Why the bad News?

One of the things I do when I wind down in the evenings and weekends is follow the news, particularly about Eritrea and Africa. Update myself about the situations in the horn of Africa and the world in general. A friend once said to me, as soon as he wakes up in the morning the first thing he does is put his Radio-on just to make sure he is not the only one alive and also to find out if there were any developments that might have happened in the world while he was asleep; in case aliens invaded the world. I personally think that is too much of a paranoia, but I don’t blame my friend for being paranoid.
 

As most of us know, media has become one way of controlling the public. Control through manipulation, by instilling paranoia and fear. Using the power of propaganda and counting on the gullibility of the masses, fear and hate are injected into the minds of the population towards a scapegoat to divert attention from the facts and having total control over the destinies of ordinary people. The world population is bogged down in dealing with all the hustle and bustle of daily living and as a result become passive.

If we look at the situation in the Middle East for instance, weapons of mass-destruction were echoing on radios, televisions and newspapers. Saddam Hussein, the one time very good ally of the American administration during the tragic Iraq and Iran war, suddenly became the prime enemy. Situations changed and the tragedy of 9-11 occurred and a scapegoat had to be found and then followed the hate propaganda. “Weapons of mass destruction that can put the world in danger were being invented in Iraq”. This was one way of injecting fear and paranoia. Now we know there were no weapons of mass destruction, the media diverts the world population from the realty. Questions have not been answered, to the contrary more lame reasons are fed through the media to cause more fear.
 

There was an English lady I use to work with and one day we were talking about the situations in Middle East. My lady colleague was passionately talking about how cruel and dangerous Saddam was and how the Iraqi people are suffering. I took my time and heard what she had to say and asked her why she thought Saddam was a cruel man and she evasively replied by asking me, “didn’t you see the news last night? I mean our boys are there to free the Iraqi people from that monster,” I asked why she believed everything she saw in the news? She said, “Well there is a correspondent there and you could see Iraqis talk about all the suffering they went through under Saddam.” I asked if she knew where Iraq was and she said, “somewhere near Saudi Arabia or somewhere in Asia”. This lady hated Saddam without knowing much about what he did. I quietly asked, if she knew that more Iraqis are dying after the country was invaded by US and UK? There was a pause and grim stare. I looked away and carried on with what I was doing. She still kept on looking at me and asked, “So where did you get that from?” and I replied by asking which TV channel she watched the news about Iraq? By then she was angry that she was looking at me unhappily. “I don’t know, I think BBC”

The Iraq issues are the least of my colleague’s priority. She does not care about what happens in Iraq. For this reason she has no interest in verifying the facts from different sources. She has become totally passive. I sometimes hear her talking very excitingly about television soap film ‘Bookside’ when Anthony kills Imelda Clough. She even encouraged me to watch. Watching Brookside or any other TV soap film is not bad at all, but it can completely detach one from the reality.
 

Unfortunately The Media has become above the law. It is able to disadvantage or discredit anyone with no evidence. It can and does alter the course of history and directly affects our futures. All the atrocities and crimes in the horn of Africa are barely mentioned. When suddenly Norwegian ship is hijacked, or when a journalist throws his shoes at the out going American president George W Bush, then suddenly it becomes a headline. It’s all about interest.
 

When we come to the Eritrean affairs, it's a very unique situation. Presently in Africa, we have a terrorist regime in Ethiopia. This minority regime used more than 120,000 Ethiopian soldiers as cannon fodder and invaded Eritrea, but was defeated legally and militarily by Eritrea and the Eritrean freedom was preserved and Eritrea maintained her peaceful intentions by signing the Algiers agreement in front of guarantors. The minority Ethiopian servant regime had to sign, as there was no other option left, but is still being spoon fed by western countries specially the US administration and occupies Eritrean territories like Badme and also invaded another sovereign country Somalia.
 

The media barely mentions these crimes, because the owners have to serve their interests as well. Westerners own most of the media outlets and their business is generated mainly from the western countries and they won’t broadcast the tremendous developments of Eritrea or others who are fighting for the truth.

Serving the TRUTH
 

Child slave labour has been going on here in Britain for years and the British Newspaper industry has got away with it for years. Children who are paid a pittance are up at 4am in the morning, whilst the media executives who earn a lot of money are still in bed sleeping off a bottle of whiskey.
 

The Media industry pretends to offer balanced reportage and information in order for the viewers, listeners or readers to make up their own mind, but in-fact they are directing the viewers’, listeners’ or readers’ attention to what the media want them to know. What the public needs to know and those alternatives that are chosen to project the truth are censored and the media restricts independent thought; manipulating the minds of people who soon become zombies. With no self-restraint, any legal and moral code, the media controls people through the manipulation of stereotypes and prejudice, which endangers all minorities. Bad news has become the norm, the daily news. Systems are being orchestrated to cause violence, black on black shooting, stabbing, drug abuse etc. By inciting victimisation, which it can then reported as ‘news’, it turns different cultures and beliefs to each other in order to increase its influence and its wealth.
 

By forming the illusion of debates media out lets like BBC seem to be offering choice but the ability for the viewer or reader to respond on equal terms at the pace of his or her own intellect is denied and they are pacified into not challenging. TV and the Media at large, actually construct the character and morality of their viewers to serve their own purposes and in a most insidious, continual way they control and manipulate society itself, creating desires, images and emotions within an individual on a mass scale.
 

Internet
 

My 16 years old niece has her own website and she enjoys showing off her drawing and design skills there. She has mastered the use of internet and also uses it for her educational purposes, but she is only allowed one hour on it and a program which monitors her surfing activities is installed on her PC by her parents.

A website is a collection of pages images, videos or other digital assets that are accessible via the Internet. Nowadays acquiring information has become so easy that, a lot have become dependent on the Internet. Some would literally spend days and even nights in front of their PC. It is as cheap as £20 a year to own a website, depending on how much digital information you upload and how many pages you have. A website usually is used to spread News and information. The racist far right group, the British National Party (BNP) posts hate and racist messages on their website, but their evil, medieval and unenlightened ideology is completely ignored and blocked by the modern and forward thinking majority that they lose hope from day to day.
 

There are some Eritrean websites equivalent to the racist group BNP (British National Party). Some Eritrean individuals with similar or even worst ideology than the racist group own them. The ‘Braking News’ written on these websites are mostly fabricated and the aim is to cause division and chaos. I sometimes visit these sites to amuse myself. And they are really beyond a joke. They would write any trash to cause confusion and division. Their wishful fantasy goes beyond limit. Any bad news is good news for them and they become monsters of their own making. They would go extra mile to cause havoc, paranoia and fear amongst Eritreans. They are getting paid to serve those who are looking to dominate. They take themselves so seriously that they believe their own lies. They would try to discredit the facts and would write anything to destabilize and divide.
 

Panic and fear benefits those who have agenda of domination. Media was responsible for the hellish ethnic cleansing in Rwanda. One million Rwandans died and the media instigated the disaster, but the majority of the world populations were oblivious to this. Help never got there on time, but later it was a ’News broadcast' as “Africans killing each other”. The real reason was never told.
 

The process of nation building building does ask a vision and perseverance. Eritrea learns and Eritrea delivers. Eritrean unity brought and preserved freedom and good News is what Eritrea is used to. The corrupted media will never destabilize this sacred nation. Let’s stay vigilant and expose the servants with medieval and unenlightened backward ideologies and block them from our united society.
 

Glory to The Eritrean Martyrs 

Success to Warsay Ykalo

Awet N’Hafash.

Samson Negassi