John Ray, Africa correspondent for ITV News, interviews Jean Kambanda in a Mali prison.
Deconstruction is a method that can be abused or used irresponsibly. It calls on one, in their loneliest subjectivity, to deconstruct their own cultural, linguistic, social, political, and religious baggage. It is in effect about taking down old buildings of myths.
The recent BBC and ITV products (Rwanda’s untold story and Jean Kambanda’s conscience clearing interview), are such wicked examples of how scrutinizing-looking journalism can abuse “deconstruction”, in an epistemology opposing fallaciously appearance and reality.
A lot of untrue fundamentals are not difficult to detect from the BBC documentary and the ITV interview. They juxtaposed subjective and sentimental accounts with biased indifference. “How to deny and yet also not deny”, that is their problem. The ultimate result is the denial of the genocide against the Tutsi, by reducing it to absolute subjectivity, where victims and perpetrators exchange roles. Relativisation is the starting point their endeavor, and the logical conclusion is that there is no truth value in the Genocide against the Tutsi of 1994, if, according to their reasoning, there was one.
The unsuspecting foreign audience can’t see ipso facto anything epistemologically wrong with BBC and ITV. The viewers will not suspect the maliciousness behind unwarranted labeling of people (such as Filip Reyntjens, Kayumba Nyamwasa, Jane Corbin, and Jean Kambanda’s statements).
Viewers will not also know that it is ethically bad journalism. BBC’s untold story and ITV’s interview with Jean Kambanda are not journalism by any definition, from the classic balanced description of events to the investigative or analytic journalism. They were very far from the concept of lucidity and rationality.
Even though anyone with common sense can see through BBC and ITV politicized charlatan journalism very easily, the Western ordinary audience won’t be bothered by con-journalists, who pretend to “deconstruct” the African “undemocratic” governments or “dictatorships”.
Like the famous Rwandan “Hollywood hero” Paul Rusesabagina, BBC and ITV will easily succeed to fool unsuspecting students and graduates in Arts and other soft sciences, such as young diplomats and political or international relations interns. They will believe subjective accounts strung together, as having some real deconstruction merit. Those viewers won’t be able to criticize the true color of actors behind BBC’s untold story and ITV’s Jean Kambanda’s interview: genocide deniers and charlatans turned witch doctors of Rwanda.
Singularity and repeatability through false deconstruction are the premise of the “discovery” of Africa by the so-called western experts, who keep leveling everything out, as it is usual to “deconstruct” and level out Africa. In regard to BBC and ITV’s endeavor, it is not good for Rwanda or its leader to stand out. To be sovereign in Africa or to submit BBC and ITV to the law of giving reasons would be a violation of western media right to discover Africa.
A very novice in journalism always finds something wrong with Africa, past, present or future, and they will exercise the right to “deconstruct” the history and policies of Africa, and to expose the “untold story”. Hence they treat Rwanda as the Matrix where citizens are trapped in a web of lies, and it is the civilizer’s mission to “deconstruct”. Africa is the persistent colonial pattern of jungles, savages, cannibals and myths.
Because they are BBC and ITV, they have a perfect response of predilection against critics and against their own ridicule. Anyone who dares to criticize or expose their denialism, they accuse of being part of the “dictatorship” or “oppression”.
But again, how is it possible to criticize random subjective accounts of few people arranged together? It is impossible to unpack hatred towards somebody, because it is irrational. Critics of BBC and ITV can only engage them on their own terms with respect to their hidden agenda.
In actual sense, there is no use in getting into the merits of what BBC and ITV assert that Jean Kambanda, Filip Reyntjens, Kayumba Nyamwasa, Marie Bamutese asserted. Besides, it is obvious that BBC and ITV inferences in many instances go even beyond anything those people asserted explicitly.
The hidden agenda is betrayed by their prophecies and wishful thinking about Rwanda related to their imaginary “explosive” future of Rwanda, and ultimately they deploy insinuations, accusations or attacks against the person of President Paul Kagame and his comrades.
The height of their denial is premised on ignoring ICTR and other courts in Rwanda and elsewhere as having no content. The Untold story and Kambanda’s clear conscience are the substitute to judicial facts. Dishonesty and deep-seated prejudice simply have a way of operating “media-theatricalisation” of genocide.
If I take the liberty to also prophesize, the kind of subtle or open denialism being offered shows tomorrow could be worse than the untold story of Jean Kambanda’s clear conscience. We can actually expect no less that Jean Kambanda’s suggestion of the possibility of “replaying” the same apocalypse Rwanda experienced 21 years ago, if given a chance.
In that perspective, historical facts demand to strengthen our ability to strongly challenge similar BBC and ITV attempts, through ownership of present choices and actions, and assessment of the extent to which the future is envisaged as the offshoot of the present.
Olivier MUSHIMIRE
