Comment by photochemsyn | Hacker News Reader

Comment by photochemsyn | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

This one buries the lead: Now, though, the murders are not just over accordion music. Rival Famo groups also battle for control of the lucrative illegal gold mines in South Africa where many of their followers work.

"The deadly gold wars of Lesotho" would probably have been a more accurate title. There seems to be politician and police involvement as well. So it's fair to guess that this is really a struggle over economic power in an area where there's no independent judiciary and police and politicians are involved in the cash flow generated by the 'illegal' mining activity.

It's also the BBC, the state propaganda organ of the UK, comparable to Russia's RT, and so they don't mention the interesting and relevant fact that the major foreign outfits mining in Lesotho are UK firms, and they're probably pulling most of the profits out of an impoverished country, paying kickbacks to the politicians, good 'ol colonial extraction style:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining_industry_of_Lesotho

But no, says the BBC it's about the music. Come on, now. It's more like cartel drug wars on the Mexican border, yes, they have narco-music too, but nobody claims that's what they're fighting over.

> It's also the BBC, the state propaganda organ of the UK, comparable to Russia's RT

This is a very silly and misleading comparison. It’s true that the BBC has biases, but these are more easily explained as cultural biases that are simply the product of it being a British organization with predominantly British staff, just the same as (eg) the New York Time has cultural biases that are the product of its own circumstances. To suggest it’s meaningfully a propaganda arm of the British state is just not really very credible.

No, it’s the truth. The BBC has a strong bias when it comes to reporting African news. Just take a look at the African news page, you won’t find anything positive [1].

Currently, headlines are: - beheading - al shabaab - CAR atrocities - mercenaries - pollution - hostages

Basically, nothing positive across a large continent with 750 mil people.

You are bound to get a more balanced coverage at the guardian, DW or Al Jazeera

1. https://www.bbc.com/news/world/africa

It's not as tightly controlled from the top as RT for sure, but the BBC is definitely used as propaganda for the state. You might agree with it more, but it's presenting the state as legitimate: everything related to the crown, to the _former_ colonies, to the government, and so on, is presented working on the assumption that things are mostly as they should be. This is propaganda for the state. To be clear, I'm not saying if I think this is good or bad, just that I think it's arguably true.

Aren't you then saying that it's impossible for anyone to hold a sincere view that "the state is legitimate"? By definition you're defining any such view as propaganda. All propagandists believe the state is legitimate, but not all people that believe the state is legitimate are propagandists.

A person can hold any view they want (organizations such as the BBC aren't people, and they can't really "hold" views, but I digress). I think that if they spread that view, when paid/supported/otherwise made to exist by whatever entity that view is benefitting, it's advertising. And if it's political in nature, then it's propaganda. The British state funds the BBC and relies on it to show the world what the UK is all about, and to me, that's qualifies as propaganda.

There’s some good research on this subject by Glasgow Media Group.

> "The deadly gold wars of Lesotho" would probably have been a more accurate title

Not really. The involvement in illegal mining comes later, and violence was part of the Famo before that. There's some suggestion that it was tensions over funeral funds, which is where these groups came from.

Edit: and I should add that the illegal gold mining happens in South Africa, not Lesotho (which afaik has no gold mines). See, for example, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-africa-34589143.

I've noticed that BBC's bias is subtle and sparkled sparingly, in stark contrast to say ridiculous Russian propaganda machine. But for sure if you know certain topics well, you'll notice from time to time lack of objectivity, for whatever reasons.

In general I still like them, one view/source on given topic. But its best if the topic is not about Britain's darker parts of history or present.

> But no, says the BBC it's about the music. Come on, now.

The article explains exactly why it's about music: musicians post diss tracks, musicians react by taking diss tracks a step above. Rinse and repeat and in no time you have people being beaten up and even killed.

You see the same phenomenon in Mexico with corridos ballads, and also on hip-hop.

But somehow it seems you have an axe to grind against the BBC. Comparing the BBC to Russia's RT is a clear tell you are either disingenuous or ignorant.

Small correction, buries the lede. Entirely agree though.

There's only one product I've ever seen labeled as imported from Lesotho, and it was a pair of blue jeans.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com