Psst! Pass the word along in Algeria…and in French
In the past week, I received a couple of emails from regular visitors to my website asking why some of my articles are being posted in German as well as in the English original texts. Allow me to explain what my daily read-out of visitor statistics tells me: whatever one may say about bilingualism or the linguistic talents of well educated folks, nonetheless people are most drawn to literature in their native language and tend to ignore everything else.
With few exceptions, each day the top ranking countries in terms of views of my posts are all English-speaking countries. All the other countries weigh in with less than a tenth of the numbers of the five or six at the top. That is why on any given day a tiny country like New Zealand may have more readers of my texts than Germany or France. The exceptional cases of a country like Germany or Italy moving to the top of the list come when one portal or another from these countries has re-posted my article in their own language.
For these reasons, when a reader in Germany came forward and volunteered to translate my articles into German as his personal contribution to countering the self-censorship and absolute conformism of German media, I was quick to accept his kind offer. The results are as one might expect: my German readership is growing multifold. My German texts are now picked up by major German news digest portals including Nachdenkseiten and Net News Express, which themselves have subscriber rolls of 200,000 or more. Given the weight of Germany in European politics, disseminating news that runs counter to the propagandistic mainstream is potentially important.
For all these same reasons, when the Algerian journalist Mohsen Abdelmoumen approached me three days ago to do an interview with him about the war in Ukraine and present-day European politics which would be published in French as well as in English I was quick to agree. The results are as follows:
Gilbert Doctorow: “The West is run by corrupt cowards!” - Algérie Résistance II
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The title Abdelmoumen has given to our interview aims to catch attention, which is all to the good. The contents are more nuanced and reflective. I hasten to add that Mr. Abdelmounen did not change a word of my responses even when I challenged the assumptions of several of his questions. Now that is a level of professionalism you will not often find in mainstream, which is run by the rule “all the news that fits” their editorial policy lines.
Following on publication of the interview, I was yesterday invited to participate in the “Crisis” news analysis program of the El Hayat TV in Algeria which was broadcast in the early evening prime time.
Hopefully both the print and televised interviews will also be picked up in continental France as well as in Algeria. But the broader point is that news about the Ukraine war from the ‘alternative newsmakers,’ myself included, must be spread around the world in as many languages as possible by local portals and broadcasters. As I have written, the ongoing escalation in this war is headed to a nuclear Armageddon in which not only Russia and the United States will be burned to ashes, but most of humanity will be taken along for the brief ride to extinction. It is high time for large, populous countries like Algeria, Iran, China and India to weigh in and tell both sides that the Russia-NATO war is the business of the whole world and that the sides must be brought to a negotiating table so that a modus vivendi can be established, preferably along the lines suggested by Russia back in December 2021, namely creation of a new international security architecture that is all inclusive.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2022