By Saa Matthias BENDU
The BBC World Service is renowned for their educative and fascinating programmes, which is why childhood appetite for that broadcaster keeps growing by the generation. Not too long ago one of those programmes was “Useful Idiots”.
The phrase “useful idiots” supposedly Lenin’s, refers to Westerners duped into saying good things about bad regimes. In political lingo it was used to describe Soviet sympathisers in Western countries and the attitude of the Soviet government towards them.”
Useful idiots more broadly refers to western journalists, travellers and intellectuals who gave their blessing – often with evangelistic favour – to tyranny and tyrants, thereby convincing politicians and the public that Utopias rather than Belen’s thrived. (BBC world service documentaries)
In Sierra Leone journalists have played and continue to play a tremendous role in all the achievement of our nation including the fights for independence, against military junta rule, return to multiparty democracy and good governance. To date they are still striving to provide their invaluable service for our nation’s development.
In the early 1990s journalists were joined by a new group, which emerged known as civil society whose contributions to our development has been outstanding.
Sierra Leone, like most other African countries, found itself in a paradoxical situation. Endowed with abundant mineral resources its citizens wallow in abject poverty all because of bad governance by generations of greedy and corrupt politicians who often collaborate with multinationals especially in the mining sector to exploit their own people.
Signing of dubious mining contracts has a long history in Sierra Leone, which dates as far back as colonial era, the first being with the De Beers This unholy trend continues unabated with all regimes to date. Each time it is done some journalists give it their backing, thereby convincing the populace and the international body that such contracts are the best thing to ever happen to the country and will employ all those without a job. Lies and embellishments! Such journalists do not bother to investigate how the mining, if carried out will adversely affect the livelihood of the community people in the locality, as most will be forced out their ancestral land, the environmental degradation it will leave in its wake which will affect generations yet unborn, or even the background of those investors. All these journalists do is to sing the praise of the multinational companies and the government while the people in those communities suffer gross human right violations in various forms.
Sadly, it now appears that the economic hardship in Sierra Leone dictates that survival of any media enterprise requires political patronage, hence sometimes compromising media ethics. Today you pick up a newspaper just by the caption you straight way know on which side of the political spectrum it stands even if it is boldly written on it “Independent”. In our post-war country, politicians and some media practitioners are maintaining that the media in Sierra Leone should serve developmental needs of people, resulting in the growth of the development of the nation. This developmental concept has been diluted to suggest coverage of government projects and national events without asking challenging questions; and has consequently compromised media development in Sierra Leone with the ruling cliques trying to monopolise media coverage to elicit personality cults. Sadly many journalists have fallen prey to these ruling cliques by striping themselves of the professional ethical standards to constantly shower praises on government. To this class of journalists there is nothing wrong in whatsoever the government is doing. Government is infallible and incorrigible in all aspects. The other side of this media divide sees nothing absolutely good coming from the government and they constantly lambast everything the government does. Could this be for political appointment or money or both? Whatever the reason, we should all bear in mind that ours is fragile peace. The enormity amongst journalist and the unethical behaviour of most journalists has reached an intolerable level. For those who are doing it because they are more of politicians than journalists, the President of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists, Umaru Fofana said in Marc this year that “a journalist who pursues his political career while in active journalism is as bad as a soldier who pursues a political ambition while holding onto his gun – a coup plotter.”
I totally believe that the Sierra Leonean media or journalists should maintain a high sense of integrity and independence from political patronage to report without fear or favour. The media in Sierra Leone should be the first to criticize as well as to commend on issues that are worthy of either.
Unfortunately, it is not only journalists who are so badly compromised. Some civil society activists are also guilty. Not long ago some civil society people in Makeni betrayed their colleagues to government officials because they had planned to hold a peaceful demonstration to highlight the increased spate of rape of under-aged girls in the township. They even went to the extent of lying that the demonstrators had weapons on them, all because of political patronage. Listen to us talk during plenary sessions at workshops and other forums, especially on governance issues, it follows the pattern of journalists, either singing the praise of government on every issue or condemning everything done by government.
Sadly most of us have joined the gang of sycophants and hypocrites at the detriment of the people we purport to represent, and by extension the government we think we are helping. The highest peak of civil society sycophancy and hypocrisy is the recent concocted citizens report survey launched by the Open Government Initiative (OGI) where they shamelessly rated Government ministries in the name of the citizens. Even if those rankings were arrived at in the ruling party’s strongholds, those figures in their report would NOT have been given by citizens of our nation. They are nothing but the figment of the imagination of those obsessed with satisfying their paymasters and campaign for a second term. History will surely judge us all. But let me quickly add that “civil society members who have also joined the bandwagon of sycophancy are like a fowl that turns its back against the wind only to expose it’s *** to the public” because the truth will be revealed.
Intellectuals and former Western leaders are not left out. They have also been duped to say and write good things about government even when they make serious blunders. Chief of the former Western leaders acting as “Useful Idiots” in Sierra Leone isthe former British Prime minister, Tony Blair, a man who used his oratory to deceive the world about the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Even when this guy is seeing our nation tinkering on the brink owing to increased tribalism, injustice, endemic corruption, politically-motivated violence, Mr Blair is loudly silent. He is only moving around the world saying the beautiful things about the current regime. Some religious leaders are also part of the game too, and their comprising position is the most unfortunate side of the story. I only wish we had the likes of Desmond Tutu here. This begs the question as to who is not a “useful idiot” in present day Sierra Leone.
