Liberia: News Blackout On MICAT and MPC – A Far-reaching Caveat

21 June 2011

editorial

ALL LIBERIANS ARE sailing together in a single boat, the Liberian State, cruising through the seas of uncertainty this year in wake of presidential and legislative elections, the second since the cessation of military hostilities in 2003. Witnessing the horrors of war firsthand, Liberians are panicking, and rightly so, because they are not sure whether the ensuing elections will backpedal recovery and development efforts and turn the nation back to conflict and war or will help solidify democracy and peace. And it is an undisputed fact one of these eventualities is bound to come to reality in the next few months, and that eventuality, whatever it would be, will principally depend on what a few Liberians called politicians–be it those seeking the retain political power or those seeking to acquire political power–shall choose.

IN THE LAST few months, signs are getting clearer that some of the country’s politicians are out for the choice of conflict and war. And nothing shows this more convincingly than in the recent spoken words–the tongues–of our politicians. Politicians are cursing one another; they are raining vituperations on one another; they are commanding hell to come down on one another; and they are doing so in the most dastardly words they must muster and utter. Indeed, reading from the very intensity and temperament of the crude words being exchanged between and amongst politicians, it is not difficult for one to deduce that hate and bitterness have reached their zenith in the hearts of politicians. And it is this level of hate and bitterness that causes one to unleash or authorize a punch, a club and even fire a bullet or detonate a bomb at a protagonist.

THERE CAN BE no pretense about the fact that, by their verbal obscenity and crude language against one another, most of our contemporary politicians have morally and politically failed the Liberian public which badly hungers for an extensive and meaningful discussion of the myriad of vexing national squabbles facing the country. Instead of debating and providing various remedies to, for instance, issues of pervasive poverty, social menace, endemic corruption and stagnating underdevelopment, our politicians are shamefully deviating and employing curses, insults and verbal obscenities. Very soon, this ridiculous mode of discourse may filter down from the political elites to the masses of the people; something that could trigger disorder and chaos across the country particularly during these delicate days of elections.

THE LIBERIAN MEDIA, the Fourth Estate of Government, which after all convey news and information to and from the citizens of the state cannot afford to remain aloof and allow another round of senseless conflict sparked as result of political aficionados and desperados’ utterances. War starts with a single word. Bullet and bombs follow later. Thus, in the renewed fanning of the flames of conflict and war by dishonorable politicians’ spoken words, the media, through the Publishers Association of Liberia (PAL), is stepping in with something it commands bests, and which is an effective solution: news blackout. This is beginning with the Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism (MICAT) and the Movement for Progressive Change (MPC) party, the latest two institutions that have been trading insults and desecrating civil discourse.

WHILE IT IS true that indecent verbal exchanges have flared up between and amongst other politicians in the past, particularly since the incumbency of Sirleaf Johnson Sirleaf as President of Liberia, officials of MICAT and MPC have taken the situation to notorious proportions in recent days. Newspaper publishers have therefore unanimously vowed not to cover and publish materials from MICAT for one month and from MPC until it changes its mode of discourse.

THE NEWS BLACKOUT against the first two institutions by the PAL is the beginning of a determined action to sanitize intellectualism and political discourse in Liberia particularly as the nation goes through electoral times this year. The media’s action is, and should be, a clear warning to all politicians and other Liberians or non-Liberians having political interests who, perhaps lacking the capacity or intellectual wherewithal, would choose to evade critical issues on the discussion table and resort to vituperations and personal attacks. As the vehicle by which politicians, citizens and stakeholders interact, the PAL has vowed keep its pages hygienic, not only by reserving them for responsible newsmakers but also by shaming and exposing indecent and unruly persons or institutions. Our chief intent is to calm the boiling political temperaments, sustain civil discourse and ensure a peaceful democratic space even beyond the current elections.

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