Ahnee vs. de L’Estrac

Gilbert Ahnee et Jean-Claude de l’Estrac se livrent en ce moment à une petite guéguerre d’éditorialistes. Et pan! Que je te tire dans les pattes!

Petite genèse:
Round 1
Jean Claude de l’Estrac publie un édito (il est de retour depuis 1-2 mois sur le devant de la scène et a même été ré-intronisé grand patron) ce dimanche 25 mars pour fustiger le déficit gouvernemental en matière de communication. Il cite une ‘consultante en communication qui conseille de grands groupes européens’ qui rappelle que ’seule la cohésion des hommes assure la cohérence des actions’ et que ‘la communication interne prime sur la communication externe’.

C’est un assez bel exposé (émaillé de beaux termes et expressions tels que ‘aggiornamento’, ‘maïeutique’ et le sublime ‘accompagnement communicationnel systématique de la transition’ avec un bel éloge de Dominique Wolton qui a droit au titre de ‘un des plus grands experts mondiaux de la communication’)

En gros, pour traduire en termes simples (n’est-ce pas donc le devoir du journaliste?), il faudrait que les membres du gouvernement améliorent leur communication entre eux afin de pouvoir communiquer un message clair et cohérent à la population. Cela relève du sens commun. Malheureusement, ce principe n’est pas appliqué, ni au gouvernement ni même dans les entreprises mauriciennes d’ailleurs. La com interne, c’est vraiment le cadet des soucis de tous les chefs politiques, d’entreprise ou autres chefs tout court, ca c’est moi qui vous le dit!

Round 2
De l’exposé de Jean-Claude de l’Estrac, deux phrases retiendront l’attention de Gilbert Ahnee pour son édito d’aujourdhui (27 mars):
- Au mieux, quelques conseillers font de l’information dont notre consultante disait qu’elle est la « sœur ennemie de la communication ».
- Je note en passant que quelques pédanteries journalistiques sur la question sont tout aussi peu « signifiantes ».

La seconde phrase a probablement été ressentie comme une attaque directe par Gilbert Ahnee. Qui choisit de riposter par une mise en accusation relativement claire sur la double fonction de Jean-Claude de l’Estrac, à la fois éditorialiste et président d’organisme public (le ‘Empowerment Programme’). Gilbert Ahnee oppose ‘la bonne vieille information que privilégie le journalisme indépendant’ à cette communication d’attachée de presse.

Et termine son édito avec une belle chute:
‘Reste à savoir si ce sont aussi des sœurs ennemies, si c’est insignifiant ou pas.’

Quant à nous pauvres lecteurs, il nous reste à savoir si ce sont là des frères ennemis ‘insignifiants’ comme on dirait en Créole, c’est-à-dire, qui ne font que nous agacer

Anti-abortion activity high

Have you noticed that the anti-abortion people (read ‘Catholics’) are extremely active these days? Since one week or so, they’ve been campaigning ferociously against the legalisation of abortion, a possibility which has cropped up after the MFPA’s debate around abortion and Minister Faugoo’s somewhat favourably-skewed abortion declarations.

The ‘Comité interculturel pour le respect de la vie’ has even bought (unless Radio One donated?) prime-time advertising space on the radio to air a pro-life message and to invite people to a talk on the issue. There’s a doctor who also regularly writes to the press (specially L’Express, methinks) to stress on the risks associated with abortions.

On the whole, their discourse is basically geared towards instilling a feeling of guilt in people, specially women. And today, Mgr Piat in L’Express declares that the State should not be neutral on that issue, claiming that the government should protect little children indiscriminately, be they unborn.

Ainsi, lorsque Mgr Maurice Piat déclare que “l’Etat ne devrait pas, dit-on, imposer un point de vue sur l’avortement et qu’il devrait plutôt rester neutre et respecter le pluralisme comme il se doit dans une société laïque”, l’évêque répercute ce qui se dit en général dans la société : ce n’est pas là son opinion. Au contraire, Mgr Piat affirme avec force que l’Etat ne peut rester neutre et ne peut se prémunir du respect du pluralisme quand il s’agit de défendre le droit des plus faibles.

Ironically, it seems what he’s actually saying is that the State should not be neutral ‘tout court’, it should take up the Church’s point of view. Yet the responsibility of catering to the distressed mother’s needs should lie with the State, according to him!

De plus, l’Etat a aussi le devoir de donner à la femme en détresse les moyens, le soutien dont elle a besoin pour respecter la vie qu’elle porte en elle

Now, don’t get me wrong. Of course, noone wants to go through the ordeal of an abortion, I would hate to have to do that myself… But I’m tired of the hypocrisy of those who want to dictate others, specially the poor simple-minded. It’s the same people who actually frown upon the poor who fornicate and put lots of children on earth when they can barely earn enough to feed them…

The cardiac centre

Yesterday, I accompanied my mother to the SSRNH Cardiac Centre for her check-up. After 3 hours of waiting there, my stress level went really high up (they’re probably preparing the ground for me as a future patient!).

Her appointment was scheduled for 1 pm. Knowing that waiting time tends to be long there and that there are lots of other patients on appointment, we arrived there at 12.30 and obtained number 16 (not bad, I thought). We settled down in our chairs in the spacious but crowded waiting room not far from the TV set and the windows (there was only one fan working and that, too, in a corridor…).

The noise level was quite tolerable until a hospital nurse decided to tune in the TV to MBC2 for an old Hindi movie that was fraught with shouting, screaming, crying, loudspeaking and of course high-pitched music (it was a family drama that can be summarised as ‘very bad and rich daughter-in-law creates havoc in a simple family’). The sober news from BBC World on MBC3 or the quiet Canadian family movie on MBC1 would have probably been better for resting the nerves of already tired heart patients and their parents. At least I could hang on to a small book on branding I took the precaution to carry along…

In contrast, the nurse in charge of calling patients’ names had an irritatingly low voice, which made my stress level surge up each time she would come out of the consultation room. And I was also appalled by the fact that after the 3 or 4 patients rushed to her upon hearing their names, she would just close the door on them, thus signaling that she expects them to wait dutifully outside the door, ready to dart in as their turn comes. Talk about customer care at its lowest… treated like sheep….

The nurse must have called at least 20-25 names and still nothing about my Mum. When I inquired at 3 pm, I found out only one doctor had been consulting and a second one had come in at around 2.40 pm. And my Mum’s file had been transfered to the second doctor. Guess what, they had not bothered to keep the same order in the files so my Mum must have lost at least 10 places!

Hurray for our public health system!!!

Le ministre Valayden réclame des ‘films comiques’…

Hier, mercredi 14 mars 2007 à 17.50, j’ai failli tomber de ma chaise. Qu’entends-je alors à la radio?
Ceci:

Rama Valayden, notre Ministre de la Justice, déclarait en direct sur les ondes de TopFM dans l’émission HardTalk que le nombre de crimes conjugaux a augmenté.
Pourquoi?
Parceque “népli éna films comiques. Nou bane films aster la trop seryé”!!!

Ma parole, il faudrait que Louis de Funès revienne pour sauver notre pauvre société!

I’ve moved to WordPress

As you must have noticed, my blog has been moved from noulakaz.net to be hosted by WordPress. Avinash and myself had been discussing that move since some time now but we were finally somewhat forced to do it right now.

The WordPress support team in fact urged me to upgrade the version I was using as they would have server uprgrades soon that could affect blogs such as mine So we figured that we might as well move the blog to WordPress rightaway…

But, it was not so simple because to export the blog, we had to upgrade the version first as the version I was using did not have an ‘export’ feature! And Avinash spent almost an hour doing just that yesterday… We also had some additional complications for my username & password which were initially the same as the UoM-Communication Studies blog (as I was silly enough not to log off from the ComStudies blog before creating my personal blog at WordPress!)…

But at last, the blog is up and running. It needs some customisation and I’m still uncertain about the look and feel. Anywayz, thanks a lot Avi And to you all, keep on visiting and sharing your views and ideas.