{"id":6953,"date":"2017-08-04T13:23:20","date_gmt":"2017-08-04T09:23:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/?p=6953"},"modified":"2017-08-04T13:23:20","modified_gmt":"2017-08-04T09:23:20","slug":"unacceptable-verbal-violence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/unacceptable-verbal-violence\/","title":{"rendered":"Unacceptable verbal violence"},"content":{"rendered":"

However much Showkutally Soodhun may claim that he did not mean what he said, the fact is that harm has been done<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>In the workup to the general election in May 2010, under the title \u2018La Grande Responsabilit\u00e9 des Chefs politiques\u2019<\/em> an article in this paper had drawn attention to the dangers that verbal violence during the campaign posed and the consequences on partisans of the contending parties. An extract from that article highlights this problem:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>\u2018A les \u00e9couter se critiquant les uns les autres, le peuple pourrait bien conclure que les chefs politiques sont des ennemis jur\u00e9s et que, si jamais l\u2019occasion se pr\u00e9sentait, ils n\u2019h\u00e9siteraient pas \u00e0 tuer l\u2019opposant qui est cibl\u00e9 comme \u00e9tant un ennemi mortel !<\/p>\n

\u2018Rien n\u2019est plus loin de la r\u00e9alit\u00e9, ce qui est le contraire exact de la perception populaire. Malheureusement, c\u2019est cette perception erron\u00e9e qui influence le comportement des partisans politiques qui, eux, se vouent une vraie inimiti\u00e9 jusqu\u2019au point, on l\u2019a vu maintes fois, de se bagarrer physiquement et m\u00eame de s\u2019entretuer\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2018N\u2019\u00e9tait-ce que pour rappeler \u00e0 des \u00e9chauff\u00e9s potentiels la futilit\u00e9 de leurs querelles intestinales, compte tenu de la souffrance qui en r\u00e9sulte pour les proches, et surtout que, les \u00e9lections termin\u00e9es, entre les candidats qui s\u2019\u00e9taient vou\u00e9s une certaine aversion et avaient entrain\u00e9 dans cette logique leurs mandants, tout revient \u00e0 la normale en ce qui concerne leurs relations personnelles. Eux, ils ne s\u2019entretuent que politiquement \u2013 leurs suiveurs, h\u00e9las, arrivent \u00e0 le faire en s\u2019en prenant aux uns aux autres, physiquement, en chair et en os.<\/p>\n

\u2018Les chefs politiques dont les messages engendrent, m\u00eame indirectement, ces tueries courent toujours \u2013 et ils continuent \u00e0 tenir le langage provoquant qui risque de d\u00e9clencher le m\u00eame genre de d\u00e9rapage\u2026D\u2019o\u00f9 l\u2019importance de ce rappel de la grande responsabilit\u00e9 qui incombe aux chefs politiques.<\/p>\n

\u2018Qu\u2019ils jaugent profond\u00e9ment la teneur des paroles qui s\u2019\u00e9chapperont de leur bouche, car elles peuvent avoir une port\u00e9e d\u00e9mesur\u00e9e. Tout le monde sait que pour regagner leur cr\u00e9dibilit\u00e9, souvent, ils se vouent dans le client\u00e9lisme communal et au milieu des \u2018nou bannes\u2019, ils exhortent ces derniers \u00e0 se percevoir comme des victimes permanentes de l\u2019autre – dont l\u2019identit\u00e9 est implicite dans leurs propos.<\/p>\n

\u2018Dans cette p\u00e9riode d\u2019une atmosph\u00e8re d\u00e9j\u00e0 surchauff\u00e9e, ils osent jouer sur le clavier des diff\u00e9rences et la rengaine \u2018majorit\u00e9-minorit\u00e9\u2019 dans ces milieux occultes nocturnes, tout en clamant \u00eatre les vecteurs uniques de l\u2019unit\u00e9 nationale quand ils font face \u00e0 la galerie publique. Que les \u00e9lecteurs se tiennent donc sur leur garde face \u00e0 ces hypocrites\u00a0!<\/p>\n

\u2018Tous les chefs devraient envoyer un signal fort\u00a0: ils ne tol\u00e9reront aucunement des propos qui risquent d\u2019attiser la haine communale et les r\u00e9f\u00e9rences sectaires qui n\u2019ont pas de place dans une \u00eele Maurice moderne.\u2019<\/p>\n

It seems, however, that some politicians are bent on making verbal threats even after the elections are over, and there is no Mauritian of whatever community who has not been shaken by the words of DPM Soodhun vis-\u00e0-vis the Leader of Opposition, Xavier Duval, which amounted to a threat to eliminate the latter. However much Mr Soodhun may claim that he did not mean what he said and that Duval over-reacted, the fact is that harm has been done. And the delay in the police\u2019s response has further aggravated the situation.<\/p>\n

On numerous occasions, we have pointed out the importance for people in leadership positions to weigh carefully their words whenever they address an audience, especially if that audience is made up of \u2018nou bannes\u2019 who are credulous enough to take as gospel truth whatever they hear, and are prepared to act on it. Even if they had no reason to do so, violent words may incite them to find a pretext and go on a rampage, and in the process as we have seen all over the world, both the perpetrators and their target victims end up suffering damage or loss.<\/p>\n

While this is bad enough during times of war or of political tension at election time, it is tragic to say the least when no such situation exists and people expect to be going about their daily routine in a peaceful atmosphere.<\/p>\n

Such kinds of verbal violence coming from the mouth pits of those who are supposed to speak honorably have ripple effects at all levels of society, and nowadays social media helps to accelerate the spread to the most vulnerable minds, those of the young who are the major users of social media in all settings, from school to the world of work. And imagine the impact on those who are not employed and are looking for some excitement to fill their idle time.<\/p>\n

We must salute those who have reacted against such d\u00e9rapages<\/em>, and let this be an eye-opener to all those who think that at this stage of our development anything and everything will be tolerated!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

However much Showkutally Soodhun may claim that he did not mean what he said, the fact is that harm has been done<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":6954,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,25],"tags":[1626,114,2559,40],"class_list":["post-6953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-politics","tag-showkutally-soodhun","tag-tp-saran","tag-verbal-violence","tag-xavier-duval"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Verbal.jpg?fit=1200%2C817&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8QzSF-1O9","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}