well. But ridiculing an adult through image manipulation is a blow to the world’s conscience. This is another typical case of double standard policy. France 24 hardly shows the French soldiers who are killed daily in the endless war in Afghanistan. Even CNN does not show the GIs who are torn apart during suicide bombings. Americans only see their deceased children who have lost their lives at wars when they are wrapped in the spangled banner, the nation’s flag, during the military farewell ritual. Who saw the victims of September 11, 2001in a quality television channel? Actually, there is not only the consideration that the deceased deserve, but also the rules and regulation governing the images that are shown on television. TV is beauty par excellence. Taking the sordid to the screen is equal to showing low and popular television contents. It impacts right away on citizens. In this regard, France 24 has the greatest audience in Mali. People watch it even late in the evening. The television set substitutes the function of wood fire in Bamako. All is focused on France 24.

Media professionals can but wonder that the world is so naïve. Decolonisation through image still has a long way to go. Bamako city dwellers and the other Malians think they are in touch with the truth when they watch France 24. Yet, only the French point of view is offered 24h/24. Not many can imagine the funding sources of the said medium. You have the French state and the ministry for foreign affairs. France 24 has become a religion that has more and more worshippers day after day. Malian Radio and Television Corporation, ORTM, is experiencing the same crisis that most of other African countries are going through. These channels are blamed by televiewers for overexposing authorities and workshops: too many talking heads on newscast. Therefore, people watch Malian television when Champions’league matches and other soccer encounters are broadcast. Now, France 24 is showing an alternative content: the street, death and ridiculous items. It is new and beautiful. When he was in power, Gbagbo has reduced Ivorian Radio and Television into a government laud-speaker. It was no longer journalism, but commercial advert information in favour of the Ivorian People’s Front, his ruling party in an atmosphere of political marketing. It was almost the television approach of “Radio Mille Collines” in Rwanda.

Lastly, a war is always needed to see the West rushing with funds. It may be an adaptation of the Us and her Marshall plan. Côte-d’Ivoire has not even applied for any funding that France is volunteering to offer an exceptional assistance of 400 million euros. The European Union is giving out 100 million euros. May be the way-out is to light sparks on the continent that will turn Africa into an inferno and quietly expect good development assistance.