By Ahmad MACKY
Being an international journalist from UK based in Mauritius since 1992 as an Overseas Correspondent covering the Indian Ocean such as Piracy problem, Diego Garcia, Chagos islands, Agalega and other events, I was assigned by our Editorial HQ in High Holborn UK to join a delegation of a media team of 4 to report on this year Labour day political folklore in Mauritius.
We pounded the beat where those political meetings were held in Mauritius on Labour Day. We covered Labour Day events such as political meetings around the island but concentrated mainly on the Government political parties at Vacoas in the Southern part of Mauritius and the Opposition allied parties in Port-Louis, main capital of Mauritius. However, I must vouch that all of our 4 journalists from Commonwealth that is 2 from Mauritius and the other 2 from Ghana who are in Mauritius for a while. None of us has any connection or any affiliation with any political party in Mauritius.
Our mission and job is to establish a fair narration of what took place. Here is how we operated and worked on the events of that day. Each of us has to assess and make a separate report of the event with no notes sharing with colleague journalists in the team. My other 3 colleagues too have to separately make their observations. Like I say, we are not allowed to share notes of our observations. Each of us has to do this exercise separately without consulting each other but can only ask questions to people in the audience such as police officers, and other officials to do with the events of that day. Such is the fundamental policy of how we as a team operate in order to give the readers a picture of true journalism in its making. This is how our National Union of Journalists function since time immemorial just to have a true, real justified story of events.
This is the result of my own assessment of which political party pulled the biggest crowd. Regarding the visual evidence about the volume of the crowds we all 4 agreed that the biggest crowd was in Port-Louis. My personal report on the assessment of the political meetings on the Labour Day is as follows: in Vacoas there was a good crowd but with lots of gaps and spaces where one could see part of the road tarmacs but the biggest crowd was seen, as we all 4 agreed, in Port-Louis with a vast human tide invading the area. It would appear that Port-Louis had its day. The crowd seemed very interested in a docile way to hear the orators what they had to say. There was this urge on their part to be there only to listen to the orators. Over 80% of the crowd lent their ears to the orators, I would say. The rest was only there for a good time for enjoyment.
Concerning the crowd in Vacoas, it was a completely different crowd who seemed to have called it a day out just to enjoying themselves. Some were seen sitting in the shades eating from their take away plates, others were seen dancing by blowing some kinds of toy trumpets. In a faraway stationary buses, many were seen resting, sleeping whereas others were concentrating on their mobile phones. They were out of touch of the orators messages as it would appear that they could not careless. I would say only 40% of the crowd in Vacoas came to listen to the orators. The rest was only there for the beer and other enjoyments. Like I say this is my personal observation I have made.
It would seem that my 3 other colleagues have been looking in the same direction like me and hopefully will come to the same consensus in their reports.
