Monday 26 May 2014

Je Suis un Confrère (du 'royaume voisin du nord')!


A whole new view on things, as somebody whose concept of Europe is something that I basically go "east" and "west" across a lot, I must admit it never struck me that the UK was "to the north". That makes  sense in the discussion as the North is the region of myth and foggy fact. Now all is clear about the lady journalist, from the excellent blog "Agir contre le pillage du patrimoine archéologique 2" [http://www.agir-contre-le-pillage.org/] by Jean-David Desforges, Président de Halte au Pillage du Patrimoine Archéologique et Historique:
Un gros dossier est en préparation pour un journal français des plus connus. Les détecto-pilleurs interviewés ont évidemment pleuré après leur situation, tout en regardant d'un regard larmoyant vers le royaume voisin du nord. Leurs arguments m'ont été soumis mais il m'a semblé que la personne la plus à même de répondre à ces contre-vérités était mon confrère Paul Barford. Chose faite !
This is HAPPAH in full flow, why is it number two?
Ce blog rassemble articles de presse, informations, prises de position et réflexion contre le pillage du patrimoine archéologique, sa toxicité pour la recherche et la connaissance du patrimoine par tous. Il succède à une première version piratée le 20 mai 2014 par un groupuscule fasciste de détectoristes convaincu de pouvoir étouffer la liberté d'expression de l'auteur, l'archéologue J.-D. Desforges.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. It's the same everywhere, disruption of debate by detectorists in denial. But jobsworth British archaeologists have saved their partners (fascists, UKIP, BNP or not) the trouble, they never even made the effort to get anything like this up. Never. They are all quite content to sit back and watch from the sidelines, fingers crossed that no detectorist says 'boo!' to them, or slap the pillagers on the back and say "you done well mate!" when some more geegaws are pulled out of the next unknown archaeological context.  It's pretty symptomatic that when our French colleagues wanted somebody to give a proper low-down on the bonkers situation in Britain, they have to go to Poland to find somebody actually willing and able to talk about it.

Vignette: Faceless metal detectorist in France

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good evening.
Mr Desforges wants to be considered as a victim, but he is guilty: his first blog has not been hacked but removed by the french host site Overblog after a founded complaint submitted by "Action Centurion", a french prospector group. The main reason is that Mr Desforges published offensant and defamatory posts, comparing their logo with nazi posters, just as he does on his new blog.
http://www.agir-contre-le-pillage.org/2014/05/actions-casquees-2.html

Once his blog was removed and the adress available, "Action Centurion" decided to keep the same. There was no hacking. Mr Desforges deserved to loose his blog for he acted dishonestly. When Mr Desforges qualifies "A.C" as a "fascist" organisation it is only a strategy to victimise himself and also a way to bring this group into disrepute.
Best regards,
F.D
Action Centurion


OUR blog:
http://agir-contre-le-pillage.over-blog.com/

Paul Barford said...

Another unsigned comment. M. "F.D." you obviously have much more effective anti-defamation legislation in France than many other places, there are a number of much more defamatory texts about me posted online by UK and US metal detectorists that the web providers, annoyingly, will not take down.

The post about your logo... Well, what can I say? I do not see the connection myself. The argument looks a bit silly I must say. I consider that in demanding a whole blog is taken down because of this one post (or this sort of thing) you show the same oversensitivity (therefore insecurities) as your UK counterparts.

I'd be very interested to hear more about the politics of your members. In Britain, there is a very clear emphasis on the forums on nationalist themes, and occasionally some open xenophobism. I was wondering what brought Mr Desforges to his assessment of your group?

Anyway, thank you for explaining the background to the new forum and providing a link to your own.

Anonymous said...

Good evening Mr Barford,
Thank you for your intellectual honesty.
the reason why I didn't sign my message is simple: Action Centurion is an entity, not a person. Revealing my name does not change the essence of our words.
Regarding the policies and laws about defamation in France, they protect quite efficiently citizens from abuses and confusion between freedom of speech and denigration. We disapprove these behaviours (from both sides). We are for a sane confrontation based upon a diversity of different ideas.
We are not responsable for the total removal of his blog: we complained only about incriminated pages, not the globality. Overblog gave a heavy-handed answer to our grievances.
We know precisely why Mr Desforges is using this unfair mean against us. Two years ago an online petition against was created by supposed prospectors, an he thinks that we are involved (of course we are not at all). Mr Desforges is proud as a peacock and reacts a very "epidermic" way when it's about his ego.
The fifteen members of our group come from different social backgrounds, and none of them approves or believe in racist, xenophobic, full of hatred and disgusting theories. We have nothing in common with people who would go that way.
We are proud of that.

Best regards
F.D
for Action centurion

Here's the link of our Facebook page so you could make your own opinion:
https://www.facebook.com/ActionCenturion?fref=ts

Paul Barford said...

Hi F.D.
Thanks for noting that I did not simply bin your comment, British detectorists falsely accuse me of doing that all the time.

In general, I do not like these initials, screen names and so on. I write under my own name, and I feel if anyone has anything they feel worth saying they should be willing to put their name under it, and furthermore we can put that together with things the same person has written elsewhere. All these multiple identities just fragments the picture and puts each comment out on its own without any kind of meaningful context. But I see your point.

Obviously anyone who puts their thoughts online for all to see and criticise, like me, you, or your opponents, has to have some kind of an inflated ego. Shrinking violets do not run blogs or webpages (at least not ones that express an opinion).

Anonymous said...

thank you for giving us your point of vue and the way you respect one another opinion.
That's the way it should be from both sides and everywhere, with loyality, respect and consideration.
Not easy to build a bridge without these basis.
Sincerely yours
Franck D.
for Action Centurion

Paul Barford said...

"Merci", that's a word which seems not to exist in the vocabulary of the person claiming to be a French Journalist who wrote out of the blue (on a gmail address) with a whole load of questions about metal detecting, and then when I spent quite a bit of time answering them for her, three days later still has not even bothered to reply.

Anonymous said...

Maybe she was not a journalist, but a mercenary of some so-called heritage-protector association(£). We could share about that question but A.C don't want to.
The emergency is somewhere else: looting/sales/lack of publishing.
All the best.
A.C

Paul Barford said...

That's Howlandish and Tomparian

Paul Barford said...

If she was a fake, it would not be the first time metal detectorists have posed as somebody else to cause mischief and waste time.

 
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