Searching online for “propaganda” surprisingly, IT IS, negative.
Google says: “Nazi propaganda used visual imagery, such as posters, political cartoons and films, to promote their ideology and demonize opponents.”
Note.
…“demonise” opponents.
I disagree. Propaganda can go either way.
If we “media people” say reading is excellent and keep repeating THAT till 2030… then reading becomes a tasty meal.
What about bad propaganda?
If we say smoking bhangi (marijuana, weed, cannabis) is fantastic right into 2030; some readers might, subsequently, be convinced marijuana is a free airplane to heaven.
There is good and bad propaganda.
And here we must mention Ibrahim Traore. His recent meteoric rise has made blacks across the globe, roar with pride. Literally, beam.
A Congolese friend, whose late father was friend of Patrice Lumumba, always likes to reminisce and remind that Lumumba was abused, tortured, shot, cut into pieces and soaked in sulphuric acid by Belgian colonists assisted by the CIA and its Congolese puppets in January 1961.
“This,” he insists, “is what has made us Congolese strange. The killing of our first big hero. Through THAT single deed in 1961, whites massacred our national soul. To this day we are very negative about ourselves as Africans.”
Self belief is ego’s twin.
If the wife keeps saying her hubby has become rubbish in the bedroom, eventually the man will lose confidence. Likewise, if the hubby keeps telling the wife she is no longer as pretty and alluring, she will eventually stumble.
Lack of self belief can be a result of psychological bullying. Which is what most of us blacks have become. We are always told we are not good enough.
Our political leaders mismanage, steal, lie, play games, plunder our economies. We live our lives yapping cynical tunes. Jali Tumbo Lako Tu!
Franz Fanon, the celebrated psychiatrist and political philosopher called the colonised the “wretched of the earth” concluding that violence is inevitable among people who have been dominated.
We blacks have lost self belief so much that when a leader like Ibrahim Traore emerges, it is enlightening. Eureka!
On April 30th 2025, world wide demos of blacks in major cities (including here) in London, Nairobi, New York, Dakar, Montego Bay, Jamaica erupted with the slogan: “Hands off Ibrahim Traore!”
Never have so many of us stood with one voice since the days of anti-apartheid South Africa matches …
Meanwhile, as social media was blowing saxophones, mainstream media, kept silent.
Two weeks ago, however, after Ibrahim Traore was invited to the Russian 80 year celebration of World War victory (against Nazism), Western media began trashing him.
“The smear campaign has started,” said one of the various black social media channels. BBC and Washington Post used the word “military junta” to describe his progressive government.
Instead of accepting that here is a genuine leader not stealing (and lying) from his people the word “propaganda” is being used to describe his brief but significant, inspiring achievements.
In other words from now on, like Muammar Gaddafi (“dictator”), Patrice Lumumba (“communist”), Traore is going to be “demonised.”
We should expect more “demonisation.”
Politics is the lip of economics.
Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger have started inspiring other African nations (Namibia and Botswana) with their determination to secure internal wealth, form national currency etc. Duma Boko of Botswana has openly declared he shall adopt “the Ibrahim Traore effect.”
This is annoying to the powerful.
Wounded predators are dangerous.
We should expect more assassination attempts, sinister propaganda, smear campaigns, dirty tricks.
Bless your eyes.
Au Revoir if you speak French.
