[Hier auf den neuesten Stand gebracht.]
Though it’s shooting fish in a barrel, and we probably shouldn’t bother, we devoted a post to exposing some of the sleights of hand whereby the New York Times slants stories in the direction of the politically correct: in particular, as regards armed French intervention in Africa.
Though it’s shooting fish in a barrel, and we probably shouldn’t bother, we devoted a post to exposing some of the sleights of hand whereby the New York Times slants stories in the direction of the politically correct: in particular, as regards armed French intervention in Africa.
The P.C. narrative is:
Just lately there has been a spot of bother in one of two countries of
the continent, but the Africans themselves are going to sort it all out with
their noble peace-keeping forces -- aided, to be sure, from time to time, by
their friends the French (modestly shouting encouragement from the sidelines,
and making coffee for the African warriors, one supposes). These conflicts have lately taken
on an unfortunate inter-confessional dimension, in which blame is to be found
equally on all sides.
That narrative is being repeated in the case of the current
French intervention in RCA.
Thus, this morning’s New York Times refers to “shootouts
between the mostly Muslim rebel fighters who overthrew the government this year
and rival Christian militias”.
This isn’t false, per se,
just… massaged a bit. For, “mostly
Muslim” leaves open the possibility that the Séléka (to name it by its name;
that’s Sango for “alliance”) is indeed an alliance -- say, 55% Muslim to 45%
Christian; kumbaya around the
campfire to follow immediately upon our interfaith services. More realistically, Wikipedia reveals
that “Nearly all the members of Séléka are Muslim”. And this, in a country that is eighty percent Christian.
As for that “rebels versus militias” picture -- well, that’s
true enough in the present landscape;
but the causal lead-up thereto was asymmetric, with Muslims being the aggressors, and the Christian
militias a belated response in
defense. The English Wikipedia is
silent on the matter, but here is a summary of the timeline from the French:
Le 24 mars 2013, les rebelles de la
Seleka — avec à leur tête Michel Djotodia qui se proclame président de la
République — prennent Bangui, ce qui conduit le président François Bozizé à fuir
le pays pour le Cameroun.
Dans cette progression, de
nombreuses atteintes à la laïcité ont été constatées.
Le 22 août, suite aux refus de la
population civile du village de Bohong de subir les persécutions de la
Seleka16, le village subit de violentes représailles entraînant de dizaines de
morts, des viols et des pillages17, visant spécifiquement la population
chrétienne18. Un millier d'habitants quittent le village.
Dès sa prise du pouvoir en mars,
Michel Djotodia dissout la Seleka, mais les ex-rebelles se livrent par la suite
à de nombreuses exactions contre la population, notamment en octobre 2013
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A9l%C3%A9ka
Reuters, too, is frank about the actual sequence of events:
The country has been gripped by
chaos since mainly Muslim Seleka rebels seized power in March. Months of
looting, raping and killing since has brought reprisals by Christian militias
and allies of ousted President Francois Bozize.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/10/us-centralafrican-france-idUSBRE9B80O320131210
All right, so, a bad business; but fortunately the African Union has this well in hand, n’est-ce pas, fortified by gifts of brioche and ammunition from their
French buddies, who are there purely by African invitation. Thus again, the P.C. Times:
A resolution passed last week by
the Security Council tries to strike a balance. It strengthens an intervention
force of up to 6,000 African troops, to be aided by 1,600 French soldiers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/10/world/africa/stopping-bloodshed-in-the-central-african-republic-amid-ghosts-of-genocide.html?ref=international-home&_r=0&pagewanted=print
 |
| La France et l’Afrique annoncent leur union indéfectible |
The reality has historically been otherwise, as we saw in
the case of Mali. Today’s Le Figaro has a more nuanced assessment; and as for this “support” role, their
readers are not fooled, as witness this reader’s comment:
Curieusement (!) personne en France
n'évoque qu'une dizaine ( de mémoire ) de soldats sud-Africains ont été tués en
RCA il y a quelques mois , ce qui a conduit les sud-Africains à retirer leurs
troupes en RCA - Alors parler aujourd'hui de forces armées "africaines
" pour "épauler" l'armée française .. relève, au mieux, d'un
dénis des réalités, et au pire
d'une désinformation délibérée de la part de leurs auteurs.
The Washington Post has rather a better article about
all this, containing this tidbit about some onomasiological pill-sweetening:
The French move into Central
African Republic is dubbed Operation
Sangaris, after a local butterfly. The 1979 intervention to depose
Jean-Bedel Bokassa, Central African Republic dictator and self-proclaimed
emperor accused of cannibalism, was called Operation Barracuda.
The Christian Science Monitor alertly notices a
different semantic connotation of the name that France wistfully chose for the
op:
Reality Check
A brief French intervention in the
Central African Republic? Maybe not.
When France announced deployment of
1,600 soldiers to a former colony last week, President François Hollande
promised the intervention would be quick and easy. The Central African
Republic, after all, has no terrorists, he said, unlike in Mali, where France
intervened in January.
In reality, however, CAR could turn
into a potential quagmire. Driving home that possibility is the fact that two
soldiers have already been killed, France confirmed this morning.
Sangari[s], the name chosen for the operation, refers to a red Central
African butterfly with a short lifespan.
 |
| Bonne chance, les gars ... |
And, another tidbit of Sango philology -- balaka. English Wikipedia actually has an entry for it (the French
version is so far behindhind in this):
Anti-balaka is the term used to
refer to the Christian militias formed in the Central African Republic after
the rise to power of Michel Djotodia. Anti-balaka means
"anti-machete" or "anti-sword" in the local Sango and
Mandja languages
The group name thus incidentally incorporates the actual
causal sequence of events: the two
armed camps did not spring up simultaneously, equally at fault.
~
Actually, a richer source of news about this turns out to be a blog:
~
A radio essay by the journalist Robert Buissiere begins by quoting the ludicrous remark
of Hollande’s likewise Socialist presidential predecessor, “"la France sera africaine ou ne sera pas". (One wonders whether, as with Shepherd’s
celebrated but bungled line, lors de la
lunaison, “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”, an article
was inadvertantly dropped, and the intended sentence was rather “ou ne le sera
pas”, in which case it would have been a tautology, and quite in keeping with
Mitterand’s yen for the fatuous platitude.)
Listen to it here:
http://www.medi1.com/player/player.php?i=5692501
*
Si cela vous parle,
savourez la série
noire
en argot authentique
d’Amérique :
*
~
For more on the saga of Franco-American journalism, try
this.
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