M Rafic Soormally (guest)
Born of Hindustani parents, Idrice Soormally and Bibi Rabiah Soormally (born Chaumoo) in Curepipe, and holder of Accounting, Finance, Economics (including Politics), Marketing and Law qualifications, I have been writing since 2000. Several of my articles have been published in Mauritius, Pakistan, Iran, UK. I also write regularly for the Mauritian Abroad Magazine in the UK. Many of my articles have been posted across the web, ranging from the Washington Post to Netherlands Radio Worldwide.
Namaste Harish bhai, kaise hein aap?
- By M Rafic Soormally (guest)
- Published 28th July, 2008
It is with great sadness that I have read your article « The scandal surrounding the government - Paid partisan advertisements to newspapers », le Défi Blog 26th July 2008 and le Mauricien 24th July 2008. I can feel that you are speaking from the heart as it bleeds through the loss of your SUNDAY VANI creation, a weekly newspaper which truly revolutionised news reporting and gave people a freedom to show much of the truth long suppressed. Sunday Vani became an immediate target of the pro-European press especially as it was aimed mainly at Hindus and contained certain items written in Hindi. I was amongst the first people to contribute in the columns of your paper. I still remember Mr Ramalingum with whom I was in regular contact. I had expected that at least every Hindu household would have had a copy of Sunday Vani in its lounge with pride. There was no reason why your paper could not have survived. What really went wrong Harish bhai? The younger generation would have been brought up with it, and in time they would have been speaking Hindi in their homes, with their relatives and friends. But now, they say they speak 'creole' which they cannot even define and do not even know how they came to speak the language. Even your Sunday Vani started to publish pieces in slave language.
'Independent' press
Originally, newspapers tended to be government financed and owned and were referred to as State-controlled press. Newspapers which are privately-financed and owned are referred to as the 'independent' press. What this really means is that they are financed independently of the government. As the so-called independent press kept on boycotting people's views, perhaps many of your views too, the Sunday Vani came as a breath of fresh air. It also scared many of the pro-European privately financed papers which pictured the Sunday Vani as a sectarian and Hindu paper, and many Hindus went along with their propaganda.
Rapprochement with Bérenger
The turning point came when you decided to turn politician again. According to some reports, you met or contacted Paul Bérenger, or vice versa, and decided to promote his politics against Navin Ramgoolam. You even started to boycott my articles since I had been critical of Bérenger because I exposed his politics of division. In the 1960's he hijacked Le Club des Étudiants Militants, where he was a guest, because of his superiority complex and felt he could not serve under those he regarded as inferior for obvious reasons. He was not fighting for independence like Robert Mugabe or Fidel Castro, but was provoking a Marxist-Maoist revolution in Mauritius. He uses people like nobody's business.
What did you expect Navin Ramgoolam to do, Harish bhai? Give you a medal? A privately financed newspaper does not and should not depend on government advertisements to survive and there is no law which can force the government to finance the survival of such a paper. The government can only inform the public through press releases as required by the law. If you want « the Supreme Court to give its interpretation of the financial rules and regulations governing [..] advertisements » effected by the government and « Government-controlled parastatal bodies », you should advise the 'affected' newspapers to bring a test case, or bring one yourself, in the interests of those papers. Please do not forget to include the private sector advertisements as well.
Taxpayers' money
Taxpayers' money must be used in the public interest and not in the interests of privately financed papers. The notion that money paid by taxpayers belongs to the taxpayers is a totally misguided political claim. Tax is that amount of money which has to be paid. Civil Servants, including Ministers and Judges pay taxes too. But the taxpayer has no claim upon this money simply because IT DOES NOT BELONG TO THE TAXPAYER! It belongs to the State, and those who run the State have an obligation to use this money in the public interest. Those who say that taxpayers' money is « our money » are clearly misguided.
Readership
An independently financed paper must primarily depend on readership. Your targeted readers let you down, Harish bhai. Unless prescribed under the law, there is no obligation to force the government to advertise in your paper, however unfair they may be in selecting which papers they wish to place their advertisements with. You are wrong in believing that this « concerns public funds being utilized by politicians for political purpose ». According to what you are saying, if the government advertises in le Mauricien, it is fine, but when the same advertisement is placed in Mauritius Times, it is for a 'political purpose'. Do you honestly believe that a court of law will entertain this sort of reasoning?
Those papers which you fear may suffer the same fate as Sunday Vani for want of advertisements from the government because you care so much about them must be laughing at you, which is nothing new. In fact, they obtain more than their share of advertisement from the private sector due to their wide readership. What did the private sector do for Sunday Vani? In the UK, News of the World, The Sun are regarded as forming part of the gutter press, but the private sector spends silly millions in advertising in those papers, again because of their wide readership.
Sunday Vani was a quality paper which your targeted readers could not appreciate because they are ashamed of who they really are. They did not want a paper containing items in Hindi, such as Vedic Sanatan Prayers, in their lounge because « Qui dimoune pou dire? ». Similarly, if The Star and Impact News are not in the good books of the government, as you allege, it is up to the targeted readers to buy those papers to keep them alive. Given the quality of those two weeklies, I do not see how your allegation is justified. Since when did you become the lover boy of le Mauricien, Harish bhai, given the sheer number of your pieces it is publishing lately? Is it as long as you embarrass Navin Ramgoolam and the Labour Party, until they ally with Bérenger, that is ?
Conclusion
Democracy is about the exercise of power by the people [ref. Anarchism] or through their representatives under a system of majority rule through one person one vote [ref. Fascism]. Democracy did not invent Press Freedom, Human Rights and the Rule of Law. Proponents of democracy have hijacked those principles. It is therefore improper to invoke democracy which, in practice, is a source of corruption in itself, to make a case for regulating how the government (or the private sector) should allocate its advertising budget with respect to privately financed newspapers. The government is only bound to respect its prescribed obligations.
It appears that you are playing pro-Bérenger politics once more, and this is what choked Sunday Vani to death.
M Rafic Soormally
London
NB. The above is a reply to Harish bhai's article which, due to its length, I have chosen to post separately.
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5 Responses to "Namaste Harish bhai, kaise hein aap?" 
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said this on 28 Jul 2008 12:46:16 PM MUT
Mo truvé to kon koz boukou langaze mé to lespri zigilé kan bizin koz nou langaze nasyonal!
Zimaz rest tuzur zimaz, London Boy! |
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said this on 29 Jul 2008 11:06:46 AM MUT
Dear Mr Rafic Soormally,
It does not bother me whether someone is pro-Bérenger or pro-Ramgoolam or pro-slave language or pro-coolie language as I am more concerned with what is being said than who is speaking. In fact I am myself a victim of Mr Boodhoo’s policy when he was a minister and when I happened to be on the wrong side of his sacred mountain. I wish to thank you for your crystal clear explanation about taxpayers’ money not being the property of taxpayers alone but I am left to wonder if it is meant to be the sole property a political party simply because they are members of a democratically elected government and if the National Assembly is just a classroom where the speaker cannot force a minister to answer a question nor take any sanction for any given false information whether immediately or after several years. |
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said this on 31 Jul 2008 12:48:28 AM MUT
REPLY TO « ESHAN »
The politician has a duty, as opposed to a legal obligation, to answer questions in Parliament. If he/she avoids the question, it is up to the people to judge at the ballot box. The law is ‘divorced’ from politics but, strangely, all laws are passed by politicians. However, if the parliamentary procedures have not been followed, the law may intervene. Parliamentarians are generally covered under immunity, even when they tell lies. This is democracy for you. Given the power the government wields, the press has an extremely important role to play. Mauritius is faring very well in this area because, overall, we have a much freer press than in the whole of Europe. Freedom of the press must be reinforced even though there is always a ‘pomme d’amour gatée’ somewhere. Taxpayers’ money is not the property of politicians as you rightly say, but they are the ones who decide how to spend it in what they believe is in the public interest. This is how all governments work. The debate as to what is « public interest » has been raging for centuries. Voters may change governments as many times as they want, the story is always the same. People themselves vote for politicians, and we cannot do without them. Whether some politicians are in for their own benefit first and others are working in the public interest first is very hard to tell. But being a politician in this day and age must be very tough indeed. I find it objectionable that some are always trying to demonise the political class. I detect a great deal of jealousy and envy in all this. What we need is a pluralist system with justice within a reasonable time. Safeguards to protect the people are hopelessly inadequate because, in practice, democracy is about capitalism and not the people. Democratic justice as we know it is extremely complex and takes too long; it wears you down and is far too expensive for the vast majority of people. The only democracy people truly see is the fact that they can put that cross at the ballot box. Their choice is not necessarily based on what they know, but on what they have been led to believe or on their own prejudices. This is fascist democracy, and it is this type of democracy which reigns across the European West. Regards Rafic Soormally NB. By the way, 'coolie language' does not exist. |
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said this on 01 Aug 2008 9:47:06 AM MUT
Thanks for your kind elaboration. Though I am not a politician I can understand how the noble task of politicians is not easy at all in a system where honesty is obviously not the best policy and where the poor can be so democratically used for the dictatorial cause of the rich. However, you will concede that it is only human to demonise beasts who will shamelessly continue to abuse your trust with impunity or immunity.
Best wishes |
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said this on 02 Aug 2008 12:49:41 AM MUT
Reply 2 to « Eshan »
Every person is a politician one way or another. There is no such thing as a ‘qualified politician’. Any imbecile can enter politics if the people are prepared to vote for him/her. George Bush cannot be called intelligent by any stretch of the imagination. Jimmy Carter was a peanut farmer. Ronald Reagan was an actor, Menahem Begin was a terrorist ;. If politicians order the bombing of your country, the killing of your people and stealing of your land, it is right that they are demonised and action taken against them. If some politicians are believed not to be up to the job they have been elected to do, people need to expose them by backing up their arguments and vote them out. Using the media to demonise politicians for the benefit of the opposition has to do with partisan politics. Regards Rafic Soormally |
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