[Paul Lismore] RAMGOOLAM GIVES THE IMPRESSION HE BELIEVES THAT TACTICS ARE A NEW BRAND OF MINT....

There is a well known joke about a tourist in Ireland who asks one of the locals for directions to Dublin. The Irishman replies: ‘Well sir, if I were you, I wouldn’t start from here’. There is something of the ‘Wise Fool’ in the Irishman’s response.

After all, if you want to get somewhere, then it’s better to start from a place where you have a good chance of reaching your goal.

I am afraid that Ramgoolam's tactics seem devoid of any sense or tactical acumen, and is simply a repetition of the old tactics that weirdly have sometimes been successful in our politics, but which will simply not work this time.

Why? Because Santa Claus Pravin is in town, and his next budget will make a Lepep Kouyon ever so grateful for goodies bought with money that Santa has borrowed on their behalf and which their children and grandchildren will have to reimburse.
Of all the manifestations he could organise as a protest, Ramgoolam chose the MBC as his target? Eoula! 14 in glisser?

What is the first thing that most people thought when they heard about this?

The most charitable and yet accurate description of that foolhardy venture is " Pitin p deklar vierz!"...Or, in these days of gender equality, the one minute man is pretending to be the all night long gigolo...

Because the MBC, when Ramgoolam was Prime Minister, was marginally less bad than the current shower of shits running it.

Admittedly things have become worse, much worse since 2014, but it is difficult for people to forget about the sins of the MBC when Ramgoolam was PM and had appointed his own zombies there.
Yes, the MBC is the cesspit of our so called 'free and independent' media, where an organisation funded entirely by every household on the island caters only for the wishes of a handful of people in government and their supporters.

At its most basic, it is a criminal organisation which has consistently broken the law, and seems completely oblivious and ignorant of its objects and responsibilities, as delineated by Section 4 of the MBC Act, 1982, and para 4(h)(iii) of the Independent Broadcasting Authority Act which insists in black and white that it will " ensure that broadcasting services are IMPARTIAL AND ACCURATE".

Now, can anyone from living memory ever remember the MBC to provide "an impartial and accurate service"?
Ramgoolam will not impress many people with theatrical demonstrations of protest against an organisation which he himself had turned into his own private TV station when he was PM. Only his zombies and those wretched individuals only too willing to barter their scrawny arses for a ticket or any boutte would have been impressed. The rest of us will scratch our heads and say " ki kalite toupee sa?"
What he needs to do in order to regain the credibility and the confidence of the many who are thoroughly pissed off with the MBC is to attack the source of the problem, so that it becomes impossible for mercenary idiots and zombies to again turn our MBC into the prostitute of those we have voted into government. In other words, he needs to get the zavokas scrambling for that precious ticket for the next elections to start drafting a new MBC Act and a new IBA act so that any disregard or ignorance of the duties and responsibilities of those two institutions become a criminal offence deserving of heavy fines and imprisonment for those in charge of those institutions.
This is what Section 4 of the MBC Act 1982 says:

" The objects of the corporation SHALL be to--
(a) provide INDEPENDENT AND IMPARTIAL 
(i) broadcasting services of information, education, culture, and entertainment...
(ii)broadcasting services which cater for the aspirations, needs, and tastes of the population in matters of INFORMATION, education, culture, and entertainment..
(b) ensure that its broadcasting services help towards the development of the knowledge, sense of initiatives, civic rights, duties and responsibilities of the population.
(f) strike a FAIR BALANCE IN THE ALLOCATION OF BROADCASTING HOURS among various educational, cultural, POLITICAL, and religious standpoints.
(g) refrain from expressing ITS OWN OPINION, AND observe NEUTRALITY AND IMPARTIALITY on current affairs, matters of public policy, matters of controversy relating to culture, POLITICS, and religion.
(h) refrain from giving publicity to ANY PERSON.....(hahaha! Kan MBC sorti depi Navin Broadcasting Corporation vine Pravin Broadcasting Corporation, sa ban ggt la ena toupee dire nou ki nou bizin respekter nou institutions?)
If you go down these two items of completely useless laws, you will see that these were tailor made for anyone elected Prime Minister to use and abuse the MBC as they wish. Para 6 of the MBC Act tells us that the Board is made up ENTIRELY of people appointed ONLY by the Prime Minister.

It also tells us that no members of the National Assembly or of a political party can become Board members, as presumably only unofficial soucerres and roder bouttes who will obey the PM will get on the board...

There is also something called a General Advisory Council, who will advise the MINISTER and the board on ANY matter relating to programme broadcasting.....And guess who nominates them, all 23 of them? Yes, the fucking Prime Minister, who will also appoint the Chairperson and the Vice chairperson of the Council of Zombies!
Oh, by the way, the Prime Minister appoints the director, and the Deputy DG of the MBC too....
As for the IBA, the DG of that inanimate, putrefying corpse is appointed by....yes, you have guessed right, the Prime Minister, too, after Chana Puri has presumably been told to "Ta, appoint san la!"

That is why we have always had such a crap MBC, funded by ALL of us: The only TV station in our island, funded by ALL of us, but which ALL our Prime Ministers have used and abused as if it belongs to mari zot mama. It really is like giving bananas to monkeys...

So, Navin Ramgoolam, the lion sipaki kouyonade, if you really want to do something about the MBC, if you really want to regain some credibility, like the Irishman I would advise you not to start with the scene of your many crimes, the MBC.

Far better for you to come up with a credible plan on how you really intend to bring about this mythical 'rupture' you keep yapping about. For a start, get your zavokas too keen for a ticket to draft a new MBC Act, but this time with clear punitive measures against the DG and the BOARD should they break that law, as they have been doing with total impunity for decades now.

It is no use having laws that many feel entitled to break at will, simply because there are no clear punitive measures for any infraction of that law. You want to be credible, tell us in clear, unambiguous terms how you will stop treating the MBC as the PM's prostitute, as you and others have done on so many occasions.

You could perhaps consider asking for a judicial review by our Supreme Court of the number of times the MBC has broken its own law...One example that springs to mind is the way it abominably allowed itself to be commandeered by Wilkinson, Bhadain, SAJ, and some accuntants, etc and given free rein to propagate false, calumnious news about BAI/Bramer in 2015-2016, and even now, will be something that the supreme court will, hopefully, find unpalatable.

But stupid demos won't achieve anything, esp if the target is one where you have shat on us many times. Pick a convenient and more appropriate target the next time for your demo. That one has had the effect of a boomerang, I am afraid. Go to court, and get the judges to hammer the MBC, esp the Mukri like grinning idiot who took your letter of complaint... That seems to me to be a more optimistic course of action than Saturday's demo.