I have been writing for The Oran Daily Newspaper (LQO) for a long time. It was a real pleasure to compose texts for this newspaper. In fact, it was not for the “Daily” itself, but for “Oran”, my city, my lighthouse, the center of gravity of my wanderings.
I moved away from this daily newspaper when I noticed that my writings (especially “Arabesque$“) on the harmful role of the West in the politics of the Arab world in general and Algeria in particular disturbed its editorial line. It was the same with my book on Kamel Daoud or the one on the “self-proclaimed tenors of the Hirak” whose subjects are directly or indirectly related to the previous theme.
Not only have my books never been the subject of serious reviews, nor of reasoned criticism, nor of serious interviews as is the case in other Algerian or foreign media, but they have been systematically the object of sordid attacks and vile denigrations on the columns of the LQO itself.
It was Ahcène-Djaballah (BAD for intimates), who took care of these low tasks. Ah, that damn BAD! With a pedantic CV as long as the Chinese Wall, this venerable “môssieu” holds, on LQO, the most dishonest, the most insignificant and the most tasteless literary column that I have been given to read.
Here are two examples to illustrate my point. While he admitted that he had not yet read my book (sic) on Kamel Daoud, he did not refrain from laying a lamentable review full of falsehoods and ad personam attacks. A real professional this BAD!
I have sent a text to the management of LQO to assert my right of reply. Result? Motus and stitched mouth in perfect contradiction with journalistic ethics. I’m still waiting for an answer since…2016!
About my book on the Hirak, he called it a “little book” “full of conspiracies … but, fortunately, conspiracies have never made history”. A language identical, almost word for word, to that of a certain Zitout, subject of His Majesty and incidentally leader of the “Rachad” movement: LQO, BAD, Rachad, same fight?
Scalded by my first experience and knowing perfectly well the notion of “freedom of expression” at LQO, I did not dare to ask for a right of reply. Nevertheless, an honest journalist decided not to let the thing pass.
Ah, I forgot. It seems that BAD is “Associate professor at the Higher School of Journalism and information sciences of Algiers / Ben Aknoun). No, seriously, isn’t this a joke?
After this necessary introduction to situate in which mud LQO wallows, let’s go to our main topic.
A few days ago, a friend sent me a copy of the LQO dated March 23, 2022. I was politely going to put it in the trash when a frame, clearly visible on the front page, attracted my intention.
These were three articles presented as “supplement around the world” :
- “The economic consequences of the war in Ukraine” by Mohamed A. El-Erian;
- “Economic sanctions, a weapon of mass destruction,” by Raghuram Rajan;
- “Putin’s Military Potemkin,” by Daniel Gros.
So, we are talking about three articles, all of which deal with the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Interesting to read, isn’t it?
True, but we quickly realize that the articles in question are politically oriented according to a Western vision, clearly anti-Russian. One would have thought that they were written by the NATO Secretary General himself.
Excerpt from the front page of the LQO of March 23, 2022
In the first text, we can read, for example :
“Russia is going to face serious problems of change, massive shortages, the weakening of the ruble, increasingly large arrears and the forecasts of a population that expects its situation to deteriorate”.
But with this portrait of the end of the world in Russia, the author is much more forgiving about the consequences of the conflict on Western countries that keep blowing on the embers of war instead of looking for solutions for a quick end to the crisis.
In the second, the author calls Russia an “economic dwarf relative to its military power” and predicts that sanctions against Russia “will undermine the standard of living and health of the Russian population and push up its mortality rates”. He calls sanctions against Russia “an effective (in other words, painful) but civilized way to respond to aggression and barbarism”, while encouraging to “go after the property of the elites of the aggressor country”.
We would have liked to have heard him talk about the political isolation of the West from the rest of the world, or the economic consequences of these sanctions on Western countries themselves.
In the third and final article, Daniel Gros tells us that “Ukrainians who defend their homeland dearly, seem to have a clear advantage over the invading Russian forces”, that “corruption has invaded Russian governance”, that “Russian pilots seem to have little experience”, that “Putin declared a war from a weak material starting point” and that he “put Russia on the path of demoralizing economic decline”.
This is not an analytical article, but a pamphlet of pure anti-Russian otanesque propaganda.
In these three texts, not a word was said about the real causes of the conflict, about the aggressive position of NATO and its inexorable expansion to the East, about the Euromaidan coup, about the negative consequences of sanctions on Western countries and about the historical isolation of the West.
But why does LQO publish NATO propaganda texts? Why is he participating in the gigantic disinformation operation carried out by the Western media? What are these three authors doing in an Algerian newspaper?
The answer can be found in the small rectangle above the authors’ names: “Project Syndicate: an association of newspapers around the world”.
Logo of “Project Syndicate”
A visit to the official website of “Project Syndicate” gives us a lot of information about this organization.
First of all, on the homepage one can read a series of articles ideologically oriented against Russia. Not a single small post that could nuance the vision of the conflict or give the floor to analysts likely to share things. NIET!
But what is this organization and what is its mission? The answer is on their website.
First of all here is his slogan :
“We believe that the whole world deserves to have access to its greatest minds. Our mission is to reach those who do not have this opportunity”.
Its mission is defined as follows :
“Project Syndicate produces and distributes high-quality original commentary to a global audience. With exclusive contributions from prominent political leaders, policymakers, academics, business leaders and civic activists from around the world, we provide the media and their readers with cutting-edge analysis and information, regardless of their ability to pay. Our members include more than 600 media outlets – more than half of which receive our comments free of charge or at subsidized rates – in 156 countries”.
Thus, this organization has set itself the task, among other things, to disseminate the writings of the “greatest minds” Western or not, provided that they interpret the events with a Western analytical grid. Because, even if the names of the authors of the three articles mentioned above are not all Western, the fact remains that their writings espouse Western theses, without any nuance. As we have pointed out many times in the past, the West needs its “neocolonized” and “ethnic alibis”.
This Western vision is then propagated in less developed countries and this, in several languages. All this for free or at very low costs.
Among the authors stamped “great minds” by “Project Syndicate”, we can mention famous names such as Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense (2001-2006) of George W. Bush, George Robertson, Secretary of State for Defense (1997-1999) of Tony Blair and secretary General of NATO (1999-2003), Joseph S. Nye, American designer of “Soft power”, Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser (1977-1981) to President Jimmy Carter, Saad Eddin Ibrahim (Lahouari Addi’s colleague at NED), Egyptian activist largely funded by the US administration and George Soros, American financial speculator and billionaire. Let’s not forget that the latter is the great promoter of the “open society“, that he has among his many “achievements”, the financing of the “colored revolutions”, in particular the “orange revolution” (Ukraine 2004) and that he was involved in the training of Arab cyberactivists who were heavily involved in the Arab “spring”.
As we can see, these are indeed “great minds” who have ardently served the warmongering of NATO and the American hegemony around the world.
As an indication, you should know that the most recent article by George Soros published on the website of “Project Syndicate” has the title: “Vladimir Putin and the risk of the Third World War”. To get an idea of its content, just read the last sentence :
“We can only hope that Putin and Xi [Jinping] will be driven out of power before they can destroy our civilization”.
With such animosity, it is quite understandable why Soros’s “Open Society” foundation was banned from Russia in 2015.
On the other hand, “Open Society” recently created the $ 25 million “Ukrainian Fund for Democracy“, which says a lot about the positioning of Soros and his foundation in relation to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
And, of course, if Soros’s name is mentioned in “Project Syndicate” his checkbook must not be very far away. Indeed, the official website of “Project Syndicate” indicates that “Open society” is in the first place among its financial contributors and it has been so for several years. For example, for the years 2000 and 2002, the Soros Foundation’s contribution was $902,000 and $1,151,000, respectively.
In an academic article titled “The Soros media ’empire’: the power of philanthropy to create consent” published in 2008, Michael Barker cites a “non-exhaustive list of Soros-funded media projects to illustrate the range of organizations Soros uses to manipulate democracy around the world”. Of course, “Project Syndicate” is listed there.
On another document, we learn that only two Algerian newspapers have been in connection with “Project Syndicate”: LQO and La Tribune. The second no longer exists for a few years, only LQO continues to drink the knowledge of the “great minds” of Westernists and disseminate it in the brains of its readers.
LQO and La Tribune, the only two Algerian members of “Project Syndicate”
In summary, we can say that the “Project Syndicate” serves to disseminate typically Western and Otanesque analyses. Funded, among other things, by George Soros’s “Open Society”, it currently allows LQO to disseminate NATO propaganda in Algeria in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
Knowing that we live in the era of fourth-generation wars (G4G) and that information has become an “arsenalized” product, it is worrying for our country to note that such views, totally oriented, can be so easily published in Algerian newspapers and falsely considered as emanating from world “luminaries”. However, the three articles cited above are woefully mediocre.
Especially since this is done through a Western organization that implies that the “great minds” are only those who produce analyses that are in agreement with Western interests or considered as such. Let’s add to this a one-way, purely neocolonial scheme of information dissemination: from the West to less developed countries.
This also means that it is impossible for a “small mind” (non-Westernist, of course!) to publish, in a Western newspaper, a point of view different from that dictated by the mainstream media. This is even clearer now, against the background of the Russian-Ukrainian war.
All this would tend to explain why my books disturb the editorial line of LQO so much and why BAD was entrusted with the low tasks: Ahmed Bensaada was not softened either by “Project Syndicate” or by “Open Society”. So he will never be a “great spirit” in their eyes because he does not speak their language.
And any discordant voice is automatically called a plotter. Isn’t that BAD?
Translated by Hope from https://www.ahmedbensaada.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=609:soros-et-le-quotidien-doran&catid=48:orientoccident&Itemid=120
