31 Jan. - 6 Feb. 2002
Issue No.571
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 31 Jan. - 6 Feb. 2002 Issue No.571 |
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Walk like a terrorist
It is hard to pinpoint the exact time when the realisation that the US government was not averse to lying to the public, nationally and internationally, dawned on the recipients of its neatly packaged information. Maybe it started with Vietnam, maybe with the Nixon tapes; for a long time now, those who want the truth almost automatically check the news against other sources.
Creative reporting has never been as obvious as in the months since 11 September, however. There have been so many abuses of the truth that it is difficult to begin a list. At random, I can mention the scandal of the victim compensation fund, drowned in verbose interviews; the real cause of the Afghan war, whose focus quietly changed in the course of action; the numbers of dead civilians, including women and children; the inaccuracy of hi-tech bombing, which indiscriminately hit hospitals and villages; the treatment of Taliban prisoners, whose status seems to change by the day; the lies disseminated about Iraq and used as trial balloons to prepare a gullible public for the next US target; the destabilisation of Pakistan; the Enron debacle, including its role in the election of George W; the racial profiling of Arabs in America; and last but certainly not least, the situation in Palestine. I am pretty sure Donald Rumsfeld has undergone a couple of hasty nose jobs since being designated as spokesperson for the Bush administration's confabulations.
When the American propaganda apparatus is not busy lying, it is indulging in demonising those who are perceived as the US's enemies, namely Arabs and Muslims at this particular point in time. Pictures of mad mullahs are flashed on television screens simultaneously with, or immediately following, the call to prayer. Arab guests on radio and TV are chosen for their lack of proficiency in the English language and their ignorance of the topic at hand. Muslim women invariably appear covered in expanses of fabric without any mention of those who pursue normal active lives, dressed exactly like their Western sisters. Several computer games involving good guys and bad guys feature Arabs, who consistently play the part of the evildoers. I have yet to see a human-looking Muslim projected on a Western screen while engaging in a commendable act. Selectively negative representation of a country, its people and its religion is one very insidious form of biased reporting.
We have become completely immune to all these malicious tricks, however, and nothing surprises us anymore -- or so I thought until last week. I finally had cause to be shocked. Getting ready for work, I turned on CNN to see if anything momentous had happened. Since I have little time for newspapers, it has become part of my routine to check several TV stations before I arrive at the paper. I want, as the overused slogan has it, to be "the first to know." Yehud Barak was explaining why he approved Sharon's move to put Yasser Arafat under house arrest to discredit him with his people. "Don't hold your breath," I told him silently, "that is one thing you will never be able to do." But then I heard him lisp: "Yassegh Aghafat looks like a teghoghist, dghesses like a teghoghist, walks like a teghoghist: theghefoghe he is a teghoghist."
I was stunned: how had CNN allowed him to finish the sentence? I have known the network to be more capricious with the truth when it is unfavourable to American interests. What kind of reaction could this comment possibly elicit in Palestine and the Arab world? This was the lowest form of provocation. How dare he? Has any Arab come on the air to tell the world that, to us, Barak looks like Piglet, talks like Piglet, walks like Piglet and therefore must not be Barak at all but fat little Piglet? What can Arafat and his people do besides becoming "teghoghists," as he delights in calling them? They have neither a powerful protector prepared to lie through his teeth to hide their unspeakable deeds, nor the advantage of the latest American technology to indulge in surgical assassinations that invariably butcher almost everyone but their target. If Israelis were not occupying their country, they would have had no reason to terrorise anyone.
Barak, Sharon and their colleagues keep saying that Arafat and Bin Laden are one and the same. They are wrong. Bin Laden is waging a war based on his own particular ideology; Arafat is fighting to free his country from a very factual occupation. Big difference. Bin Laden will probably be defeated and quickly forgotten, despite his momentary popular appeal; the Palestinians will survive, regardless of Israeli brutality. And while we are on the subject, I think Barak and his cronies should stop lying. No one, and certainly not he or the Clinton administration, ever offered Arafat an honest deal that would have allowed his people to live in security and dignity. The Israelis and their friends wanted to pressure him into accepting a Bantustan with complete economic dependence on Israel and an apartheid system to boot, in exchange for their own precious security. Now they are miffed because they did not manage to ram the arrangement down his throat.
Besides, if Israeli security is so paramount, what was Sharon doing in Al-Aqsa mosque with his thugs? He wanted a reason to derail any peace talks in the making? Well, he must be pleased now, although there is no telling where it will finally lead him. Israel would do well to remember that Arabs have a long memory, and worry seriously about the seeds of hatred it is sowing so generously. It may be the only harvest the Israelis ever reap.
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